Things of Note

+One+

Grace and I quite handily beat Greg and Bobcia at 4 games of Sequencia, mostly, we decided, because of the Polish Diagonal Sight Disorder with which both are afflicted. This, you will have to trust me, is hilarious, and I would explain why, except that by the time I finished explaining, complete with diagrams and flow chart and game plans, it would not be amusing in the slightest.

I love this game, though. I'm not a huge board game fan, having been turned off them at an early age by a childhood friend who cheated like mad, lied about it, and then made fun of me for losing. But I find Sequence - "It's part card game, part board game!" - thoroughly enjoyable. It's enough to keep your hands busy while you're chatting, and not so difficult that you have to pay much actual attention.

Bobcia also called me a boozer all night, as in "Get a load of this boozer here!" because it took me an hour to drink my one and only beer of the evening. I found this also to be hilarious, for reasons that probably do not require flow charts.

+Two+

One of CT's pictures from his trip here in August has been chosen by Schmap for the Downtown Neighbourhood section of their Ottawa site. I'm very excited about this. I was standing right. There. Swear to god.

+Three+

Does anyone want a yowling cat? I've just about had enough.

I've heard her through the earplugs, the past two nights.

If I thought it would make it better, I'd get her one of those automatic feeders. But it would have to have multiple compartments so that she could get fed at 3 am and 5:30 am, and probably 4 pm too, so I didn't have to generally listen to an hour's worth of yowling when I got home.

And sure, I could feed her earlier, but at what point does it stop, yknow? She's on a pretty strict schedule. Between 6:30 and 8 am, 5:30 and 7 pm, and 11 pm and 12:30.

If I fed her every time she started yowling, she'd go through a case of cans in a couple days.

Basically, if you are in the house and she hasn't just been fed, she's either yowling or I'm hunched up waiting for her to yowl.

At 5:45 this morning, I took my earplugs out, wrapped myself in a robe, stomped down the stairs and shut her in the basement. Then I stomped back up again, shut my door, plugged my plugs back in and slept, solidly and deeply, for about 90 minutes.

You know what I want?

I want my pre-diabetic cat back. I want the cat who ate dry food 5 kibbles at a time, who slept with me at night and put me to sleep by purring. Right now, I do not want the wet-food eating, stink-drooling, demon-infested yowl monster that my formerly sweet natured lovely cat has become.

Not much of a salesperson, am I?

+Four+

I didn't go to the Slow Dance Party tonight because the thought of strangers touching me made me want to back slowly out of the room instead.

+Five+

I think my post yesterday came across as less hopeful than I meant it.

It's really quite a relief to have stopped looking, and all in all, I'm pretty happy about it.

I don't really think I'm going to be alone forever, not necessarily, at any rate. Hence the wry half-smile and the murmur.

Maybe I'll find someone, maybe I'll find someones. Maybe I won't find anyone.

But what's the worst that can happen? Most of the women in my family who are over 50 - all but two of them - are single, either through divorce or death. And those are just the ones who are alive. All my great aunts were either spinsters, or widowed young enough I never met their husbands.

I come from a long line of women who have ended up without a partner, though not alone, not by a long shot. They've all lived full and happy lives.

What I need to do is fight against what pop culture tries to shove down my throat as the one true way. Difficult to do, because being coupled in some form or another feels right to me in many ways. But wrong in many others.

So I'll write and I'll knit and I'll run and skate and lift weights and practice yoga. I'll play board-and-card games with my friends while drinking one beer. I'll put on short skirts and go dancing with other friends while drinking several. I'll go to California to visit hot boys. I'll travel. I'll go back to therapy. I'll laugh at good jokes, read good books, eat good food.

And happily, mostly, I'll warrant.