2/22/11 Barbaric Meo-awp

The cat screams for a half-hour, starting around 5:30, and waking me up from a rather disturbing dream that involved scary noises (a long time nightmare maker for me) and Battlestar Galactica.

She then quiets down and settles in, and I fall back asleep. I wake at 7:00 (my now usual time after changing my sleep schedule to better hang out with Katie, since she's more of a night person) and do my morning ablutions.

Lying in the kitchen, almost dead, legs slowly kicking, first one then another in dying regularity, is a fairly giant roach, which presumably the cat almost killed and over which I'm guessing she stood earlier to give her triumphant, house-waking screech.

2/16/11 bathroom humor

I come back from the bathroom after a particularly difficult session. I'm shaking a little, a little nauseated, chills.

"Well, that sucked," I say, attempting to be discreet.

She looks at me in horror.

"Why would you *tell* me that?" she yells.

2/14/11 no good reason

wake up, the alarm sounds like church bells, with none of the gravitas.

I woke up 2 hours before, so this is what a full night's sleep feels like.

Emotionally fraught for no good goddamn reason, except maybe too much wine last night.

My beautiful wife sleeps next to me and immediately takes over the bed as soon as I leave.

2/4/11 The smell test

Lying in bed after a long day, she buries her face in my chest and inhales deeply, then sits up with a suspicious look on her face.

"You don't smell like you," she says studying my face, leans in, sniffs my neck, my armpit, then sits back again, with a comical look of disappointment on her face.

When she comes back from long trips, or if I've been away for a few days, this happens, and admittedly, we have been ships passing in the night, with her working doubles and me rehearsing.

But I think it might be something else: "Well, I did eat a lot of garlic tonight...."

2/3/11 what goes around comes around

Kid, wearing headphones, bumps me pretty hard as the crowd surges forward in the tunnel between the trains. There's plenty of room around me, but he keeps on trucking, eyes forward, no expression.

I don't break stride, and I don't stretch; I just keep my exact same pace and see where exactly my foot fits right in front of his next step, and sure enough he trips over my foot, not enough to fall, just enough to put a hitch in his getalong.

After the glow of triumph fades and I'm waiting on the subway platform for my train to arrive (after studiously avoiding getting in at the same door as my victim) I feel a twinge of regret, because, after all, how can I expect kindness and forgiveness from others if I can't give it myself?

1/20/11 The prisoner

Living with an old cat is very much what I imagine living with an old woman in the house would be like. She is picky, irritable, constantly uncomfortable, and very vocal in expressing her displeasure.

This morning's infraction involved a large plastic cup from which she drinks by sticking her head in almost past the ears (Katie says it's because the sides of the cup "tickle the cat's whiskers" which seems as plausible as any other explanation). It was empty, never mind that there was a perfectly functional (and full) water dish in the kitchen, no, THIS was her water receptacle of choice, and by God she would wake up the entire building at five in the morning if she had to until someone filled the goddamned cup full of water, NOW dammit NOW!

1/14/11 Things we say in the dark

She's a little cold, less snuggly than usual, but it takes her longer to recover from fights than I do. We lay in the dark and chat, about the day, things we read, the cat.

It's not healed, not completely, but it's less sore, less raw.

I turn on my side, she scoots herself into place behind me, her arm draped over my side, and I slide into sleep almost immediately.