That's Jess, who I never write about. She's younger than Sarah, older than Fleabus, eight, nine maybe? She's smart but bitter, resents Sarah and Fleabus and Stanley and Rose and Napoleon, torments Sarah since Sarah's old and is the only cat that can't kick Jess' ass. She doesn't meow or purr, she gacks and hisses. She walked up to me last night while I was reading and, for the first time ever, or at least since the last time that I've forgotten, made a please love me sound. You may or not have noticed, but I am making a conscious effort to be more tolerant towards all and everything that always piss me off, it's pissing people off; I'm not going to do the research, but I bet I say motherfucking crackers much less recently than I used to when I used to say it repeatedly every day. I picked her up, put her in my lap, rubbed her ears, she has beautiful green eyes. Stanley jumped on the sofa next to us, Jess hissed, ripped open a two inch gash in my right thigh leaping away.
Here's Napoleon this morning in our dogwood tree.
- The first ad: who are the Nazis now?
- I am an Al-Q enabler!
- Obama's SOTU, authoritarian followership, civil society, part two.
- Obama, pragmatic hypocrite, I'm sure we'll be told.
- Vladimir Obama.
- Delusional psychopath deep in denial about criminal past. (That sentence from someone tweeting from New Left Project.)
- I swear to Baal, this is an actual headline on YFWP web as I type this: Romney Tries to Fend Off Santorum Surge as Three States Hold Contests.
- I confess, I'm still small enough to smile when Karl Rove gets pissy.
- Silk skin paws hang by both feet.
- If I'd known Madonna's halftime show would be a satanic ritual I might have watched.
- David Hockney's road home.
- This is true: I walk by a new book cart this morning, see a novel called Vaclav & Lena, three minutes later see this post of Biblioklept, went and grabbed the book.
- Here's 35 minutes of live PJ Harvey:
CAT IN AN EMPTY APARTMENT
Wislawa Szymborska
Translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh
Die - you can't do that to a cat.
Since what can a cat do
in an empty apartment?
Climb the walls?
Rub up against the furniture?
Nothing seems different here,
but nothing is the same.
Nothing has been moved,
but there's more space.
And at nighttime no lamps are lit.
Footsteps on the staircase,
but they're new ones.
The hand that puts fish on the saucer
has changed, too.
Something doesn't start
as it's usual time.
Something doesn't happen
as it should.
Someone was always, always here,
then suddenly disappeared
and stubbornly stays disappeared.
Every closet has been examined.
Every shelf has been explored.
Excavations under the carpet turned up nothing.
A commandment was even broken:
papers scattered everywhere.
What remains to be done.
Just sleep and wait.
Just wait till he turns up,
just let him show his face.
Will he ever get a lesson
on what not to do to a cat.
Sidle towards him
as if unwilling
and ever so slow
on visibly offended paws,
and now leaps or squeals at least to start.
