The chapter in which the house cats discover the hallway linen cupboard and move in

Blog Blog Blog Blog Blog!!!

It's been awhile, internet humans. Awhile, and a time full of much paper writing, spreadsheet filling, meeting attending, exercising (yes, exercising) and generally "adult" forms of productivity. There are other "adult" forms of productivity, such as baby-makin', that I did not pursue with the same vim and vigor as I did those spreadsheets, but let me tell you, those spreadsheets are fucking gorgeous.

In other news, our multitudinous cats "discovered" the linen cupboard in our, for lack of a better term, "hallway". (It's not a hallway. It's, well... it's a room that connects other rooms to each other. It is a room unto itself, but it is also a corner. It's its own room and it's own corner its own room while simultaneously being both a hallway and not a hallway. Is that possible? Does our hallway defy the very laws of physics just by existing? What are you, hallway-that-is-not-a-hallway?)
The cats looooooove this cupboard, and by love I mean they meow frantically at the cupboard door (which is at human eye level, so I guess they are actually meowing 'to' the cupboard as it is out of kitty range) until someone wanders by to open the cupboard and lift them up and put them inside, or say "Scram, cat!", or accidentally step on top of them because it is four-fucking-am-shut-the-fuck-up-cat-I-am-going-to-eat-you-for-breakfast-but-first-I-need-to-pee.

Anyway, one day, between bouts of spreadsheet-ing, two of the cats were meowing to the cupboard. I decided to give them what they wanted.

Rufus and Desi, in the cupboard in the hallway in the house in the city, chillin'.

They seemed to enjoy their newfound home, and indeed, settled right in and got comfortable in that way the only cats seem to be able to manage. There's a phrase for it; 'power-lounging.'

Here's a few more shots of the cats doing what they do best.

Still life with roll of tape.

Those are his pants now.

You've probably made the unfounded assumption that I spend a lot of my time hanging around with and taking pictures of cats. Whatever. Who are you to judge, assumer-of-things? Look at what you're doing right now! Looking at pictures of cats! Ha ha ha ha ha! Without people like me taking perhaps too many pictures of cats and posting them on the internet, what would people like you do? Have stimulating social lives away from the screen, sans cat pictures?!? Pursue meaningful interests and make the world a better place?!?

Probably. But that's not the way things are.

This is the way things are:

Death by Gate.

It's a seriously dangerous world out there, and you're really better off just staying inside, on your couch, curled up the in fetal position, looking at pictures of other people's cats on the internet. It's too dangerous outside. You might die. I'm glad you're here instead.

Spread that (Excel) sheet open wide and let me (Access) it

Ooooooh, God! Databases! Give it to the database! Give it!



That is all.
Clearly, I have been hip deep in databases. Entering and entering. Again, and again, and again!
Soon I'll get to crawl away, exhausted, hurting, bloodied, yet triumphant.
The database will be thoroughly impregnated with information when I'm done with it.
Yeah...

Insufficient Bloggi-ness, Isolationism, and Other Things Left Unsaid

First off, allow me to apologize for my lack of blogging stamina through March. Between school, interning and honing my social aptitude to a razor sharp edge, an edge liberally whetted with the Booze of Courage before being scraped against the Stone of Social Judgment, I.... I'm almost afraid to say it... allowed my blog to slip by the wayside. I am Soooooo Sorry.

Now that's settled, let's move on to the important stuff.

...er...

Well, what's happened in the greater world lately? A great deal of the usual frightening bullshit, stirred up with some unusual frightening bullshit.

The usual:
- Bad Things in Other Countries. There's always a lot of this. If you happen to not live in one of these Other Countries, though, it's pretty easy to ignore, change the channel, flip the page, and forget all about. And why wouldn't it be? You see, there are a lot of people to be worried about in the world. If the un-cited statistics getting flung about on facebook are anywhere close to accurate, approximately 50% of the world population is malnourished. That means that roughly 3.5 billion people don't have enough nutrient rich food to eat, while many of the other 3.5 billion have too much to eat. That's not okay; that's Bad. It's also repeated all the time, like a mantra, over and over again, and just like a mantra, it starts to lose its meaning and impact after the 10,000th hearing. It gets downgraded from Crisis to Accepted Fact of Life. It certainly doesn't help that it is so very easy to disassociate ourselves from humans in remote places. Distance does not make the heart grow fonder, at least not for strangers in strange lands.
-Bad Things in Our Country. A little tougher to ignore, but tornadoes touching down in Alabama and wasting whole cities generally don't touch down in Oregon. Alabama is over 2000 miles away. Alabama is about 500 miles further away than Mexico. For a little perspective, if you were to drive from Helsinki, Finland, to Athens, Greece, you'd end up covering roughly the same distance. You would also drive through Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia, and Bulgaria on your way to Athens, stopping only to get abducted by international terrorists and traded to an American Embassy for your weight in fish. That's a buffer zone of eight whole countries. Eight whole countries, with their own governments, cultures, languages, foods, average skin tones, etc. The fact that the United States is really big does in part explain our tendency toward isolationism; that isolationism factors in between states, though, not just between us and Finland. It's just as easy for Alabama to say "Fuck Oregon" as it is for them to say "Fuck Mexico" and "Fuck Finland, those fuckers." And they're probably saying it right now. You know how they are.
But wait; that's just it. You don't know how they are, because Alabama may as well be located on the dark side of the moon as far as Oregon is concerned.

Here is a picture of some friendly Alabamans. You can see how exotically weird and different they are.

Anyway, when bad things happen in Alabama, we only feel it here because of the media. Some of us may also have Alabama relatives, but not many. Alabama is whole worlds away.

And what about the unusual frightening bullshit?

Well, folks, this is the stuff that actually directly affects us. Say, creepy new government legislation. When it comes to legislation, Alabama isn't as far away from Oregon as Finland is from Greece. It may as well be right next door. States are not individual and independent countries, however much some of them would like to be. We are interactive and interdependent. The kind of crap being played out in Texas (for instance, the total defunding of Planned Parenthood) can, actually, play out here as well. All the progressive chatter happening in Portland doesn't extend beyond the city limits. Progressivism, like a tenacious fungus, does continue to thrive in moist places like Eugene, but can't seem to handle the dry air of central and eastern Oregon. And that is really, really, really, too bad. Portland and Eugene may be perfectly happy circle jerking each other (sustainably, of course) and scoffing at all the rural Neanderthals, but without a little more urban-rural interface, that's all it will ever be. It's nice that Portland has roof gardens; why doesn't Pendleton have roof gardens? The quick answer; because all those rednecks just don't know what's good fer 'em. The honest answer; nobody has gotten off their duff and tried it yet. And hey, Pendleton might need some persuading. Ideally this persuasion would be divorced from the raging stupidity of politics and left wing vs. right wing, but so fucking what? 

Anyway... if we continue to stay holed up in our safe little liberal enclaves, our fears that "the crazies are taking over" will be realized, but only because we ourselves were too scared and too lazy to counteract the crazy in person. In Person. As in, talking to the neighbors. As in, openly questioning things we perceive to be wrong and hurtful. As in, being able and willing to accept the fact that we may not be friends with the neighbors, the neighbors might remind us daily that we're going to hell, the neighbors might be shocked and scandalized by interracial or gay marriage, the neighbors might have more guns in the house than books... but they are still our neighbors, and we still have to live with them. Alabama is next door to Oregon, after all. We can't tuck our heads in the sand on social issues. We have to *gasp* communicate with people we don't necessarily agree with. Ack!

 The Neighbors.

But that all takes work. And it's spring break. Par-tay!

A Textbook Conundrum

They're really, really heavy. My book entitled Human Resource Management in Government weighs in at about six pounds all on its lonesome. It also has whole chapters in it devoted to "designing effective performance appraisal systems", which somehow add to the weight of the book. And that was for last term.
Right now, the whole "school" thing is a little daunting.
Not that I'm complaining. Things could be worse. Have often been significantly worse. In fact, things are pretty good right now.
There is, however, a cloud of foreboding hanging over the horizon of Spring Term, and its name is Harris.
I have heard nothing, nothing, good about this person, her teaching, her treatment of students, her attitude. I have heard that, 1) She is an inconsistent grader who hands out harsh grades like candy, 2) She picks favorites, 3) Other students change their schedules to avoid taking classes with this instructor, 4) Other students change programs to avoid taking classes with this instructor, 5) She demonizes students in her classes in front of other students, 6) Students that attempt to contest the bad grades she hands out find her unwilling to talk and unavailable.
Harris also happens to be my adviser, by the way, and advised me, waaaaaay back before I started speaking to other students, to take two of her classes in one term. Next term. Spring term.
Why was this crap so much less scary down at Southern? Bah!

Cute Animals on the Internet

I loooooove animals. Furry animals, scaly animals, feathery animals, animals animals animals!
Here are some pictures of animals:

Here's some more:

And more! More animals!

And last but not least, Animal!

Aaarrgh!

Do you feel better? I sure do. Go animals!

Teenager, oh Teenager

It's freakin' February already. What is up with that?
Anyway, this morning I had coffee with my dad and a gaggle of Halfway Teenagers; a taunting of teenagers, a titillation of teenagers, a murder of teenagers, a sneering of teenagers, a pockmark of teenagers, a whining of teenagers, a short-bus of teenagers. That last part is true; the PESD speech and debate team has since time immemorial used a short bus, dubbed the "Cheese Wagon", to travel to tournaments. I remember being in those kids' shoes. Portland was The Big City. Stoplights! Neon signs! 24 hour businesses! Bars called things like 'the Rotting Peach Enclave'! People wearing makeup, not all of them women! Malls! Holy Cow, Malls! People insisting that "Gresham isn't Portland, it's Gresham. Portland is different." (No, it's not. Not really. Sorry, Portlandians and Greshamites.)
You laugh, but you were never a Halfway Teenager. Maybe you were, and you're still laughing because you remember.

Teenagers are amazing creatures:

Upon meeting a teenager, you can't help but wonder how on earth we made it this far. I mean, look at 'em. All the hormones of a twenty-something, none of the moxie. Simultaneously punky little know-it-alls and impressionable wide-eyed innocents. Pizza-faced paragons of self-interest; Skipper's mind in Barbie's body; sailors embarking on a lifelong voyage of self-discovery, punctuated by vigorous masturbation sessions.
Compound the handicap of teenhood with the sheltered lifestyle of rural Oregon, and you have the Halfway Teenager.
What comes to mind when you envision the rural Oregon teen?

This?

Come on now. Be honest. She's a nice girl, no doubt, and a fairly accurate depiction of what you'll actually find roaming the street (you read that right; street, singular) of Halfway. She's not what comes to mind, though, is she?

This is what comes to mind, isn't it?

You will also find this teenager in rural Oregon (however little you may want to find them), but they are less frequent than Carlie CutiePoo in the red stripes.

It takes all kinds, you say. No. No, it doesn't. Replace the phrase 'mud-ridin'' with any phrase of your choosing and insert it above. "Let's go cow-tippin'." "Let's go hog-chasin'." Let's go tourist-rapin'."

See? See!?!

Anyway... meeting dad and crowd whisked me back to years gone-by, years probably sweeter in memory than in actuality. People were such jerks when I was a teenager. Not me, of course. Obviously.

The world beyond Halfway was inconceivably huge and terrifying, full of excitement and opportunity, adventures and high romance. It took moving into that world to discover that it is also full of horror and hatred, full of boredom, and loneliness, and heartbreak, and cruelty. It is full of people that have lost their way, and full of those who never had one to begin with. It is full of failure, and deceit, and manipulation, and cowardice. It is full of people who want to hurt you, who see you as less than human, less than dirt, and will treat you that way every chance they get. The impulse of the sheltered Halfway Teenager upon graduating high school and being set upon the launch pad to the Outside, the impulse to hide under a blanket in their room until they turn 30, is not entirely unwise.

However, an even wiser person than the average teenager (Pema Chodron) said, “To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.”

And she's right. Some of us die the day we graduate high school, metaphorically speaking, because we give in to that impulse to, speaking metaphorically, again, lie under the covers until we turn 30. 

To the Halfway Teenager I say stick it out. Walk out into the world, and when it gets rough and rocky and the light grows dim, keep walking. When you discover that your friend is not your friend, keep walking. When you fail repeatedly to reach the mark you have worked so hard to reach, keep walking. When you get lost, keep walking. When you lose everything, lose face, lose heart, lose hope, keep walking. The worst of times are learning times, even if the lessons learned we wished we never had to know.

You, teenager, have lived a great deal of your life anticipating The Future. Try, for once, to anticipate the past that the Future You will look back on. What is the best story you can possibly see? What can you do about it now? When you are walking, keep that story in mind. The details will forever change (even the big ones), but the shape of the story and your personal priorities will clarify with time. And, keep walking.

And go wash your hair, you dirty hippy.

Dick Talk with Seth Rogen

Ye Gods Above, I despise Seth Rogen. Dick this, cock that, balls here and anuses there, and for all the Herculean attempts at forcing a single obligatory chuckle out of the popcorn overstuffed maws of his fanyboys, Seth Rogen remains permanently, painfully, unfunny. Seth Rogen is not funny, and neither are any of his dicks.

I have the urge to put a picture here. But I won't.

The Cat Post

I'll have you know right now that I'm no hoarder. I don't 'collect' animals, or much in the way of anything for that matter, because I like maneuverability (is that a word?... anyway, it is now) and a certain amount of mobility. That is slowly beginning to change. My days as the perma-guest in other people's homes are being replaced by my days as a puttering homebody in my OWN home (it may be a rental, but it's still a home, dammit!).

I blame this all on my cat, Desi.

She's clearly guilty of something. It's those penitential stripes, that's how I can tell. And see how she's lying around as though it were not only the most enjoyable use of her time, but obviously the ONLY use of her time? Like lying around is a pursuit, a honed skill even, and she is vying to become the Zen Master of Lying Around. This is virtually all she does, all the time. I stare at her a lot, seeing if I can make her nervous. Sometimes I poke her, just to make sure she's still breathing... Then again, in our house she's got some pretty stiff competition.
Anyway, the Zen Master does not motivate me to get up and git goin' so much as she motivates me to just lie back down and take a load off. Life's rough. Why not spend as much of it as you can on your back? And rolling leisurely over onto your side, changing position just often enough to ward off bed sores? Obligations? Bah! It's nap time, guys!
Anyway, world, that is my cat and this is the influence she has over my life. If you don't see me for the next 10+ years, it's because I'm hoarding animals in a warehouse down by the river. We spend glorious fat hours lolling from side to side between meals and sleeping away our cares.  Cares? What cares? It's nap time! Again!

...It's only creepy if you don't like cats...

...cute, cute, sleepy kitty cats, whose only expectation is that you feed them and pet them and love them and leave your inheritance to them, so later, when they take over the world, they have a fat little nest egg upon which to sleep between those exhausting sacrificial rituals in the name of Cheezburger. Cheezburger is an angry god...

But seriously, it is nice to have a cat. Despite society's obsession with my spinsterhood and it's correlation with cat ownership, not having a cat would be lonely, sad, and full of disappointingly sleepless nap times.

Three cheers for our furry friends! Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrzzzzzz...

Samantha Psalt's Handy Handbook, Chapter One: The Event Invitation

 Miss Psalt at Play

Chapter 1

The Perils of Invitation

Hosting a ball, are you? If that is the case, why on earth have you turned to the infamous Facebook Event Invitation? No one has told you the inevitable and miserable fate of your meticulously typed general event invitation. No one has pulled you aside to whisper the hard truth in your delicate ear. Perhaps they are afraid, and rightly so, that you will swoon into their arms then and there, overwhelmed, breathless, one hand feebly clutching the mouse as though it were the only silk-fine tether still anchoring you to this Vale of Tears we call Internet.
Poor, poor soul. You might take your Facebook Event Invitation seriously, or even consider it an acceptable substitute to sending a note by telegram or mail. Samantha Psalt is here to inform you otherwise. As a matter of fact, the Facebook Event Invitation you have poured heart, wit and soul into will go largely unanswered and ignored.

(breathless pause, allowing time for the suddenly overwhelmed to be satisfactorily revived)

I am so sorry to break it to you this way, but your continued naivete was only giving the better members of society just cause to snub their noses at you. Real events (balls, weddings, state funerals, quinceaneras, bar mitzvahs, jousting tournaments, and the French Revolution) still require one to send out individual (yes, INDIVIDUAL) invitations, by hand, phone, telegram, or email. If you invite the unwashed masses of internet people in your acquaintance to your wedding via Facebook, don't bother renting out the bottom floor of the Taj Mahal; you will comfortably fit everyone who actually attends on the porch of your rental bungalow with room to spare for the caterers. Miss Psalt certainly won't be in attendance I can tell you, not without her off-white eggshell creme tinted wedding invitation wielded in front of her like the Mace of Traditional Observance.

The Facebook Event Invitation should be reserved for those events that involve an inordinate amount of standing, walking, moving about rhythmically, the viewing of film and theater, and anything involving anyone under the age of 25. As Facebook has deigned to avoid the enforcement of rules or establishment of etiquette pertaining to... well... well, to anything having to do with Facebook, I have taken it on myself to chalk out the boundaries past which knowing citizens shall not pass.


Rules for the Sender of the Invitation:
1) Explain thoroughly what it is that you are inviting your acquaintances to do. Don't leave anyone guessing, and don't ignore questions posted to the wall.
2) Any portraiture or pictures posted to the event must please Miss Psalt. In cases where Miss Psalt is not present to judge the quality of the posted pictures, assume that at least one person on your list does not want to see you naked. Try to avoid nudity in portraiture as a general rule. Nudity in the privacy of one's own bath is up to the discretion of the potentially nude.
3) Be very careful who you choose to not invite. If you decide to conspicuously not invite someone that you may see in similar circumstances (for example, you will see your mother at Christmas but feel that her presence at the birth of your first child is unnecessary), be aware that the chances of that snub remaining secret are intolerably low. Mother will be offended, and that won't improve her very public whiskey-fueled annual Christmas family-guilting spree one iota.
4) Be even more careful who you choose to invite. On second thought, wouldn't it be nice to go to Hawaii for Christmas this year? Just the two of us? And not Mother? Yes. Yes it would.
5) You are limited to two (TWO) invitation reminders for those churlish anti-social quadrupeds who can't be bothered to respond with a simple 'Yes', 'No', or 'Maybe'. Be polite yet direct in your reminder; you don't want to scare anyone off who just hasn't kept up with their demanding social calendar and hasn't seen the invite, but do let people know that you did bother to invite them to an event and are expecting some kind of response.
6) Don't ask too much of your guests. A guest only has so many hands to carry wine bottles and extra dishes and only so much time and money. It is the duty of the host to pull the party together and dismantle it afterward, not the guest.
7) Do remember that this is Facebook. Lower your Expectations and you shan't be too terribly disappointed.


Rules for the Receiver of the Invitation:
1) Respond. Respond, respond, respond. This is your primary duty as an invitation receiver; to respond. Is it so difficult? No. It's really, truly, not difficult at all. For those who are unsure they can attend, there are three options available and no one will begrudge you a 'maybe'. Properly explained, no one can logically begrudge you a 'no' (though some will try). The Host will rejoice at your 'Yes'.
2) If you say you are definitely going, go. There is no getting out of this one. To respond in the affirmative and fail to arrive will forever mark you as something called a 'flake'. Miss Psalt isn't entirely sure what that is, but it can't be pleasant.
3) If the host requires assistance in providing food or beverages, offer to bring one thing. One thing, dish or drink, is all that is necessary. Don't outdo yourself; the host will expect it of you in the future and that is a precedent you very likely don't want to set.
4) If you have a change of plans, excuse yourself from attendance, politely, and in advance if at all possible.
5) Be aware of what kind of event you have been invited to attend. Is it formal? Informal? Clothing optional? Will your plus one be greeted with cheer or politely masked confusion? What about your plus twelve? Plan accordingly.
6) Don't "suggest". It is not your event. Keep your impertinence tucked away for family gatherings.
7) Do remember that this is Facebook. Lower your Expectations and you shan't be too terribly disappointed.

Exceptions:
Excessively large public gatherings can be summarily dismissed, as well as invitations originating from those you purposefully intend to snub.

Well. Now that we have some rules, doesn't everyone feel better? Go forth, Facebookian, and invite!

Samantha Psalt's Handy Handbook on the Subject of Social Networking Etiquette

Miss Psalt in Repose

Introduction:

Well, children. It comes to this.
Despite futile attempts on the part of that seething hotbed of burgeoning criminality known as the "public school system" to reinforce the status quo and call it "education", things have deteriorated. Etiquette is long past its glory days. Remember those days? When the wealthy were eminently deserving and the poor knew their place? When there was an unassailable fortress of proper behaviors, mannerisms, languages, inheritance and pedigree that every "it" person possessed? I remember... But alas, with misty eyes and tremulous, heaving breast, I must now forge on alone, sans fortress, into the howling black void we call "modern times".

I am not without armament, however. Girded by the knowledge of how other people ought to behave, I press on through the abyss, the Light of Societal Expectations my beacon in the blackness of "familiarity". And what, pray tell, is the blackest pit at the bottom of the blackest pit in this 9th level of hell we so airily call Social Networking?

You know what it is, and it is not Google+. Facebook, prepare to stand up and be counted among the most foul of human endeavors. Stealer of innocence, murderer of dreams, awkward-maker of previously friendly acquaintances- there is a reason we humans are not forthcoming with every piece of information about ourselves to every other person we meet (besides the undoubtedly inconvenient and time-consuming nature of doing so). Natural relationships, naturally, have boundaries erected and unspoken rules imposed, both of which are designed to preserve said relationship. And relationships, Facebook, are hard enough as it is without you mucking them up. By tearing down all those boundaries and merrily skirting all the unspoken rules, you have single-handedly laid waste to the way that people communicate. Bra-vo. Don't try to argue that your too-little, too-late attempts at boundary building make up for years of acquaintanceship destruction. Backpedaling gets you nowhere you want to be.

Yet, all is not lost. Even here, children, even here, we can begin to enforce the rules that were so mercilessly discarded in the name of convenience, and the minute we begin to do so, right order and proper balance will return. Once again the knowing followers of the unspoken rules can beat the Club of Propriety over the heads of unwitting future generations in need of improvement (and believe you me, they desperately need improving upon).

Children, we may be few, but we are heavily armed. As Dog is my witness, we will bring Etiquette back to the social order if we have to shame and ridicule every last living Facebooker to do it!

Stay tuned for next week's chapter, titled 'The Invitation'.