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Of Pets and People and Bad Japanese Poetry *huh?* 2006.06.04 |
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A week ago I bought a book: "Cats for Dummies." For those of you who don't know, there is a series of books called "XXXX for Dummies" that has been popular in the United States since I can remember, and covers just about everything from computers to relationships and cliffnotes. As I want to get a cat, and I don't want to kill it out of incompetence, I resolved to buy the book and read it through. I won't read all of it though, since part was on chosing the right breed of cat, and I'm simply thinking of going outside and finding the dirtiest, strangest, funkiest looking mutt-cat I can, and then bringing it home and naming it "Fluffy." It will probably be very un-fluffy-like and ratty and try to eat the furniture I suppose, but I can accept that as long as it leaves my My Little Ponies and shoes alone. Hopefully it will look like a cow. And I will love it dearly. -- personal anectdotes - those desirous of just lolita please skip to next dotted line -- When I was younger we had two dogs, Moose and Dancer, and 4 hermit crabs and a cricket. I would tote the hermit crabs to school with me, and was thus known as "the hermit crab girl"....the cricket was also mostly mine, as everyone could tell. It would come over and look at me when I talked to it, and play with me, and we were very happy for 2 years until I left it in the care of my friend for a week and it died...everyone says it was out of longing for me, as a joke. I didn't really think much of that though; I just cried... Um....other than that, we had the poodles. Moose was little and fat and fluffy, and would run up hills and then trip and roll down again guru guru guru. He wasn't the brightest of dogs perhaps, and he ate socks and made weird noises in his sleep and scared us all to death (the neighbor already insisted our house was haunted), but when it mattered, he really was a good dog. For example, when my father was being threatened by a dog one time, Moose turned around and ran away (laughs)....BUT...he circled around, came up behind the other dog, and ended up scaring him away. So he was a good dog. The other dog, Dancer, weighed about 2 pounds and looked emaciated. She lurked in the coat closet and growled at you if you came near her, and sometimes tried to bite you. But she scared Moose, and she scared us, and she didn't need to run up behind other dogs to scare those away too......she was, I believe, the closest you can get to a living Malebronche. Yet we loved her too. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- But thinking about all of this made me wonder something else; if I did get a cat, would it simply be in place of someone else? Back on the morning of July 18, 2005, right after the kick-off party for the Tokyo Gay and Lesbian Film Festival (it had been suggested I come by the person organizing the event), I was sitting in the dressing room talking to Rachel D'Amour. Now for those who don't know, which I assume is most people, he is a a dancer who performs at drag events. I suppose he's rather much like a drag queen, but he considers himself a dancer and a performer, and so I chose to introduce him to you as such. The first time I saw him he was in a school girl uniform and giant goth boots swinging chains around as he danced (laughs). It looked dangerous~ Well, at any rate, I was talking to him and the conversation turned to loneliness. There's actually a term....sabishigarisan....which I quite like, and which seems fitting in this particular case, and indeed in many others as well. He's a beautiful person, Rachel. Upfront he told me he wasn't very intelligent, but some of the things he said affected me on a much deeper level than anything my professors or anyone else have ever said. And one of these particular things was about pets. When I asked him if he was lonely he replied yes. And when I asked him why he didn't get a pet, he replied... "Because it would be unfair to the animal. I would always see it as a substitute for a human." ...what a beautiful thing to say. Respect for life...... And so I was thinking about that, and about whether I really deserve to own a cat. Because cat or person, everything and everyone deserves to be loved for what it is. But then I remembered my cricket, and my hermit crabs...and I really think I could love a cat as a cat, and not as a replacement for a person. So consequently do these days find me in the midst of job searching and planning for living alone....with my cat.....and my giant barbie cardboard cut out.....because I'm taking it with me when I move out. The view from the entranceway-it was a joint family decision to put it there to hide the TV wires.... Oh but enough of Barbie! These days also find me thinking of someone.
I've very confused right now. My head's been going guru guru like
my poodle for the past year or so (some things I don't quite understand
happened last July), and with recent events things just keep getting
more and more confusing. Am I in love? And with whom.....? With what?..........who
am I...? Oh, right, I'm a silly little girl (bitter laugh) I do feel truly sorry for everyone who's in love right now and can't be with that person. But in the end, there's nothing to do but hope, is there? And you mustn't give up on that, no matter how much it hurts...of course don't just sit there and mope either though (laughs) At any rate, there is only one thing I can say in the end, and it
is in bad Japanese poetry. 何処にたどり着いたの 何この変な迷路？ Next week I really ought to talk about mental sado-masochism, another
Rachel concept.
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