dreamattack | a dialogue in pictures

I can’t even begin to nail down all the ba-zillion things that have been pinging around in my head the past couple of weeks. I know it seems I’ve completely abandoned my blog - keeping my mind to myself, lately. There’s just so much going on, and only so much I can express.

I’m stuck at work, working a rare 11-8 shift at the library. I’ve been sitting up at the information desk for an hour & a half, while my ass sloooowly falls asleep and my legs start to ache. It’s like a graveyard in here. All the kiddos are on spring break - which is also the reason I’m working tonight. One of my joys as assistant department head, besides finally giving up the horror of working EVERY Saturday, has been being forced to give up my late Tues. evening shift.

As a Buffy fanatic, I HATED working Tuesday nights. It was so hard to resist reading recaps when I knew that EVERYONE else was watching a new episode - you bastards! So I have the past couple of months of Tuesday nights off, and of course, the one night I’m needed to work just happens to be the night of the first new episode in like, forever!

Grrrrr. Arggghhh.

So, I read the recap - damn those tempting pages.

I actually wanted to write about how Michael Moore is my new hero.

Finally went to see Bowling for Columbine on Sunday. None of the mainstream theaters here in this crappy redneck town carried it, so I had to wait until our anemic artsy-fartsy theater managed to snag it. I willingly subjected my ass to the worst movie seats and screens in town, and rubbery bland popcorn (which I lied about) in order to see the movie. I walked out in a daze of horror. I knew things were bad - and I believe all the conspiracy theories - but I’d never had it laid out so concisely.

Then, Sunday night, I caved and watched some of the oscars - and managed to see Michael Moore win the oscar for best documentary film. As I said a few words back — Michael Moore is one of my new heroes. And the stupid fuckers who went from a standing ovation for free thought and free-r speech - spinning on a dime to boo him - Fuck you, Hollywood. Fuck you.

I almost stole a kitten today. I was out scraping half a foot of snow off my car today, when a 6-8 month old tabby boychild cat, much like the saucy kitty in the above photo, came wandering by, obviously a bit scared, definitely freaked out by the freezing cold slippery stuff all over everything. I coaxed him over and he was happy to be picked up and cuddled. He had a bubbly exuberant personality, but was shivering from the cold, so I took him into the foyer of the apartment and gave him some food & water. He wasn’t too interested, so it was obvious that he lived with people somewhere nearby. I fell in love anyway - and quickly. I pulled out the feather wand and entertained him (& myself) while B. checked with the neighbors about where this little man might live. By the time B. returned, I was ready to smuggle little Shiva (I’d already named him in my head) into the apartment. B. was actually close to agreeing with me - Shiva’s charisma was beginning to infect him, too.

Unfortunately, Shiva lived two houses down, in a dirty house full of raggamuffin punky wanna-be garage-banders. I have nothing against them - I used to be one - but it drives me up the wall when people let their cats run free in a neighborhood bordered by busy streets and roving bands of bored & wealthy teenage boys. Then there was the fact that Shiva was still … um … intact. One boy cat running free whilst in possession of two descended testicles can produce a lot of homeless kittens. In my clearly subjective mind, this indicated definite ignorance, if not full-blown neglect.

But … I had to be good - B. made me. I played a little more with magnetic little Shiva, watching him flip and jump and chirp and chatter for the birdy-on-a-stick I fluttered around his head. Then I resigned myself to the inevitable and gathered the kitten up and trudged down to his house.

There were a few dirty wild children playing outside in the snow - this was the 2nd day school was out on snow days - and asked them if the kitten belonged to them. “WHISKERS!!!” they crowed. WHISKERS??? What a wretchedly undignified name for such a princely little boy-cat. “He lives here with so-and-so … ” an unkempt but precocious 7ish-year-old girl gathered him from my arms, letting his back legs dangle and kick uncomfortably. He looked back at me, giving me the plaintiff look of one man walking the gauntlet back to his cell. The little girl sprinted over to one of the dirty windows of the dirty house and began banging on it, attempting to rouse the owners. I had to just turn and leave, desperately trying to resist the urge to holler “PSYCHE!”, run & liberate Shiva from the awkward child and make our getaway. I pussed out.

When I got home, I told B. that the next time I saw Shiva out wandering around looking lost & scared, that he was mine. I couldn’t promise that I’d behave so well in the future. Sudden bursts of unexpected love make you do crazy things.

It’s like the freaky psychosis that some women experience when they are desperate to have a child, but can’t. Sometimes stealing one is the only way they can see to fulfill their twisted need. “MY baby, now!”

Several months ago, I came to the relieving agreement that I will never have children, but instead pour my nurturing feelings out on a veritable zoo. My baby fever only extends to baby critters. I was afraid that my biology might try to override my resolution, but the wild screaming children running around me at lunch Saturday proved to me that I was still in the childfree zone. **whew** (I was either going to stab one of those little monsters in the top of the head with my fork, or I was going to stab myself in the face, to distract myself with a more manageable kind of pain!)

I want a baby furry thing!!! I’ve been spending hours perusing ferret rescue web pages and the humane society photo albums, looking for baby love. I want fish, rats, ferrets, more cats, a pot belly pig, ducks, a sheep, maybe even goats. I also would love to live out in the middle of nowhere, so my zoo can have enough space.