i hate writing when i don't feel like it, or i am not interested in it.

and i have a really hard time writing haiku if i am not feeling all longing for someone. i'm a sucker, but there it is.

i'm still reeling from having read kabuki on friday. i dreamt about it every night this weekend. i have not been excited like that by something for a really long time. on the one hand, it was just so exhilarating to see something so beautiful and so well crafted, the story so intricate and well written.

on the other hand, it was terribly intimidating, making the prospect of my ever writing something worthy of being published seem impossible.

given the fact that i don't like to write when i am not feeling like it, and that i am fairly sure that even if it would occur to me to try, i could never pull something off like kabuki...well.

yes, well.

i don't want to give up before i try and all that, but come on people. have you seen that book? it's fucking breathtaking.

but, onto other topics:

everyday, i am becoming more and more convinced that stuart is actually toulouse, reincarnated.

now, i must qualify this by saying that i don't believe in reincarnation. not really. in fact, i am fairly convinced that this life is our one go-round and when we die, that's the end. i don't know how there could be an afterlife, i don't think there is any evidence for it and i am not sure eternity is for me anyhow. certainly i am suspicious of claims about the existence of a soul (even though sometimes i may act like there is such a thing, i chalk that up to my indefatigable romanticism. blast me.), and since it's obvious that for such a thing as an afterlife to be tenable it would require something like a soul, then that settles that, doesn't it? i mean, i understand arguments along the line that energy can not be destroyed only converted into other energy (or something) and that we are just energy and therefore, upon death, we are converted into some other form of energy (or something), and therefore never really die. or something. but that's a load of hooey, as this is hardly what people mean when they talk about the afterlife; they are usually talking about being able to catch up after death with all their dead loved ones, and jimi hendrix and probably other dead people too. sometimes they are talking about being able to know god/allah/insertdietyhere better or at least more closely. they are not talking about some calvin and hobbesian transmorgrafiction of life energy into some other form of the energy of the physical universe to aid in the creation of a star or something. and if that were what they meant when they talked about the afterlife, i would like to know what all the hubbub's about, bub. i mean, if there is not going to be an experiencing agent that resembles me really fucking closely (and by really fucking closely, i mean REALLY), then what do i care what happens to my energy or whatever after i shuffle off this mortal coil? i'd be willing to say right now that i don't care what-so-ever.

anyhoo, back to my cat.

so, stuart is becoming more and more like toulouse everyday.

i should probably mention here that toulouse was my cat while i was growing up; he just died a few years ago. he was, by all accounts, the most kick-assian cat that ever catted. my parents found him on a trip up at big bear, all scruffy and skinny and tiny and covered in yuck, scavengering through the garbage cans behind their rented cabin. so they cleaned him up and brought him home, where he promptly took on the project of ruling the house. for the first three months that he lived with us, he was hand fed fish, of which we had a freezer full, because my dad deep sea fished a lot. he was the king of the house. and then, he became the king of the neighbor, making up for what he lacked in size (he got 'the operation' before he gained any size to him, he was always a little small), he made up for with a quick wit and flashy kung-fu like fighting style.

he was a manx, so he had no tail. he was white and orange, he had soft hair, and he slept with me everynight. when he first came to us, he walked/hopped with a funny limp, so we contended that he was half cat, half rabbit. he was, therefore, a cabbit. he also had a theme song that we would sing, but i will not talk anymore about that. as he got older, the more my brother and sister and i were convinced that he was actually an old crochety jew reincarnated, as he had the attitude to match. set down some food that wasn't top shelf he'd throw you a look like, "what? i'm supposed to eat this, what with the dryness and the lack of the fresh fish and the... oy forget it. that's right just leave it here, leave me alone, leave me to suffer in peace! you know, hitler started with feeding cats generic dry food..." and the like. during the day, if he saw you outside, he would act like he didn't know you. during the night, however, well...suffice it to say grr-rowr! snuggle kitty!

now, stuart has been with me since the end of may. and he is starting more and more to resemble toulouse, so much so that i often call him toulouse on accident. i have stopped correcting myself.

he is about a year and half old (we cut him open and counted the rings) and that would be perfect in terms of him being toulouse reincarnated. when i first brought him home from the pound he was friendly, but aloof. lately, however, he has been becoming more and more affectionate. for instance, i wake up every morning and he is sleeping on my feet. and, even if i nap during the day, he comes up to share the bed with me. now that's the stuff.

but i was thinking about it last night, and there are other weird...well, not so much coincindendences as really tenuous connections that would only count as evidence for my assertion that stuart is the reincarnation of toulouse in a national enquirer kind of way. it's really quite eerie.

-toulouse was white with orange markings. stuart is white with black markings. they are both white with markings. surely this means something.

-toulouse had no tail and stuart's tail is really long. it's as if toulouse were, by coming back as stuart, trying to make up for his lack of tail, for which i am sure he had to defend against the careless and hurtful barbs and arrows thrown at him by neighborhood cats. also, stuart uses his tail to geat effect, like when he walks under my legs when i am at the computer and drags his tail along the back of my thighs. frisky!

-toulouse was really really small for his age/sex and stuart is absolutely enormous. he is, at last count, 16 ft tall and 450 pounds. it makes it hard to share the bed, and my ankles ache after he sleeps across my feet all night, but i feel safe.

-toulouse was really soft. stuart is really soft. freaky!

-Abraham Lincoln toulouse was elected to Congress in 1846. John F. Kennedy stuart was elected to Congress in 1946.

-Abraham Lincoln toulouse was elected President in 1860. John F. Kennedy stuart was elected President in 1960.

-The names Lincoln and Kennedy toulouse and stuart each contain seven letters, if you spell them "tulouse" and "sstuart".

-Both presidents cats were particularly concerned with civil rights.

i could go on, but you wouldn't believe me. what i have in the way of evidence would just sound too sensational.

i'm gonna go read now.

ps--

"summer dress" by red house painters: good morning, jessica.