goodbye / hello again

"It's the first day of PItt." The vivacious girl with blonde wavy hair and a college t-shirt says this to the slightly harried woman with short brunette hair and a polo shirt. All across the streets of lower Oakland are ad hoc artifacts of car and crowd control. The roundabout in front of the hotel near this coffee shop is high-traffic right now. Sandwich boards made out of plywood and newsprint say NO PARKING in hastily scrawled sharpie. 

The blonde girl is head of a dorm check-in operation that she's running from the big wooden table near the door of the Caribou. I'm sitting a few seats away, contemplating my own ... new beginning isn't the right word for it. I'm telling myself this stay with my folks is kind of like a writing retreat. I've never been to one. Maybe I will have the time to do some research / application while I'm chillin in Allentown. It feels like a new beginning though. I could sense my flea-stress palpably release as I was dragging my much-too-heavy suitcase over the busted sidewalks on Meyran. 

The airport peeps are totally gonna weigh that shit and charge me an extra fee, then mark it with a big bright tag that reads HEAVY. I always used to make fun of Stina b/c her luggage would get tagged like this routinely. Stina, if you're reading this, it's karmic payback time for Jilly. 

I've never been on vacation for a month. My vacations are more in the weekend mini-break range. Two weeks is really luxurious / the amount of time I can be away from my cats before going a little insane with missing them.

Right now they are making me a little insane with their presence. I feel bad about that. They are the equivalent of my kids, because I don't want to have kids, yet I have this maternal affection that needs to go somewhere. But the OCD has really gotten in the way with loving them right now. I feel bad because they can't understand why I've been avoiding them and I can't explain it. Our relationship is based a lot on touch-as-communicatin, on soothing, comfort and mutual purring. 

The oldest one, Ruskin (he turned 14 last week) is probably suffering the most, because he's the least likely to go to another person besides me for affection. Also, after Ravi's territorial marking problem (yes, he's neutered; no, we don't know exactly why he's doing it) we've kicked all cats out of the bedroom. Rus would snuggle with me at night. It was one of his great joys. Some cats are joyful naturally. Rus is not one of them. 

It's funny. Rus would herd me off to bed. Like when he knew it was time for bed, he would follow me around meowing as I was doing the whole brush-teeth-wash-face thing. Mowwww. Mowwwww. You're taking too long! Sometimes he would get on the bed before me, right in my spot, nailing down the covers so I couldn't get in. And sprawl there. Like you had your chance but you were toooooo slow. And we would play a game to get him off the bed. He would resist jumping down for a few moments and then huff off in a grand display of huffiness, only to return the second I got in and pulled the covers up.

I hope when we replace the rug, seal the floor, and cover it with laminate or some such, we can let the cats back in and Rus can resume his snuggling. 

It hurts both of us that I can barely touch him.

I can't help but wonder how OCD would affect my loving of a baby. I mean, my physical loving. Babies can get really realllllly messy, and you're with them 24/7. I don't want to dwell on that too much, because it makes me sad. I would like to think I'd get desensitized. And bugs, one of my major triggers, on a child, are far less likely. Anything a child can produce is not nearly as triggering for me as bugs. 

I sincerely hope a month away with Mike working on the flea issue will help this whole crazy situation. 

I never used to Frontline the cats consistently. That will change now. 

Anyway, I'm looking forward to my month away, at least right now. There will a lot of stress taken away, by being gone, but some stress added. I hope to spend more time writing, reading, submitting, working out, doing yoga, and then holy moly I GET TO GO TO THE SHORE. It's been forever. Like almost ten years since I've gotten to go. 

Gotta sign off now. Time to go to airport.

Aiton sent me this & I heart it: