thank you, vh1 classics.

so i woke up this morning with that murderously obnoxious john mellencamp song/chevy pitch in my head. you know the one. i'm not even going to say anything else about it.

in order to remedy this problem, i turned on the vh1 classics channel. that pat benatar video "love is a battlefield" was on. and i just want to take a moment to acknowledge what a damn good time that video is. it made my morning! big 80s sweaters and earrings. the stereotypical sleazy dude in a white vest, and with a gold tooth. a bunch of chicks in shredded up dresses menacing said sleazy dude. and a drink in the face! of course, how could it be otherwise?

thank you, pat benatar, for being awesome, in that incredibly theatrical reagan-era way. and for purging the mellencamp from my brain.

not even a good title.

what kind of computer comes without microsoft word? (and don't say macs, you mac people, i know that.) i was all set to order a new dell today, and then the website's all like "does NOT come with MS word," or any other office suite stuff for that matter. and given that the three main things that i use on my home laptop are the internet, itunes, and microsoft office, well, that is a problem.

so i have to call dell tomorrow.

other than that, i have no coherent thoughts. i have other thoughts - like why i think it would be cooler if black holes really did make information disappear - but they are far from coherent.

maybe i'll work them into a post somehow anyway. but it won't be tonight, as i have a slight headache and a slight fear of returning to work tomorrow. only because i am afraid that i don't know what i'm doing.

well, i mean, i know that i don't know what i'm doing. but that's ok, right? as long as i know it, i mean.

also, on the last completely unrelated note, i dread the arrival of way-too-early holiday season on wednesday. i love christmas, but i hate how the day after halloween has become the offical beginning of the season. it actually sends me into a bit of a consumer-related rage. i actually saw a christmas-themed commerical for Lowe's the other day (not even the day before the day before halloween!) and almost threw something at the tv.

so, happy halloween.

through a synopsis briefly.

oh my god, yous guys. working is like, hard.

i am still liking the new job (but sadly can't shake that part of my mind that is waiting for the other shoe to drop, as my experience at nonprofitland has apparently given me enough career-related baggage to last a long time). i found out today that i will be overseeing foundation relations and writing proposals for some of our programs in the mid-atlantic, the midwest, the southeast, the southwest, and the west coast. whoa! but i'm excited about it.

also, i actually ran at the gym today. like, on the treadmill. for awhile. which, when you haven't attempted such an endeavor in over a month, is not going to fall under the classic category of "fun." so now it is 9:35 and i am dangerously close to climbing into bed.

and now the laptop is beeping like it's dying, but it's plugged in.

sigh.

your wednesday one-liner.

the (all-too-true) dangers of the cheap route from boston to nyc, courtesy of Overheard in New York:

Man boarding bus to driver: You better not go flippin' this bitch over!

--Fung Wah Bus, Chinatown

oh crap.

so, BoyCat's laptop totally decided to stop working on sunday morning. the keyboard said, "eh, i'm tired of this," and promptly ceased to function. we restarted, we shut down and started up, we pleaded and begged and caterwauled - it would not work.

then, i was starting my new job monday, and unfortunately i had self-imposed a brand new "no blogging from work" policy. so i couldn't post from home, and i couldn't post from work.

that's where i've been.

so now the laptop is working again - as inexplicable as its collapse two and a half days ago - but we're thinking it's probably on its last legs. it is five years old, and also having problems with its usb ports and its ability to recognize being connected to a wall outlet. poor little fella. anyway, if i disappear for any noticeable length of time again, it's probably because it kicked the bucket for good and we're buying a new one.

in other news, the job is good so far.

in other other news, i'm thirsty and tired.

i can't even think of a way to end this post. so boring! so lame! so sorry!

victory over counter-intuitive anxiety. for now.

so blogger is wonky today, which means a short post from me. that way i won't cry if blogger eats it.

i have, as of 11:15 this morning, a job. one specific one, not three possible ones (oh, i got another offer thursday afternoon! what? three?? you'd think i was the donald or something over here). for the last day and a half i have been a total basket-case about it: making a decision, and salaries, and "office environments," and commuting, and holy shit oh my god if i make the wrong choice it will be apocolyptic and i will die!

untrue, of course, but really. you cannot reason with me when i get in this state. ask BoyCat, who had to endure a total kate meltdown at about 11:45 pm last night.

but hey, guess what? i accepted a job, and it's done! i am officially employed by a non-profit that i will call...hmmm, i don't know what to call it. NPL2? the new place? non-profit-that-shall-not-be-named?

i know. enviroland. there are enough environmental non-profits here, it could take a lifetime to guess the right one.

i will be doing grant writing and and development work. shocking! but i'm glad about it, because the more that i think about it, the more i feel like grant writing could be the ticket for me. it's writing that someone, somewhere always needs done.

and on that note, i'm going to stop writing here, and go eat some lunch on my final day of unemployment. and thank god for that, because i think if i had to endure one more day of cleaning product and/or fisher-price commericals, i would commit hari-kari with a bread knife.

reason #6,427 the catholic church makes me sick to my stomach.

so did you hear? a catholic priest has admitted to a relationship with then-altar boy mark foley. two adjectives used to describe the relationship in news articles are "intimate" and "inappropriate." funny, i would ditch the all three of these terms, and replace them at the very least with "gross misconduct", and more probably with "sexual abuse."

The Rev. Anthony Mercieca, 72, described several encounters that he said Foley might perceive as sexually inappropriate, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported. They include massaging Foley while the boy was naked, skinny-dipping together at a secluded lake in Lake Worth and being nude in the same room on overnight trips...Foley would have been 13 at the time.

really? you think a 13 year old boy might perceive a 33 year old man massaging him while he's naked as "inappropriate"?? funny, i'd imagine that anyone with three brain cells to rub together would regard that as "inappropriate."

i continue to be amazed at this hapless, "who me?" stance that the catholic church and its officials continue to take in regards to abuse charges. as if this whole thing hasn't been blown wide open, and as if someone could actually believe that a priest sitting naked in a sauna with a 13 year old boy wasn't part of a bigger, sexually abusive dynamic. and then, after the years upon years of revelations of abuse, corruption, and systematic cover-ups, they expect us to believe statements like this:

Mercieca was adamant that his encounter with Foley was an aberration, and that the Catholic Church never had to send him for counseling during his 38 years in the priesthood in Florida...

an aberration. of course. just like this whole scandal that has rocked the catholic church to its foundation is "an aberration," as the worshipping flock will surely come to understand eventually. don't worry, no cause for concern - keep coming to mass on sunday, and keep dropping that dollar in the collection basket. "this too shall pass."

and that's where i so desperately hope that they're wrong.

your wednesday one-liner.

oh how i've missed these, courtesy of Overheard in New York:

Mother, watching a clown holding a briefcase walk onto the train: [to child] Look, honey, it's a funny clown!... [to husband] Do you think he has a bomb in that briefcase?

--F train

in which i unabashedly shout, again.

HEY!

I GOT A JOB!

actually, i've got two jobs at the moment, until i turn one down. i just took two job offer calls within half an hour of each other.

i am happy.

honestly.

sidenote: i’m thinking about making these “honestly" posts a regular, if inconsistent, feature of this little blog. i often have these thoughts that i think i can’t really blog about for one reason or another - people will hate me! they won't understand me! they'll think i'm a bad person, send me nasty emails, stop reading my blog! but really, that's stupid. i should write about what it strikes me to write about, and people can certainly do with it what they will. at the very least, it’ll keep things interesting. hopefully.

ok, so. i don’t understand women who get pregnant.

(hackles up! got ‘em up? all right.)

i mean the above statement in two different ways. the first is that, yeah, i personally don’t understand women who get pregnant, period. i say “personally” because i do understand it in a logical sense, in a sociological sense, in a biological sense, etc. but on a personal level? i am flat-out flabbergasted by women who knowingly get pregnant.

why? here’s the thing. pregnancy, on a visceral level, grosses me out.* sometimes, when i see very pregnant women out in public, it turns my stomach. i’m not exaggerating. the idea of growing something inside you – very disturbing to me. and yes, pregnancy is a natural process, happens all the time, totally organic and blah blah blah. but i’m sorry, it’s weird to think about. i mean, if you had something growing inside you in any other context, you’d be wigged out. i’m not sure what makes a fetus any different. it is living inside your organs! it is (inflammatory but metaphorically fair language ahead) a parasite that lives off of you in order to survive! for nine months, you and the fetus attempt to share the resources of one human body – sometimes it works out fine, sometimes it doesn’t.

i know that millions of women choose this condition voluntarily, but i’ve just gotta say, i am mystified by that.

but do you want to know what i really don’t understand? (there’s more!)

women who get pregnant by accident.

now i’m not talking about women who are using some kind of birth control that fails (condom breakage, that unlucky winner of the 2% pill failure rate, etc). i guess it’s more women who, in this day and age, find themselves pregnant when they weren’t explicitly looking to get that way.

i must say, women who do this actually kinda fascinate me. it’s a little sick on my part, and entirely not my business, but i’m just dying to know how the hell it happened. (oh shut up, i know how it “happened,” all right.) i’m thinking, hey, have you heard? the 70s happened! margaret sanger happened! planned parenthood happened! widely available birth control, look into it!

there is one huge caveat here, and that is women who can’t afford birth control. before you come after me about not being class-conscious, these are not the women that i am talking about. lack of affordable birth control is one of the shames of this country, and if the anti-abortion folks actually cared about reducing the number of abortions in America, they would be advocating for free condoms on every street corner. but that’s a whole ‘nother story.

no, really, i’m referring to the women that i know can afford birth control (and there are real-life women, that i’ve known, who fall into this category – this is not even hypothetical) and yet somehow end up pregnant. and oh my god, i want nothing more than to ask them what the hell happened. what happened?? do people still get “caught up in the moment”? is that for real?? do you just play the odds (which, by the way, aren’t very good if you’re having unprotected sex and trying to remain unpregnant)? did you have a moment of amnesia, or involuntary hypnosis, or what?

i think, at bottom, it’s the level of nonchalance about it that i’ve witnessed that blows me away. women who unintentionally find themselves pregnant and then are like “well, i guess i’m pregnant.” what?? if you weren’t intending to get pregnant and then did, wouldn’t that raise your blood pressure a little? wouldn’t you be just a little freaked out? and if you’re so unsurprised by it, then wouldn’t that indicate that you were trying in the first place?

all of this rambling befuddlement stems, of course, from my earlier point that i just don’t understand wanting to be pregnant. so i sure as hell don’t understand a “que sera” attitude to accidentally landing in that state. but certainly, it is something that will continue to simultaneously horrify and intrigue me.

if anyone wants to share thoughts, stories, or sling verbal tomatoes, please do! i’m especially interested to hear about it if people know someone who got “accidentally” pregnant and also know the circumstances around it. because that’s like the freaking da vinci code to me - a mystery i’m desperate to crack, but assuredly never will.




*to those of you that want to say, “it’ll be different when it’s you/your pregnancy/your kid, i can’t wait ‘til you get pregnant and have to eat your words about this,” congrats. you are the 3,459th person to make this claim. i’m thinking about giving out a prize to the 5,000th commenter. a year’s supply of the Today sponge, or something.

this is bad. very bad.

it is 2:28 pm on tuesday, october 17th, 2006. i just wanted to document the precise moment at which i realized that i've become an unemployed person.

i have, of course, been without an actual job for a little over three weeks. but that's not what i'm talking about. i don't mean that i've become unemployed, but that i've become that unemployed person.

- the one that doesn't bother conditioning her hair.
- the one that wears slippers more often than regular shoes.
- the one for whom "going to the grocery store" constitutes the biggest activity of the day.
- the one that looks forward to 4:00, because that's when oprah is on.
- the one who bought a pint of ben & jerry's ice cream at the store today with the express purpose of eating it from the carton, while under a blanket, while watching oprah.

i really, seriously, for-real-serious have thoughts like "this would be a good snack to have during oprah." my shame is boundless.

i am waiting to hear back from three different non-profits about three different jobs, for each of which i've interviewed at least twice. six interviews. as of 2:36 pm, zero phone calls.

for the love of god (and waistlines, and brain cells), i need to hear back from somebody.

humina-whaaa?

seriously, people.

holy shit.

six turnovers by grossman, and the bears still get the win? six??

we turned the tv off.

i am not proud to admit it, but about two-thirds of the way through the fourth quarter, BoyCat and i folded like a cheap tent and turned the tv off. i should know better by now! but i gave in to tiredness and pessimism. and as punishment, i missed one of the most crazy-ass comebacks of the whole season.

the big question this morning, though: should the citizens of chicago still burn rex grossman in effigy, as they would have if the defense and special teams didn't win it for him?

the most amazing development EVER.

(non-bostonians, this post will probably mean absolutely nothing to you. just sayin'.)

i nearly fell off of the couch last night when, upon opening an email from SisterCat, i read this explosively amazing information:

there is a Border Cafe within driving distance of my apartment.

that's right, folks - a border! in virginia! i almost didn't believe it myself. but the interweb doesn't lie. so this weekend, BoyCat and i will be venturing west into the suburbs to find a little outpost of harvard square/route 1 deliciousness.

french quarter chicken! biscuits! chips and salsa!

i might actually just go right now.

mini day trip.

BoyCat and i took advantage of the perfect fall day today, getting out into the fresh air and exploring our new surroundings. well, not our immediate surroundings, as those are just strip malls (tangent: however, i did find a little japanese/sushi restaurant in a nearby strip-mall that has gotten really good user reviews on a couple big sites. we will be trying that out pronto). no, today we hopped on the bus and took a short ride into old town. this is the only section of alexandria, so far as i can tell, that actually resembles a city. and one that's been around for a few hundred years, to boot!

i thought i'd share a few pictures from our little journey:

these are some typical-looking residences in old town. the area reminds me a lot of beacon hill, actually, except just a touch less urban. i dunno if it's that old town is right along the river, or south of the mason-dixon, or what. but either way, VERY colonial.

the river, as noted above.

when i say colonial, i mean colonial, people! see the gas lamp below. electricity, schmelectricity. and can any history buff explain to me what that little wrought-iron thing in the ground next to the stairs is? a shoe scuffer? hitching post? modern art that was just way ahead of its time?

some cute, old town doors. note the creative use of miniature pumpkins. well, i thought it was creative, until we saw it done in about half a dozen doorways in the area. i guess this isn't the most avant-garde type of neighborhood, really.

BoyCat noted that you knew you are priced out of an area when there's a fancy-looking dog obedience school on the corner. i feel the "towne" spelling emphasizes this fact. (side note: BoyCat later noted another visual representation of why we can't afford Old Town, which was a man eating lunch at cafe, at an outdoor table, with a companion. his little dog, instead of being leashed up along the railing or somewhere else on the sidewalk, was sitting on the man's lap. AND. the dog was wearing a sweater.)

apparently, they block off little areas of old town on the weekends to make pedestrian-only areas. hooray, pedestrians! and this is a street performer you won't see everyday.

parrots! in virginia! who knew?

and one last one, from the walk back to the bus stop, because i couldn't resist. this seems to encapsulate the delicate, um, sensibilities of old towners.

decisions, decisions.

when you're thinking about moving into DC, articles like this one - Liveliest D.C. Neighbhorhoods Also Jumping With Robberies - are troubling. the lead-in:

Some of Washington's most vibrant neighborhoods, destinations for suburbanites, barhoppers and urban professionals, share a lesser-known distinction: They have the highest concentrations of holdups in the city.

now, it's not that i'm surprised by this. i didn't just fall off of the turnip truck from hicksville - i know that if you live in the city, you have a higher chance of becoming a crime victim. but it's tough to read the names of all these neighborhoods that you've heard great things about, and are considering moving to, listed as being in the two police districts with the highest percentage of muggings and robberies. These aren't neighborhoods that you'd consider crime-ridden (and believe me, DC has those), but there are a number of factors that make them ripe for hold-ups. one, with the city cracking down on drug dealing and trafficking, a lot of current and former drug dealers are taking up plain 'ol robbery as a means to recoup lost earnings. two, many of these neighborhoods are "in transition," a.k.a. rapidly gentrifying, so it's evident that there's money to be had in the purses and wallets that stroll out of clubs and bars at 2:00 am.

but it's not even just "well, don't walk home at 2:00 am." people are getting knocked to the ground and mugged at 9:30 pm, under streetlights. and you know what? i don't want to mess with that. you can never totally prevent it from happening, but do i want to move to a neighborhood where it's been explicitly identified as a problem? where there's an average of five holdups a week? an average??

god, i don't know. it seems like in DC i might be trying to have my cake and eat it too. i don't want to live out here among the apartment complexes and the strip malls for long, but i also don't want to subject myself to unsafe situations. boystown was good for that - there was definitely no guarantee that you were safe all the time, but overall it was a pretty comfortable place to be. i don't know where neighborhoods like that are in DC, if there are neighborhoods like that in DC. i'm not too keen on playing the odds when it comes to getting robbed, so unless i can find out about some district enclaves that aren't magnets for muggers, i'm not sure what to do.

friday cat blogging, meta edition.

i think i informed everyone that CatCat has a blog. she won't tell us the url, but it's out there in the ether somewhere. i caught her surreptitiously posting the other night:



if she has a flickr account, we're all in trouble.

riddle me this.

if there were a person who, upon hearing that a woman was denied timely access to EC after a condom broke during sex, and that the woman is now seeking an abortion as a result of that delay, took it upon him/herself to tell that woman that she deserves to be "brutally raped before being slaughtered in the most painful way I can think of" - would you call that person "pro-life"?

because i have to say, i wouldn't.

i know i'm late to this development, and i actually read about this days ago - the reality of it has been flexing its claws against the back of my mind since then. and it hurts. it hurts to think about.

if you don't believe that much of the anti-abortion movement is really just a veiled hatred and fear of women, and of the power that they wield when they make their own choices, read the above post.

hey! blogger's back.

and now that it is, i find i have nothing of consequence to say. this "having nothing to say" phenomenon could explain the dip in my readership as of late.

sorry, readership!

i find that i am just tired lately. which seems ridiculous, as i am unemployed. but i feel like i'm doing a pretty good job of getting out there, interviewing for jobs, making contacts, trying to get acclimated to DC. and that, friends, is kinda tiring! yesterday i went on two interviews, and then went out with BoyCat, one of his co-workers, and a friend from grad school. a co-worker of grad school friend came along, and she is actually going to help me get in and talk with some people at Media Matters, a great, liberal watchdog group. so, even though i am spent from my long day yesterday, good things happen when i get out and do stuff!

so i need to do that. more stuff. even though i'm tired. i'm off in an hour or so to go downtown and meet a friend of a friend who works for a liberal leadership organization for coffee, and also potentially meet up with another friend's contact who works for NOW.

one of a variety of lessons already learned here in DC: networking is exhausting, but worth it.

i hope.

a brief query.

why is chopped garlic always the hardest item to find at a new grocery store?

and a bonus semi-brief query, because i'm feeling particularly ornery today:

virginia, do you have something against mailboxes? you know, the big blue ones that people can drop mail in to have the U.S. Postal Service deliver? because i drove around for 15 minutes today looking for one. i'm not sure if you are trying to eradicate snail mail all together, or whether they don't fit in with your suburban beautification plan, or what. but it is highly inconvenient, so i would really like to know.

recommended.

while i'm thinking of it, i want to let you all know (if you didn't already) that PBS is running some of the Eyes on the Prize episodes on monday nights from 9-11 pm eastern time. this whole documentary series on the civil rights movement, which spans the 50s and 60s and is amazing in its breadth and depth, was actually unavailable for years while some copyright issues on archival footage being used in the series was worked out. but now it's back, and re-watching some of the episodes that focus on the mid 50s and early 60s, i'm blown away by the scope of it all. the series is all interviews and primary source footage - video, audio, still photographs - from the time, and it's incredible.

so, next week is the episode about the freedom summer in 1964 called mississippi: is this america?, and the episode about the selma march called bridge to freedom. and now you have six whole days to remember to mark it on your calendar.

the full toll.

i noticed the police cars as i turned the corner of 13th and I St. one, then two, then another pair a few hundred feet away. all strategically placed to block cross-street traffic across new york avenue.

walking down the block toward 13th and new york, the wind rattled my umbrella and i tilted it forward in front of my face, hoping it wouldn't turn itself inside out. the rain had been relentless all morning. when i neared the crosswalk and raised the umbrella up again, a policeman extended his arm out at 90 degrees, palm towards me, in the universal symbol of "stop right there." so i stopped.

the traffic backed up behind the police car barricades. people were stopped at the intersection with me, as well as across the street and down the block. horns blared angrily in the near distance - people who could not see the scene, angry about the inexplicable standstill. a metro bus's doors hissed open and let some passengers out, even though it was not an official stop. the passengers thanked him as they descended the grimy steps into the rain.

i waited, with a kind of sick fascination, for what was coming. two minutes turned into five, five into ten. the gray skies continued to sling gusts of rain, and the water gathered in growing pools.
i realized that it was suprisingly quiet.

the first motorcycle came through with a roar and the short, staccato bursts of police sirens. these were not the long, slow wails of an emergency, of an ambulance on its way to a rescue - these were the hard, angry notes of authority.

woop, woooop woooop, with a grainy volume that you felt in your toes.

the first was followed by a second, and a third and a fourth and fifth. then came the limos, long and black with blinding gold insignias on the doors. then the hulking, midnight-dark SUVs, one after the other, the final one with it windows down and filled with secret service agents. the thick, whooshing sound of tires flying over wet concrete was cyclical and continuous, like the beginning of motion sickness - like the end of a bad dream.

that's him, i thought.

a single thought, unperturbed by any other complicating emotions or opinions. i didn't expect it to be so simple, but there it was. a singular thought, husked of every association, but still heavy as lead.

that's him.

as the end of the motorcade disappeared down new york avenue, above my head from somewhere in the city a church bell tolled out the time: a quarter til the hour. four notes that set the tone, then four that rose, and four that fell again. but the full tolling of the bell, with its long solitary notes and finality of purpose, did not come. it could not come until its appointed time. and so its absence hung in the air for a moment, an anticipation without excitement - a future without a present.

slowly, all around me, traffic and people began to move again. i turned and stepped off of the curb, hopping over a small river of rain that had gathered in the street and was spiraling, in its inevitable way, towards a sewer grate.

disoriented.

a few hours ago, i was coming home from target and was stopped at a red light. i tilted my face up slightly and peered through the windshield at the stoplight on the wire, and the telephone tower beyond that, and the dull gray sky in the background. the sound of cars whirring past me, one by one, came through the cracked-open window. i struggled to focus. all i could think was, "what am i doing here? what. am i. doing here."

a few minutes ago, i held my toothbrush over the sink, and almost squirted hand soap on it instead of toothpaste.

i'm going to get into bed now.

things that i have discovered today.

- that i still can't produce a coherent, non-move related post. sorry folks.

- that there are a number of things about the Metro that remind me of Disney World. firstly, the trains themselves make me think of the monorail at Disney. i don't know why. i guess compared to the hulking metal El trains, they just seem a little less...train-like. and they make that whirring sound when they run. secondly, the underground stations are kinda Space Mountain-esqe (actually, i credit BoyCat with discovering this, i merely had to concur with this assessment when i finally rode through one).

- the worst idea ever? putting industrial carpet inside public transit cars. Metro, what were you thinking??

- that cobblestone sidewalks are nice and quaint, until you almost bite it - twice! - while walking a four block span.

- that i had underestimated the phallic nature of the washington monument. holy penile symbology, people.

- that idiots are everywhere*. today at lunch at the Corner Bakery, BoyCat and i listened to a woman send a waitress back with a sandwich because "it has avocados on it. i ordered it without avocados. and they can't just take them off, because i'm allergic." what? seriously?? lady, there are at least half a dozen sandwich options without avocado on them. why in the world, if you are allergic to the damn things, would you even chance ordering a sandwich that usually comes with them?

idiots.

*of course i already knew this. it's just something that i re-discover, and re-discover, and re-discover.

a nearly content-free pictorial.

because i am still somewhat shellshocked from The Big Move and the ensuing adjustment to all things alexandria, i offer you some photos of the new place.

this one is really dark, i know, but i was too lazy to retake it after uploading it. you can make out the basics! this is the living/dining area, as seen from the front entrance. notice CatCat in her new favorite spot.

this is the living/dining area, as seen from the door by the deck.

this is the stove and microwave in the kitchen. the fact that i live in a place that has a kitchen this nice still does not seem correct to me.

i mean seriously, we have a dishwasher? what?

and we have an ice maker - an ice maker! what?

the bathroom, by my standards, is fricking huge. make of those standards what you will.

and. and. the crowning glory of this place - the washer/dryer. you mean they put these in apartments? what??

so this is where we live. now if you'll excuse me, i'm going to trader joe's to find some food to put in our nearly empty refrigerator. (did i spell that right? i have no idea.)

welcome to washington DC. er, i mean, the suburbs.

so we totally live in the suburbs. i am slowly processing this fact. but our apartment? freaking great. we have been working on getting it set up for the last day and a half, and we've made pretty good progress if i do say so myself. once we get the last few things put away, dealt with, or lit on fire and thrown in a dumpster (seriously, we have two whole boxes of books with no discernible home in this apartment) then i will post some pictures of the place and its greatness. but for now? cat pictures!

because really, i think these sum up the trip nicely.

we started out angry:



CatCat looks drugged and behind bars because she is drugged and behind bars. this was taken while the movers were taking stuff out of the place in chicago. the kitty tranqs didn't totally knock her out, just zoned her out (allegedly - see mention of the 2006 CatCat rebellion in my last post, which was repeated on saturday afternoon). the drugs made the membranes on the inside corners of her eyes come up towards the middle of her eyes, which was kinda freaky and gross. but we pitied her, like gregor samsa or the elephant man.

and 48 hours later, we were angry and dirty:



so i told you this apartment has a fireplace, yeah? well, guess what CatCat found her way into while her owners were otherwise engaged with boxes and packing tape? this picture doesn't even begin to do justice to how filthy she was. we were not even in the apartment three hours, and she strolls into the kitchen looking like oliver twist. i took this picture after 10 minutes of BoyCat holding her down so i could scrub her face, neck, and paws. this morning, she still has soot under her right eye and on her front paws.

while angry and/or dirty were sort of the overarching themes of the trip, we are all here now, and it is good. oh, and the temperature tomorrow? 84 degrees. holy shit, people, i am in the south.