Lesson for today

I'm learning that walking a cat is iterative. A cat will not go out and around the block. A suitably adventurous cat who doesn't mind a collar will go

out on the porch, then back in;
out on the porch, around behind the porch chairs and back in;
out on the porch, around behind the porch chairs, over to the potted plant and back in;
out on the porch, around behind the porch chairs, over to the potted plant, down two steps and back in;
out on the porch, around behind the porch chairs, over to the potted plant, down two steps, down to the sidewalk and back in.

"Surely," said I, "Surely that is something at my window lattice..."

* I've spent a good portion of the weekend memorizing The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe. I'm very, very close now to having the whole thing. I am very excited about this. :)

* I had a flexibility dream last night in which I was able to bring my foot to my head in king pigeon pose, on both sides, using a wall to help me. It was so realistic, and it felt so good! I woke up and I still so can't do that! Motherfucker!!!

* I'm reading Life-Size, a book about an anorexic woman that I bought (despite its triggering nature) because it's so well-written. In some ways, it's written in the way that I would like to write, that the writer I would like to be might write. I'm fascinated by the switches it makes between scenes of immediacy and detail, and descriptions that cover more time. I think now that dialogue doesn't scare me as much, the passage of time in stories is the thing I have the most trouble negotiating gracefully in my own writing.

* I seem unable to fall nicely from a handstand to a bridge, even a shallow elbows-bent bridge. Ow... head hurts. Next time I want to know if I can or can't do something acrobatic, I will not do so on a hardwood floor when I am alone in the house. And if I do, then after I fall on my head the first time I will not try again.

* There is a large stampede afoot in which people are apparently trying to get away from me. All right, I know that isn't true, but... of my four in-town female friends, one has plans to move, another is 7 months pregnant and about to have no time for friends, and one is thinking seriously about moving; another less close one, who worked in my building and went to yoga at my studio, has stopped going to that studio and dropped to working 1 day a week (and her company is moving to Kendall Square in August). That leaves B, whose job as a teacher is nearly all-consuming, and my male friends, of whom I have 2-3 pretty good ones (and aykroyd's recent attempts to move to LA were recently thwarted. ha). So that's my awesome social sitch... and if you tease me about having an abandonment complex I will reach right through the Internet and pinch your nose, hard! I don't really worry about it anymore when people leave, because they do have an uncanny way of coming back through, but, sheesh. Nobody gets into my IRL social circle from now on unless they love Boston.

I'm going to go study The Raven some more.