Tammy's entry from yesterday is pretty damn good in a gross and amusing sort of way. Plus, it's got me wanting to deworm myself. I think.
Nemo has become too affectionate.
He's not a kitten any more; he's a cat. He likes to sleep with us, usually by our feet, but sometimes on the mountains we create while we sleep on our sides.
Over the past couple of days, he's decided that it's more fun to sleep near our heads. More than that, it's more fun to sleep near our heads if dad is awake. So, here's what he does:
- He purrs.
- He sticks his cold, wet nose into my ear.
- Then he licks my ear, as if he were cleaning me. (What? Is my ear dirty?)
- After I've sleepily brushed him away, he comes around to my face. There he licks my chin whiskers and — ugh — sometimes even my lips. (At least he doesn't have Toto's terrible cat food breath.)
- After I've pushed him away a couple of times, he returns and gives me "family greeting" to my face. (A cat will give "family greeting" to those it has bonded with; this is done by rubbing against the family member with the top of the forehead. Fact.)
- Start over from the beginning.
Three cats is double the work of two.
Jenn made an interesting observation about our Ayn Rand discussion the other day (and about Rand's beliefs in general): her moral philosophy doesn't work — in a literal sense — when children enter the picture.
Rand's central tenet is:
Man — every man — is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others; he must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself; he must work for his rational self-interest, with the achievement of his own happiness as the highest moral purpose of his life.
Jenn's argues that this is ludicrous when applied to parenting. A mother's first interest is not herself, but her children's welfare. She sacrifices herself for her children. This philosophy is something for people without children. (A google search on "Ayn Rand's son" returns only two matches, and those aren't actually about a song. "Ayn Rand's daughter" returns no matches.)
Though this conversation occurred at Monday Night Football, it illustrates why I love our book group discussions. I can read a book and get certain points from it, and another person can read it and get something else. It would never have occurred to me that Rand's philosophy of "rational self interest" ran counter to child-rearing, but once Jenn pointed it out, it was perfectly clear. This is another reason that it's nice not to have a homogenous book group, to have members from different backgrounds. There are a lot of women-only book groups out there; I've always felt that these groups limit their discussion through their uniformity.
I have probably twenty rolls of film, but I haven't made a single photograph since October. The cost of processing looms large. Still, I might get out and make some photos soon. But of what? It's cold and grey and rainy. Maybe that will force me to stretch my creativity.
Overheard yesterday (name and context changed to protect the guilty party): "George's and I's party is this weekend."
I's
Good grief.
There is never a circumstance in which I's is correct.
After months of busy-ness, box orders have fallen off. Must be time to goof around at work.
On this day at foldedspace.org
2004 — Stupid Thing I have done many, many stupid things in my life. I am a stupid man. But by far the number one stupidest thing I have ever done is this...
2002 — The Orchid Thief We both agree the book is rambling and pointless, without much of a story. It meanders from here to there and back to here again. Here is where we differ: Kris hates the book, I think that it is brilliant.
As for the worms: while the 80% is certainly probably accurate; the majority of those 80% live in countries where you wouldn't be surprised to find people with worms (ie: India).
As for photographs: did you never learn in your photography classes that overcast weather is better than sunshine for photographing?
As for the grammar: I'nt never heard such bad grammar in Ine life.