Kat Trax

I made it a quarter of a century, world. Deal with it.

I can haz office? Granted it's a bit spartan for the moment, but I'm decorating slowly...



The view on the outside world.


A start to my bookshelf. But there will be moar!


There's something going on upstairs, but I'm just not sure what.

Well, next week is the start of my second year here at Texas A&M. I'm taking three courses - Biological Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, and Multivariate Statistics. I'm also a TA for the first time, teaching an introductory cultural anthropology course for undergraduates. Which means I have - ta da! - an OFFICE. Over the next few days I will be moving junk into said office to make it feel more like a space I can be comfortable in. I'm hoping if I spend some time in there this semester I can get more work done. A reasonable assumption...so far.

I can't decide if things have gone too fast or too slow since I got back from my monthlong trip around half the country and reunited with my cuter, sweeter half (much as he objects to the accuracy of this characterization). I'm ready for the beginning of the semester but I'm also not. There has been some frustration in my life of late, to say the least, and some things have not been working out quite the way I would have wanted so far. However, I think it's worthwhile to pause and lay out some of the good things that ARE going well before getting too bogged down in my stormy broodfulness.

My fella has a job, which is going well, which is great since that's the sole source of income for our household until I get paid on...get this folks...October 1st (keep in mind that I've already started work as a TA). In between him working and my little projects we hang out and have a good time, and I'm grateful to have someone in my life who I know cares about me so much. I've got a lot of great opportunities this year, if I can take hold of them, to start doing Career Stuff (tm). This year really does sort of set the foundation for the rest of my PhD education. Doin Stuff...it's not just about classes anymore.

I don't want to jinx it, but on Friday I am going to visit a home with a kitty that might possibly become our kitty. As most of you know, we lost our little orange pal about two months ago, and we still miss him terribly. His remains reside in a jar on our bookshelf which we talk to frequently (lest anyone in the audience still hold the misconception that I am not that weird). I am very excited about this. Being a strange sort of feline strain myself, the company of a cat is very important to me and I'm a little sad without it. So if this foster kitty does in fact become my kitty, I will be one happy Kat.

All in all, this is something of a crossroads period, and to borrow briefly from Oasis: "all the roads you have to walk are winding, and all the lights that lead you there are blinding". Still I soldier on, because really, that's just what I do, right?

I lost a good friend today. He was a sweet little orange guy who shed his fur everywhere and became very attached to his new mommy in the space of a few months, even though he didn't really like new people and even though the first time his new mommy tried to pet him he attempted to phase through the floor which, sadly, is an ability kitties lack.

Mr. Kitty had a very interesting life which I feel deserves to be shared here. He was born somewhere near Peoria, IL in 1990 and was thrown away in a bag of kittens in the middle of February. Although all of his brothers and sisters died, Mr. Kitty, being strong and stubborn even as a tiny one, survived and came to reside with the woman who'd rescued him. When she had to move, she gave the cat to her friend who'd helped her rescue him. And when Mr. Kitty didn't get along with her other cats, she called her brother in Alabama and said, "Want a cat?"

And so it was that Mr. Kitty came to reside with the big fellow in Alabama and his mom, who pretended not to like him but actually did quite a bit. There Mr. Kitty lived happily with his big buddy, who is quite comfortable to lay on, for many years. By and by the fellow in Alabama picked up another stray, but this one was considerably bigger and more of a handful than the little orange furball - in fact, it was a teenaged Ali Kat. The fellow from Alabama decided he loved this scruffy Kat so much that he wanted her to be a part of his family, and so they began sharing their lives. However, it was many years before the big Kat was able to visit the little orange nightmare kitty she had heard so much about and seen cute pictures of. When in the fall of 06 the Kat finally got to meet her new kitty pal, he had other ideas about being held and petted. In fact, what he really wanted to do was hide behind the couch. But after he realized that this strange new creature was petting him, not killing him, he began to warm to his new mommy after all.

But then the man from Alabama did something that made Mr. Kitty considerably annoyed. He stuffed the little guy into a crate and dragged him 2000 miles, away from his home and all his familiar places, so that he could make his new family a reality. This made a certain Kat very happy, but little Mr. Kitty, again, was not on board with this plan and thought that behind the dryer was a very good place to be. Up in this mystical land that some call "New Hampshire", Mr. Kitty discovered things like stairs and beds that stayed on the ground, making it much easier to walk upon the occupants far too early in the morning. And together the man from Alabama, his little cat, and his big Kat were very happy. And Mr. Kitty decided that maybe he loved his new mommy so much that he even preferred to lay on her than his buddy, and yeowled for her while mommy was at work to his buddy's chagrin.

Then his mommy and daddy moved poor Mr. Kitty yet again, this time to Texas. Mr. Kitty was getting tired of these long car rides in an itty bitty box, although in his last long car ride he got to see his home in Alabama once more, and on the return to Texas he got to ride in the lap seat up front instead of the mean box. Sadly, Mr. Kitty was getting quite old by this point, and old creatures get sick. His mommy was very sad to find out in April that Mr. Kitty was riddled with tumors that were growing quite aggressively. Cancer was not something Mr. Kitty understood very well, but he did know that he didn't feel good at all, and that his life was not nearly as enjoyable as it used to be, even though his humans gave him all the love they could muster. So today, his mommy and daddy had to do what was best for him, even though it was very hard for them, and say goodbye for the last time. After over 19 years of life, Mr. Kitty finally got to be at peace and never has to feel pain again. But without him his family just doesn't quite feel the same.

Everything ends. Everything dies. It's the way of the world. To quote Ares, God of War: "Pain is just nature's way of letting you know HEY! You're alive!" What counts is that while we are here we value life, and we value it passionately. This means that yes, it hurts when things we love are lost. But it's so much better to know that something really meant a lot to you as a result of this pain than to live life in that miserable state of being afraid to know true passion and joy from the dedicated pursuit of values. Those kids who think they are "too cool to care" will live a truly empty life if they stay on that road.

For anyone who wants to honor the memory of my little orange pal today, I want you to spend some time enjoying your life today, for no other reason than that it's yours and that it's wonderful. I want you to remember what matters to you and affirm it. Do something you love and be happy for its own sake. And never, never let the fear of loss keep you from fully embracing life.

I probably ought to be focused on my schoolwork, but a rapid-onset sinus infection has me drowning in my own head glue and I need a little break from my paper. So I'm going to put some thoughts out there that I had the other day.

I love cats. Everyone knows this. I have a bond with them that is unique and intense, and the cats respond to it to. When I was gone for just a few days, twice this semester, our little Ralphy-kitty-man went into a standby-mode funk, even though he has been Bryan's cat for nearly ten years and mine to share for only a year and a half. He "needs his mommy" even though I haven't been his mommy too long. This isn't particularly unusual. I once laid down in front of a barn containing a mix of feral and semi-feral cats, and within 10 minutes or so of being motionless there I had a semi-circle of 15 or 20 cats around me, playing and relaxing. I get them. They get me. So unlike my relationships with the human set. Rarely in my life have I ever had a human connection be so easy and natural, and many times when I thought I had something like that it came around and bit me in the ass.

I had a conversation with my buddy from the powerlifting team, who's been over to my house a few times. My Mr. Kitty is scared to death of her for whatever retarded reason (he ain't very bright), and she told me recently that "something's wrong with him". I asked her what she meant and she said he was just not right, and I said it wasn't his fault, he's just old (19, for those not in the know), and maybe a little senile. She said she wouldn't know, because none of her farm cats ever made it anything like that far, dying of causes natural or otherwise with considerable regularity. Of course the thought of this horrified me...I've only ever lost one cat, my Mandy, and it broke my heart. I still love that little brown tabby, so sweet and chill, who made it to the ripe old age of 18. It doesn't hurt that my cats have always been indoor-only and well-defended. The idea of losing cats all the time is intolerable to me, but my pal, who loves cats quite a bit too, was just used to it.

Just a little while before this I'd had a related conversation with my neighbor, who I also know from powerlifting and who also grew up in a ranch environment. She was also going through cats buckets at a time, just because they were outdoor mousers and shit happens. Again, she had grown used to frequent cat loss and it wasn't such a big deal. I told her about an animal welfare paper I'd just read for my vertebrate ethology class, which featured a parable of two dog owners in its introduction. Two folks were out walking their dogs one day, and one owner's dog was perfectly groomed and cared for, on his leash, fit and trim from his regular and careful feeding schedule. The other owner's dog was running free and had never worn a collar in his life, his coat was full of burrs, he was fed whenever the owner saw the food bowl was empty and had as much as he wanted, and he was the third dog the owner'd had because the other two had been hit by cars. Each owner pitied the other dog, finding his quality of life inadequate based on their understanding of what animal welfare means.

Each conversation made me remember someone else I know who's had a rural upbringing and endured semi-frequent cat loss, though she loved them. I wonder about loss and how experiencing it over and over again at an early age can change you, what it might do to your psyche. My natural tendency is to fight impending loss with every fiber of my being, because that which I value, I tend to value passionately. The idea of losing cats is like a metaphor for my other values: I know I have to lose them eventually, because that's just how it goes, but I hope it's after many good years and the formation of an enduring bond which I will always hold dear. I could never "go through" cats. This is probably the only thing preventing me from being the crazy cat lady someday...I would never have more cats than I can interact with individually and give ample attention to. Interestingly enough I feel the same way about children, and marvel at how some people can have such big families. I wonder how the parents find the time and energy to form a particular and intense bond to each child, and I realize that if they manage that feat, it's operating from a mindset that just doesn't work for me.

I've realized that the main thing I seek in my friendships, my relationships, is what I seek from my bond with cats, except in that more intense and complex mode that only another person can provide. Everyone who knows me knows that I operate from a rabidly individualistic and independent mindset, for which I make no apologies. I fundamentally see others as individuals too, who are neither interchangeable nor replaceable. Every friendship I've ever had was unique to the context of me and that other person. I can understand to a degree people who search out others they feel can fill a "role" in their lives, and yeah, I've got people playing particular roles in my life too, but it's incidental, secondary, ancillary to who they are and how I feel about them. I want friends who I can keep around for a long time, who I can build genuine trust with (and for me, that ain't easy...given my history it only gets harder with age). I've had some success with this, and some hard luck, but I guess on balance I've done OK. There are cat-people to be found, if I have the patience to look for them.

Here's to all the cats I've cared for, feline and otherwise, here and gone, lost and found.

I thought this rather interesting looking bruise was a good souvenir from my Saturday competing in the Aggie Invitational where I managed to qualify for Collegiate Nationals, by 3 lbs. I believe. Though I'm sure this will be cringe-inspiring in some of you, I assure you this actually doesn't hurt much at all. I got these bruises from my knee wraps on the squat, which our coach wrapped decently tight.

I'M GOING TO NATIONALS!


I was able to deadlift 250 lbs. even though I'd never even tried that much in order to make the qualifying totals. Good to know I don't have to rely entirely on my bench press to carry me.

Stolen from dartmouth05...

If you'd like to play along, put the iPod/mp3 player/music library/etc. on shuffle, and shuffle to the next song for each answer.

Don't cheat and keep shuffling; post the first song that comes up, no matter how silly!

How does the world see me?

"Losing Grip" by Avril Lavigne

Oh, freakin' great. Just when I thought I was gettin' it together!

How is my life going?

"Homecoming/The Death of St. Jimmy/E. 12th St./Nobody Likes You/Rock and Roll Girlfriend/We're Coming Home Again" by Green Day

Wow. Complex much? I suppose that's about par for the course, though.

Will I have a happy life?

"Lake of Fire" by Nirvana

Damn, really pitchin' a winner here today!

What do my friends really think of me?

"The Light from a Cake" by Camper Van Beethoven

WTF???

Do people secretly lust after me?

"The Wrong Man was Convicted" by Barenaked Ladies

Wow, um...K.

How can I make myself happy?

"The Last Song I'm Wasting on You" by Evanescence

Sigh...I had way too easy of a time connecting that one up.

What should I do with my life?

"Pale September" by Fiona Apple

Oh, I got it! Every September, my students will pale from the fear of having me for class! Sweet.

Will I ever have children?

"Debaser" by The Pixies.

This one really speaks for itself.

What is some good advice for me?

"It's All About the Pentiums Baby" by Weird Al

But, ehh, I don't have enough money for a new computer!

How will I be remembered?

"Flesh and Bone" by Jimmy Buffett

Aww, and here I wanted to pawn myself off as a goddess who required eternal worship lest I haunt folks and peek behind closed bedroom doors.

What is my signature dance song?

"Bungle in the Jungle" by Jethro Tull

Yeah, that's fair.

What do I think my current theme song is?

"We Are Not Going to Make It" by POTUSA

Man, what is with the negativity here, peeps?

What song will play at my funeral?

"Midnight Train to Georgia" covered by the Indigo Girls

OK, so, having a funeral's right out.

What type of men do I like?

"Prince Ali" from Disney's Aladdin

Huh. Well, I guess Aladdin is kinda cute. Dark and mischievous is something I can get behind.

What is my day going to be like?

"Here is Gone" by the Goo Goo Dolls

That's it, I'm going back to bed right now.

In case anyone still needed proof that I am exactly seven years old...







Happy New Year, everyone!

First line from 20 iPod songs on shuffle makes a poem and...GO

SHE CAME IN THROUGH THE BATHROOM WINDOW

I work all night I work all day to pay the bills I have to pay
They see me mowin' my front lawn, I know they all thinkin' I'm so white and nerdy
Ya don't wanna speak my name, mess around get that azz blown away
She's not the kind of girl who likes to tell the world about the way she feels about herself

Hey there break your bones Mr. Jones
Shout, shout, let it all out! These are the things I can do without!
Are you aware of what you make me feel, baby?
What's the matter Mary Jane, had a hard day?

Rock me Amadeus!
(Take her home, she's wasted!) You can be as loud as the hell you want, when you're makin' love
I want to break free
You say, you say you don't feel like yourself...does that mean you're somebody else?

What you think about a girl like me, buy my own car and spend my own money?
Yes it's true that I believe I'm weaker than I used to be
Don't wanna be a Canadian idiot!
Thought the time was past when I could find beauty in birds

Every stem in her mouth she could tie in a knot
Scar tissue that I wish you saw sarcastic Mr. Know-It-All
So this ain't the end, I saw you again today, I had to turn my heart away
Haji was a punk just like any other boy

So today at powerlifting practice, I tried out my bench press shirt for the first time. For anyone who doesn't know what that is, it's a mega-tight shirt made out of a stretchy (yeah, right) material that explodes the bar off of your chest when you press up. Thought some might appreciate the results:







In case anyone was wondering, yes, everyone's arms look like that afterwards. People who use the squat suit get the stripes around their thighs as well. We haven't tried to jam me into a squat suit yet. Not exactly looking forward to it...

Oh yeah and I dislocated my shoulder again. Kinda getting sick of always having to pop it back in.

Tags: awesome, lifting, ow

What an awesome pic. Thanks to musenji from the OO.net chatroom for finding this!

Thanks to slipstream_chan for putting up this test. I figured I'd take it myself and see what I got...

Your result for The Heart Test...

Lively Heart

You are 90% Independent, 70% Idealistic, 30% Intimate, and 10% Indulgent!

Well, it's finally time. I've lived in the neighborhood of Dartmouth College for nearly 6 years now and my tenure here is at its end. I'm hittin' the road, Texas-bound, to go get me a PhD in KICKING YOUR ASS. No, actually, it's a PhD in Biological Anthropology, but isn't that like kicking your ass? Except with theories and facts and studies and such? Yeah, I think so.

Tuesday afternoon my lovely boys and I are dragging our junk 2000-odd miles to our new home. I feel a lot of things right now, but my overall feeling is one of intense excitement because I'm about to be doing exactly what I've wanted to do for so long. This is living the dream, to be sure. I'll miss Lebanon, but I do need to get out of dodge for a few years. Texas should be fun, actually. My parents used to live there, in Del Rio by the Air Force base. Granted, College Station is about as far from Del Rio as you can get and still be in TX, but oh well.

To a new adventure! To a new life! To the next step! (OK, yeah, that American Pie reference was lame, I admit it.)

I just got back from karaoke tonight a little while ago. It was great. I went with my pal Kari who usually sings with me. There weren't many people on the rotation tonight so we both got to do a ton of songs.

Stuff I did:

Gimme Shelter (Rolling Stones)
Plush (Stone Temple Pilots)
Ocean Avenue (Yellowcard)
Best of You (Foo Fighters)
Walk On By (Dionne Warwick)
Broken (Seether feat. Amy Lee)

Kari also had a great night of singing mostly classic 60s and 70s stuff. People at the bar were coming up and telling us how awesome we were. Also one dude asked me if Kari was my mom. Thought that was pretty funny. While Kari does remind me of Mom in a few ways, I told the fellow that Kari was too young to be my mom, which I believe made her chuckle.

I also ran into one of my coworkers who is pretty friendly. She was out with her new manfellow tonight and I met him. We talked quite a bit. I'm not so skittish about having my direct reports see me outside of work anymore. I know I've only got a couple months left at the job. Why not have them know me a little bit? Like I always say, if you can't handle the Real Mad Kat (tm), then you can just sit on it.

I don't have much time left up here in the Upper Valley. I'd like to enjoy what I can before it's all over and my life moves on, with or without me.

I'm chilling here in my living room watching Squidbillies, and on the couch are my two incredible boys, one of the furry human variety, and our baby of the furry feline variety. They are so cute. It sucks that our couch isn't really big enough for me to lay on Bry when he's on it without crushing/injuring/greatly inconveniencing him, so I have to watch from afar. It's a nice sight. I've lost nearly all semblance of family over the past year and a half or so, except for this. My mate and our kitty pal are what I've got now, and I must say that ain't a bad deal. Sometimes I feel so trapped, and like I've got so much hanging over me that I'll never get out from under, and maybe that's true. But what I got here is nothing to be brushed off lightly. I promised my fella that I'll always take care of him, and that's exactly what I intend to do.

Today is my father's 57th birthday. I find that I have no idea what to say to him. I have to call him but after the strange conversation we had yesterday I just don't know what can come of this.

yeargh

Tags: father figure

Thought I ran into you down on the street
Then it turned out to only be a dream
I made a point to burn all of the photographs
She went away and then I took a different path
I remember the face but I can't recall the name
Now I wonder how Whatsername has been

Seems that she disappeared without a trace
Did she ever marry ol' Whatsisface?
I made a point to burn all of the photographs
She went away and then I took a different path
I remember the face but I can't recall the name
Now I wonder how Whatsername has been

Remember, whatever, it seems like forever ago
Remember, whatever, it seems like forever ago
No regrets, are useless in my mind, she's in my head I must confess
No regrets, are useless in my mind, she's in my head so long ago

And in the darkest night
If my memory serves me right
I'll never turn back time
Forgetting you but not the time

I'm still not even used to it being 2008 yet, much less May. Tis been a long, strange ride these past few months. I barely recognize my Lebanon landscape sometimes, not so much in the way of the scenery, which always follows its seasonal pattern, but more in terms of the people. So many changes, both bad and good, but all unforeseen. I notice that the trees are finally starting to blossom.

Yeah, it's not often that I feel the need to shamelessly geek out over something, but tonight is one of those nights. It's an absolute necessity.









Yoruichi Shihoin.

Haven't updated this in a while, so I figured I'd get it caught up just a bit. Firstly, I FINALLY GOT INTO GRAD SCHOOL. YES I DID. I'm going to Texas A&M in August to start my PhD in Biological Anthropology. I'm funded for the first year, and after that I'll be TAing. Yaay teaching evolution to an evangelical Christian student body! But that's ok. I think it will be fun, actually. I can't wait to get it all going.

Another major life twist is that I've finally been living with my sweeter half, my Bryan-fella, for a good six months now. It's really been great. Coming home to your best friend every day? Dinner on the stove? Free, willing, and available tail anytime I need it? Yeah, this is the life. And we've even got our "baby"...a curmudgeonly orange kitty who is, far from being a baby, a venerable 16 years of age. Picture below.




Those are the biggies. I have a bunch of other stuff going on as well, but these were the "major developments" since I last wrote here. I do intend to be a bit more on top of things coming up.

Signing off and out.