freakishly prompt

so, i didn't mean to, but i accidentally decided not to tweet for a week to see if anyone would notice the absence of my 140-character-at-a-time addition to the interwebs.

no one did.

wait, that's not entirely true. my mother noticed. after the third day, she sent me a text asking where my tweets were.

thanks, mom. i knew you loved me best!

this is good information to have, i suppose. i should be leaving a week's worth of food and water out for the kittens because that seems to be the minimum amount of time they'd be without anyone coming to check for my body if i happened to suddenly expire. of course, they could just eat me, but i like to believe they love me too much to desecrate my corpse after only five days.

yes, you could call me an optimist!

but, because i didn't want you to go entirely without my tweetitude, here are the tweets i would have tweeted if i'd been tweeting this week:

• sick day. blergh.
• happy (belated) birthday, @kickpleat!
• suddenly obsessed with getting an iMac. too bad i have no money and all future monies i may receive are spoken for.
• wash hands. apply lotion. wash hands. apply lotion. wash hands. apply lotion.
• i'm getting tired of waking up an hour after i've gone to bed. wide awake. THIS IS NOT NAP TIME, DAMMIT!
• red licorice and tomato soup do not make for a nutritious dinner.
• how long should i wait for a charge to appear on my credit card before i can safely assume i got my parking for free?
• it's taken almost eleven months, but i think my belly button is finally back to not being all weird from surgery.
• i really wish it wasn't such a big deal. #obamalovesthegays
• at $50/mo., it would take me 6 years 4 months to buy all the tech i want today.
• of course the first person to notice i hadn't tweeted in three days would be my mother. you didn't notice, did you?
• ow. owowowowow.
• mewling quim! i love you joss whedon.
• i feel like getting shwarma now.
• i'm going to pay for this in the morning, but that was really, really worth it. really.
• happy fifth tweeting anniversary to me! (how ironic is it that i'm not tweeting on it.)
• @rose_and_amy need to stop being so adorable in the mornings. it makes it too heart-wrenching to get out of bed.
• if Ian Somerhalder plays Christian Grey in the movie, i might just die from the sexy. (yes, i'm reading FSofG. shut up, you read Twilight!)

i wasn't looking forward to going back to work today, so i put myself to bed at a reasonable hour and, despite the rainy traffic noise i managed to fall asleep and get myself into some pretty immersive dreams.

then i heard the yowling.

it woke me up enough to realize that it was a mournful cat sound and i sleepily called out "Rose! it's okay. come to bed!" thinking it was her meyowling out the window at some emo raindrops as she's wont to do.

what seemed like a couple of hours later, the yowling got louder and more regular and i realized neither kitten was hogging my bedspace, so i got up to see what the problem was. both cats were hovering around the door to my aparment with HUGE eyes and inconsolable twitching. i tried to cuddle them into submission but they were having none of it. i hunted for poop/puke piles and checked food/water. nothing was amiss. finally, i shut them in the bathroom to avoid bolting, put on my robe and opened the door to the hall.

imagine my sleepy surprise to find the above pictured tuxedo cat hissing at me after midnight. it was the one doing the yowling and disturbing my kittens through the gap below my door. it wouldn't have anything to with me besides growling at my existence and when i walked both downstairs and up to see if any apartment doors were ajar, he (or so i assume) was always half a hall away and scowling like Cleo.

i went back inside my apartment and texted my super asking if the new people upstairs had a black and white cat, stuffed a towel under the door to block out any stressful sounds/smells in hopes my kittens would calm the fuck down and then i proceeded to spend the next hour stressed out about this damn hallway cat.

where did he come from? is he a resident of my building? did he sneak in an outside door and get stuck? if he did live there, why didn't his people miss him? why hasn't anyone else heard the mournful meyowling and investigated? why didn't i get my kittens rabies shots so i could take him in for the night? where the fuck were his people? why hasn't my super answered my midnight text message? am i ever going to get back to sleep?

i somehow managed to fall asleep and stay so until my alarm started faking daylight just after four a.m. i hadn't heard any more yowling, so i hoped that someone had realized the situation and brought him back inside. i was wrong. he yowled again. oh, fuck.

i decided to ignore the issue until after my shower as my kittens weren't as anxious and upset as they'd been earlier (i guess the towel trick worked - yay). so, after i'd cleaned up and the girls had been fed, i peeked out the door again to see the situation. i hadn't heard anything more and couldn't see him at first, but i the sound of my deadbolt unlocking brought him up the stairs to see what was going on. i spotted his ears peeking up over the top step and heard his morning hissing.

by now he'd been in the halls for at least seven hours without amenities, so i put out a tiny bit of dry food and a small cup of water for him and he eagerly and, dare i say it, happily came prancing over to check it out. i thought maybe he'd realized i wasn't an enemy until he growled the entire time he was chewing. ungrateful jerk!

i went back inside to get back to my morning routine to prepare to go return to the daily slog and happened to hear another apartment door open, close and then an exterior door do the same. hoping this was Tuxie's owner getting up early, i peeked into the hall. no, cat was still there, but the early leaving neighbour had picked up the dish of food and put it up on a ledge where the hallway cat couldn't get it. WTF?!

why would this person take the food away from the cat? WHY? if it wans't their cat, why would they bother? if it was their cat, why didn't they just put him back in their apartment? grr, fuck! i was (and still am, obviously) fucking confused by this behaviour. so, being the sucker i am, i put on shoes (because, by this point, hallway cat was guarding the hall with hissing and threats of violence and i didn't want to get blooded by a strange feline before six a.m.) to go return the food to the floor so he could return to breakfast. which he happily, and hungrily, did.

i wish i had a happy ending to this tale as he was lounging on those stairs when i left for work at 7 a.m. i'm going to call the super on my lunch break to see if he knows who the cat belongs to and, if he doesn't, hope that he's just not been let loose into the wild.

this kind of thing guts me entirely. i wish i'd had the balls to go knocking on doors at one a.m. i wish i'd been able to take him in to feel less scared. i wish his people weren't such heartless fuckers to not give a shit about where he'd been all night.

thank god it's March!

my NO SPEND MONTH experiment went fairly well, i'd say. i didn't feel entirely deprived and i learned to say "no" and "not yet" instead of "mastercard" and "charge it". my mom suggested i keep a list of all the things i didn't buy but wanted to during the month. so, here are the things i didn't buy myself on the day i wanted to:

1. adorable ball jar salt & pepper shakers - $15 (these arrived in my mailbox without me ordering them -- thanks, Jane!)
2. lunch - $10 (thanks, chris!)
3. awesome london throw pillow - $90
4. chinese food - $27
5. all the things at old navy - $80
6. cute crocs - $35
7. cat shirt for boy - $30
8. custom free things - $8
9. new laundry basket to replace my breaking one - $10
10. new floor lamp to replace my broken one - $40 (i ended up fixing my lamp for free!)
13. lunch - $10 (thanks, chichi!)
14. cheesecake - $7
15. glee songs from itunes - $3
17. chicken & yogurt - $25
18. expensive razors with built-in lube - $15
21. lottery ticket & full-size haagen-dazs - $13
23. gorgeous 24 hours in london print - $40
24. discount snowflake throw pillows - $13
27. groupon for nando's - $10

total not spent: $481

but, to be totally honest, i did somehow manage spend $155 of my own money at the casino where my mom took me after picking me up at the ferry last weekend. i also spent $25 at Shoppers that i accrued into March so i would have enough cash money to buy snacks & yogurt for the ANTM viewing party on the last day of the month. that's not exactly cheating, is it?

all in all, it was a worth-while exercise and i'm fairly impressed with my willpower.

now, i'll just have to resist the urge to run out and buy all the things on that list above! ;)

i'm halfway through my NO SPEND MONTH and things seem pretty good so far. the first week was pretty dodgy, but now that we're on the downhill slope things are getting easier. it helps that i've been able to go out for meals with friends and i haven't yet had to break out the sardines which have been hiding out in my cupboard for who knows how long.

i've been keeping a list of things i didn't buy (which i will publish at the end of the month), but i find that as the month progresses there's fewer things i have to stop myself from purchasing. i think they call that progress.

otherwise... yeah. hi.

i came home from ValenTaco Tuesday last night to find a box of chocolates and a card on my kitchen table from my dad. he snuck in during the day and left them for me. AWW! i have the best dad ever. no, really. i'll totally fight you if you think differently.

ever feel like you have something stuck in your throat but you know you don't and all the coughing and swallowing in the world never makes it go away? turns out that's a thing. it's called cricopharyngeal spasms. turns out it's not cancer and just a "cramp" in the little valve in your layrnx which opens and closes when you swallow. now you know!

i love my kindle. why? it's only the seventh week of 2012 and i've already read seven books (and will have read eight by the end of today). don't believe me? go check out my goodreads stats (sign up required, sorry)! seriously, i haven't read this voraciously in so many years. it's awesome. of course, it doesn't hurt that i'm mostly reading YA fluff, but whatever. it's just nice to be excited about books again. it's been a long time. too long. so, yeah, thank you, kindle. you're my hero.

btw, if you like dystopian YA (The Hunger Games, Divergent), go read Marie Lu's Legend. it's fantastic! (thanks, Shan!)

as is tradition, i'll be damn glad when january is over. ugh, this month! what is it about this month?

***

everytime i'm in the kitchen slicing a lot of something, i think about that late series episode of Dawson's Creek in which Pacey is working in the restaurant owned by that kind of jerky rich guy. he's given a bushel of potatoes and told to slice them as thinly as he can. after something like a month of slicing bowl upon giant bowl of potatoes he finally has a Pacey-style hissy fit and is all "why am i slicing all these goddamn potatoes?!" and his dick boss hands him a dish and says "so you don't waste these super-expensive truffles".

i don't know why i think of that, but i do. then i think about how that was kind of a pivotal moment for Pacey as he finally found something he was willing to suffer through to the end because it was like he knew cooking was going to be the one thing he was really good at. lucky for him he found someone to teach him.

btw, i may have that all completely wrong, but it's how i remember it. so there.

***

seriously, why do you people like me?

***

i haven't been to the gym since...early october? maybe late september. i can practically feel my muscles turning into fat. i have so many owies it's like i'm 80 when i try to get out of bed at 5am. you'd think that would inspire me to get back to it, right? you'd be wrong. besides the fact that i barely have enough energy to get from work to home and from the car to a supine position on my new couch means that just the thought of -- shudder -- exercise exhausts me. then all the ow which i know will come from abusing what's left of my muscles... ugh. no thanks.

seriously, they're not kidding when they say the hardest part of working out is just getting in the gym.

i'm trying to gear myself up mentally for it. but... that's three hours less kitten time per week! how could i ever survive?

***

speaking of kittens, i think they've broken me.

pre-cats i was a sucker for animal and senior welfare, but now i seem to be some total pansy-ass compassionate do-gooder. or at least i would be if i weren't too scared to talk to strangers.

it just seems that i'm suddenly finding myself being empathicly drawn to people and creatures which seem to be in distress. and, if i can't actually help them, find myself getting all sniffly and worrying about them long past my observation of them.

last week, i saw a pigeon in distress while i was driving back to work after lunch. i cried all the way to the office because i couldn't help it because i had to go back to the office.

yesterday, i saw this woman on the sidewalk being held tightly on the upper arm by a man. she wasn't looking at him, but out at the cars driving by. i wanted to turn around and find some excuse to interrupt them to ascertain if she was being manhandled. later on my commute, a man was squatting down while holding a small black book against his face with the palms of his hands. it looked like he might be crying. i wanted to go back and ask him if he was okay.

but, i didn't.

and i worry that makes me a bad person.

what's worse? not noticing these things and feeling a compassionate need to assist or noticing & feeling but not doing anything but fucking blogging about it?

christmas ruined me.

well, it wasn't just christmas. it was the most expensive haircut i've ever had. then it was LONDON. then the new iPhone. then the new dress & shoes & handbag. then christmas. then travelling to/from the island. then the new couch. then Christopher's 40th birthday & party. then the $50 pen. then the destination wedding accommodations. then, then, then...

everything i've spent in the last four months has seemed needed and important and, when taken separately, affordable. but now? i'm all tapped out and determined to cast off this cloak of consumerism i've been wearing for too many purchases. it's been a slow death by a thousand cuts and i'm so very tired of bleeding. let me be clear: i'm not in debt for any of these purchases. i have the cash to pay for them all; but, it's eating into my savings and that is starting to freak me out and piss me off.

to that end, i am declaring February NO SPEND MONTH.

other than things i've already budgeted for (thankfully, that's a lot), i'm not spending anything. that means, when my food & grocery money is spent, i either rummage in my cupboards for miracle meals or i starve. when my entertainment budget is blown, i will not be going out where i will have to pay monies.

hopefully, i will be able to live below my budget for the month and then maybe have a little bit left over to put back into those deflated savings accounts; but, i'll be happy to be at net zero come the end of Feb.

this declaration is part public commitment to my plan and a head's up to all those who care that i may be even more hermity next month -- especially the last few days -- if things don't go well.

since you arrived from my friend Jodi Chromey, you've been my constant companion for the last eight years, six months and 18 days. you've travelled with me through four countries, in cars, on boats, in planes and on buses. you've written letters, cheques, daily drivel and secret notes.

today, as i was screwing in a new ink cartridge, you finally collapsed. your beautiful red barrel cracked. i couldn't believe my eyes. i denied the reality before me as you tore yourself apart trying to get one. last. cartridge. inside you for me to use.

i've ordered your replacement, but know that you'll never truly be replaced. thank you for all the words, dearest Lamy. you will never be forgotten.

hi!

2011... didn't suck.

i visited the ER a couple times. got an organ sucked out of my belly button. went to LONDON! and PARIS! paid off a bank loan i'd been carrying (in one form or another) since 1997. had the best 39th birthday a girl could hope for. gave blood -- twice! bought a new couch. i wore dresses! met George Stroumboulopoulos and he is still my voicemail message. i learned to love my kindle. played with glass & painted pottery. i purged, purged and purged again. and, i got my hair professionally coloured for the first time.

of course, it wasn't all bubble tea & kittens. i had a lot of stress and a lot of SAD. i struggled but i think i made it through in one piece. maybe even a little bit better than i was before it started.

i didn't feel like ringing in 2012 with a lot of hoopla. i stayed at home, ate pizza, watched some tv and was in bed by 10pm. i was woken by yelling neighbours just before midnight and stayed awake to hear the year tick over. then i kissed a kitten head and went back to sleep.

for this year, i'm not asking for a lot. i'd like it to be free of hospitals, big bills and anxiety/depression. i'd like it to be filled with more friends, kitten bellies and adventures. i want to get back to the gym. i want to eat more veggies. i want to continue to reduce the things i'm caretaking so that i can spend more time with the people (and kittens) i care for. i want to be smarter with my money. i want to be a better daughter, friend and employee.

mostly, i want to not freak the fuck out because i'm turning 40 this summer. ugh.

2012. wtf, right? that was freakin' science fiction when i was a kid. who knew we'd actually be alive to see it?

so... i went to London & Paris last month. it was awesome. i might blog about it, but Kimli already did in such detail and with typical panache, that i kind of feel like there's not much more i could add. it's been three weeks since i returned home and i haven't done a damn thing with the 1,500 photos i took, either. i just... ugh.

in some ways, i don't want to talk or write or post anything about it. i find myself savouring moments and experiences by turning them around and over inside my brain, like slowly sucking on a really good candy, trying to more firmly implant the memories so i won't lose any of the delicious details. it was everything i could have hoped the experience could be. it was just too short and i would love nothing more than to go back. right now. for a year.

but, the three weeks since i've been home? suck. i got sick in Europe and kept that up for a good week and a half after i got home. then, just as i thought i was better, i got hit again. on top of some seriously debilitating muscle spasms in my back & neck laying me up and making me whimper, cramps from hell, a mystery foot injury and, the biggest culprit of my autumn misery: all the dark. i've been hiding from everything except work and cats. i've bailed on at least two fun times because i just can't bother, it's so dark, it's cold, i spent all my money in England, i'm sleepy, i'm sore, etc. so, i've been staying home and getting rid of stuff. i've been wanting to do a huge purge for a long while now, so at least my hermitage is paying off that way.

otherwise, yeah. i fucking hate this time of year. stuck inside during the only daylight; coming & going in the dark. even with all the lights on full, by 6pm i feel like i should be in bed (and i'm surprised if i'm still awake after 9). this happens every year and in another couple weeks i should be acclimated, but until then? UGH.

i'm thinking that i'm going to eschew gifts this christmas season. i don't want stuff and, well, i'm broke. i might bake, though. i've done so twice in the last week (which is 500% more than in the last two years) and it didn't suck (and kittens didn't care enough to get in the way, which is a bonus). we'll see. i might change my mind if i find something i want someone to buy me. heh.

so, in conclusion, i miss you, i really do. you're just going to have to come over and hang out with me in my dark, empty apartment while i wear pajama pants and wonder why you like me. okay?

i'm having a hard time keeping the tears back today. i've been worrying for two weeks and this is a trigger day for reasons i don't want to put on the internet. getting to the sad, dog dying part of the book i'm reading didn't help matters. nor are all these awesome hormones i'm battling.

so, i need to think nice things.

last night was full of nice things. i had a bunch of fun people over to watch the premiere of America's Next Top Model All-Stars. i also finally (after first deciding it was a good idea) got my wednesday night salad party. yay! although, some people thought that salad was made of cookies or pudding & truffles. i LOVE those kind of people! i even got brave and brought a co-worker into the mix. she got totally fooled and thought all my friends were great. silly co-worker! ;)

and, i managed to have an almost entirely dish-washing-free evening. other than a few bowls and serving utensils, i didn't have to do any dishes! wahoo!

the kittens were charming and everyone said all the nice things about how tiny and soft and cute and adorable and awesome they are. i'm pretty sure i now know what parental pride feels like. of course, Amy had to be Amy and right in the middle of watching the show, she up and climbed on the plasma tv to entertain my guests. i love my cats. =)

i'm trying hard to make it until quitting time. i wish i could just go home, bury myself in kittens and cry my worry out, but i can't. so, instead, i write blog posts and wish my day away. why is it so hard sometimes? it doesn't seem quite fair.