love, like life, is much stranger and far more complicated than one is brought up to believe

    It's been crazy warm the last couple of days. Significantly unseasonable. As a result, there's been a pretty dense fog over the area. I like it, both because the fog suits my inherent personality and because the low clouds keep the surface temperature higher. One of my coworkers, though, has been complaining nonstop. The appearance of the weather affects her more directly than does the sensation of it, and so what she sees has been bringing her down. After a couple of days of trying to remind her that this really isn't so bad (without resorting to the corollary that it could, and indeed will, be worse!), I've had about all I can take from her. Basically a positive person who borders on the annoyingly chipper, she's about to be sacrificed to the weather gods with my compliments.
     One of my two big holiday wishes has come true: Hal Hartley's Kickstarter campaign, to fund Ned Rifle, was successful. About a week ago, it looked like all was lost, and he even made a move to close the effort early, but after backers urged him to hold out, Hal stuck it through and was vindicated: more than $200,000 was pledged in a week. A Kickstarter like this really does let someone put their money where their affections lie. I really cannot wait to see the film, and am thrilled for Hal and everyone else involved that the campaign was successful. Last night was awesome.
     I've had a lot of time to ponder the situation lately, and have come to a conclusion that some may find strange but that I really believe is accurate. I think that the way that Rupert feels about me--the boy cat with whom I live--very closely resembles the way that I was with my old boyfriend in college, Bill-the-rugby-player.

• Rupert doesn't know that the things he does out of affection are sometimes dangerous. He wants to get close to me...closer...closer...so he gnaws on whatever part of my body is closest to him. Bill wanted to get closer to me, so he tackled me to the floor, compressed my lungs, and put an elbow through my windpipe.
• Rupert desperately wants to get into my bedroom, which is off-limits to him and his furry sister. (Because of my lingering allergies, we leave the door closed at all times to keep as much hair as possible off my bed and out of my lungs while I'm sleeping.) Because of the off-limits-ness or perhaps because of his deep and abiding affection for me, he is desperate to get into the bedroom, and when the door opens just a wee bit, his beautiful face pokes into the crevice. When I'm not quite awake in the morning and fail to latch the door, he sometimes manages to wedge his upper body inside. One day last week he got all the way in, about three feet, before stopping and looking around as if to say, "So THIS is what all the fuss is about!" And Bill was the same way--he always wanted to come over to my place, to the point that he actually broke into the house where I was living, crept into the basement, and sat on the edge of my bed. I woke, sensing a presence, realized that it was him, and started screaming. Oh, Bill.
• Rupert is very sweet, but not all that bright. He often starts to bite me (for some imagined offense), but changes his mind mid-chomp and ends up bathing my hand. Bill, likewise, was a total sweetheart, but under no threat of being recruited to an academic team. A mutual friend once asked him what we had in common, and he literally couldn't come up with an answer. (We were both college students, and met when we worked together at the bakery. We also both had brown hair and liked to drink our weight in beer every weekend day.)
• Rupert doesn't understand the meaning of the word 'no'. He regularly misbehaves, and only desists when distracted by something else that's more interesting for the moment. Bill once had to be hit on the head to get the clue to stop doing what he was doing.

I think I could go on, but I'm probably freaking a couple of people the f*** out with this line of thinking. Suffice it to say that Rupert is a joyful, loving, sometimes unthinking, spunky cat, whose attentions I enjoy and seek. The end.
    There are good things and bad things about getting in shape and losing weight. Right now, among the good things: reacquainting myself with vintage clothes I've not been able to do justice to in far too long. Among the bad: really, really needing to buy new smallclothes. The tiny PITA gauntlet at Victoria's Secret is hard enough to face, but the final tally at the checkout counter is another thing entirely--that stuff is expensive, particularly when one is refurbishing an entire wardrobe.
     I'm reading a good book lately. Actually, two at once. One is the second in an epic fantasy trilogy, and each chapter is engrossing, in-depth and complex. The other is an anthology of comedic Australian short stories--hilarious, touching, and snort-inducing. It's not rare for me to read two books at once, but these two aren't my typical books (neither is, really), and so the experience is novel in many ways. I can't stand putting the books down.

[the title quotation is by Kay Redfield Jamison, Ph.D., from An Unquiet Mind]