Kitten!
I’ll be applying for jobs and writing about demon attacks tonight and for the foreseeable future. In the meantime, here are some picures of a particularly cute kitten:
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Jinx!
Allow me to introduce the newest member of my family, Jinx!
She was originally named ‘Squeaker’ by the vet, and was adopted by some mean old lady who re-named her ‘Greta’. But the mean old lady returned baby Greta after 2 days, because her 18 year old cat didn’t like her.
The animal hospital gave me a call since I had asked about her earlier, and we adopted her on Friday, May 13. Since it was Friday the 13th and we were adopting a black cat, Jinx seemed the obvious name for her. We considered ‘Lucky’, but the vet said that every cat she’s ever known named lucky has been just the opposite. Here’s hoping the reverse is true, as well.
This doesn’t mean we miss Quiver any less, but life must go on…
Damn My Propriety!
Sometimes I wish I was more of an eavesdropper.
Case in point: The other day I get on the subway, heading out to meet a friend for dinner. I have my iPod on, as usual. My hatred of crowds and public transport has made the iPod and reading material an absolute necessity when commuting or going anywhere in the city. At least a part of me gets to pretend I am alone, even when elbow to elbow with 100 people.
So it’s evening, and the subway is pretty empty. The end of the car I get on has only 3 people on it. One half-asleep Indian guy who absolutely REEKS of B.O. and curry, and two very attractive, but somewhat sleazy blondes in their late 20’s. They have pretty faces and ample curves shown off by tight clothes, but they both have too much makeup on, and I can smell their perfume from 10 feet away. Neither one was a real blonde. Still, if they walked down the street, you would see a long line of turned heads as they went by. I passingly wonder what they are doing on the subway. Girls like that usually have men to drive them around, or take car services. I also passingly wonder if they will think I smell because of the stinky Indian guy.
Amazing what occurs to you in the presence of attractive women.
Anyway, I sit down, pull out a comic, and start to read. Between the music and the book, I am instantly transported to my safe place, and tune out the train, the stink, and the ladies. But then my stop approaches, and I put my comic away. I’m still not paying attention, though, until there is a pause between songs on my iPod, and I catch a wisp of conversation:
“…sometimes, the guy will want to pay you with a credit card, but don’t you let him. You take him to a cash machine and make sure he gets cash. Always demand the money up front…”
It suddenly occurs to me that these girls are prostitutes, and the seasoned one is instructing a newbie. My head whips around (not too smooth, I admit), and the more experienced one makes immediate eye contact. Her expression is neutral. Neither “What’re you looking at?” nor “Hey sailor, new in town?” She’s waiting for me to make the next move.
I realize I have to either proposition them or get the heck off the train. Luckily, my stop come up at that moment and the doors swing open. Saved by the bell.
Still, I wish I had been listening in on that whole conversation.
I bet it was fuckin’ great.
I’m Not Superstitious
I just had an interesting debate with myself.
I was walking down 29th street between 5th & 6th on my way to work. 29th has a lot of tiny little junk shops on that block. Barely more than kiosks, these 6 x 10 little stores carry all sorts of knick-knacks and chotchkes, from cheap clothing to generic toys, electronics, and forged perfumes.
It’s a beautiful day today. The morning was mild and clear with a freshness to the air thanks to last night’s rain, and the kind of unseasonable warmth that makes you really appreciative, even if it’s still only 45 degrees. I had my iPod on, of course. It’s my best friend as I traverse NYC, blocking out all the honking and panhandling and sirens, giving me a controlled auditory input that helps keep me centered.
So there I am, centered, calm, and in a good mood for once, when I encounter… a ladder.
A bit anticlimactic, I know.
Anyway, there’s this long metal ladder leaning against one of the buildings in front of me. Some guy is up on it, cleaning the awning of his shop. The feet of the ladder are exactly halfway out onto the sidewalk, so there is equal space on either side. I’m a good half a block away.
So I say to myself, “Ha! If I was superstitious, I would be afraid to walk under that ladder.”
Then I think, “I should walk right under that ladder, just to show how superstitious I am not.”
But show to who? I am alone. Am I worried that random passerby will snort in derision if I avoid walking under the ladder? Or that they will be impressed with how evolved I am if I dare to pass under?
“All things being equal,” I say to myself, “it doesn’t matter which side I walk on. So I should just follow my normal course.”
But of course, I am walking in the center of the sidewalk, so my normal course would be to walk right into the ladder, which, superstition or not, would be a bad idea, especially with someone on it.
So what do I do? I am amazed at the sudden importance this decision has to me. Bad luck is the farthest thing from my mind, and yet I suddenly feel like I am being tested somehow, and it’s a trick question.
Then I think, “But all things aren’t equal after all. There is someone actually on the ladder. Someone holding tools. Is not wanting to walk under it a result of superstition or just common sense? Should I do something my gut tells me is dumb just because I feel like I have to prove something to the ether? Nonsense.”
So I walked around it.
But I’m not superstitious.
The Good Guys Don’t Always Win
I’d like to relate a conversation I had with a 4 year old girl on the subway yesterday morning. I was sitting down, and this girl and her mother and father were standing in front of me, holding onto the pole. Normally, I would have gotten up and given my seat to the kid, but sometimes in the mornings I am tired and grumpy and ignore the voice in my head telling me to do the right thing.
Anyway, I had decided to take a break from ‘real’ books (i.e. fantasy novels) and read comics for a couple of weeks, so I was reading the latest issue of She-Hulk (which is amazingly well-written by Dan Slott).
This little girl, who couldn’t have been more than 4, was all wrapped up warmly on her cute winter coat and knit cap, with gloves and little booties. She had blonde hair peeking out of her cap and red cheeks from the cold. If she’d been holding a kitten, I swear she might have been the cutest thing I ever saw.
(Side note, as my wife points out, I hope I never have a daughter, because I will likely be wrapped around her little finger as soon as she can talk.)
So the girl’s mother (who is kind of hot, in a European sort of way, with her beret and knotted scarf) is nattering on in French to her husband, whose back is to me. They’re not ignoring their daughter, exactly, but neither are they paying attention to her, and she is bored.
The girl sees that I am reading comics, and starts turning her head to get a look (it’s upside down to her). I notice this, and turn the book 90 degrees so she can see better.
“That’s cool,” she says, pointing to an ad for a Spider-man water pick.
I pull off my earphones (my sole defense against the press of New York which threatens to consume me every day), and look up at her smiling face. I always have trouble talking to kids. I hate it when people don’t respect kids’ intelligence, and raise their voices two octaves and act like they’re a retard on ecstacy when speaking to children, but I also am cognizant that you can’t talk to kids exactly like you would to an adult, either.
“Uh, yeah,” I said lamely, “You’d never get cavities if you used that.”
“No,” she says, pointing again at the picture, specifically to the jet of water coming out of the pick, “it’s cool because it shoots like a web.”
It’s then I realize that she is wearing Spider-man wool gloves.
Now THIS is a kid I can talk to, I think.
We proceed to discuss the ads in the book from then on. She doesn’t know She-hulk from any movies, so poor Shulkie might as well not exist, but she is happy to discuss the Incredibles, saying “I liked when the baby turned into a lizard and went bluh bluh-blah! and scared the bad guy.”
We also saw an ad for a Doctor Octopus statue (she agreed with me that Doc Ock is fat), and she told me she loves the X-men. I showed her a picture of Spider-Woman, and she said “That can’t be Spider-Woman, her webs look like zippers!” 4 years old, and an art critic! Amazing!
Then she asks me, “Why is Doctor Octopus always so mean to Spider-man?”
“Because Spider-man gets in his way,” I told her.
“But why does he want to kill him?” she asked.
“Because Doctor Octopus likes to rob banks,” I said, “and Spider-man won’t let him. If he gets Spider-man out of the way (I deliberately avoided use of the word ‘kill’), then he can rob all the banks he wants.”
“But what if he kills Spider-man?” She asked.
“He won’t,” I said, “because Spider-man is a good guy, and the good guys always win.”
She looked at me with sad eyes, and my heart broke when she quietly said, “Sometimes they don’t.”
I looked at her in shock for a few minutes, struggling to find a response. I felt the full weight of responsibility hinging on my next words. Do I raise my voice two octaves and lie, or do I speak to her like an adult? The middle-ground wasn’t giving me any answers.
“Sometime the good guys lose because they forget to be good,” I told her at last. “Like when Spider-man lost his powers because he was selfish and stopped helping people. When the good guys remember to be good, they always win.”
It was still a lie, but it was the best I could do. Kids need hope, after all.
That voice in my head is still berating me for lying to a little girl, though.
Crap.