Domestication progress has been moving slowly. Oscar has figured out what “down” means, but he still sneaks up onto counters and tables when I’m not looking. He seems to have stopped scratching the kitchen cabinets, but is continuing to tear up my nice rug. He’s also learned how to open the kitchen trash (thus defeating magnetism!) and how to dislodge the liner in the cat box. Super.

On the scratching issue, I got him a nice scratching post in addition to the doorknob-mounted thing he had before. We’ve had mixed success with this aspect of training, but its sort of humorous, so I’ll elaborate a bit.
Continue reading “Catiness”

I’m home sick and I was sleeping and I just had the strangest and most awesome dream. Basically, I was encountering second chances and opportunities missed, all in a semi-waking state. It was incredibly meta. A bunch of stuff happened, and then near the end I was in a theater, watching a great movie I had always wanted to see, but then I began to get drowsy. I dozed off several times and then sort of jolted myself awake, but then I realized it was a dream and I was waking up in *real life*, so I dove back down — and realized that I had woken up — in the dream — because the movie was over, and I had missed the amazing ending.

I looked up and there were tons of people in the theater in strange costumes, dressed like robots and people at the xkcd meetup and LARPers, and I wanted to investigate who they were and what they were doing and whether I knew any of them and if they were affiliated with BSCF…but then I got tired again, and woke myself up again, and realized it was a dream, and dove back in.

I found interesting and curious belongings scattered around my seat that may or may not have been mine, and I wanted to investigate them, see what wonders the strange bag and backpack contained, but first I had to put on a pair of shoes that were either my running shoes or my hiking shoes, depending on when I looked at them and from what angle. As I leaned over to put them on, still not quite sure what was wrong with them, I had trouble tying the laces due to drowsiness, so I forced myself to wake up…only to see the light of day and realize once again that I was in bed, and so I stopped myself, went back under.

I looked over and realized that beside me in the theater were a group of three people I had known freshman year but soon after lost touch with. We all marveled at the amazing coincident of meeting at the (conveniently clean and spacious) theater, and I tried to wake up a bit so that I could talk to them, but I realized I wasn’t really talking to them (even though I could vividly make out their faces, something that never happens to me in a dream, with my visual memory, especially for faces, generally so bad) when I woke up for real, again. This time I heard pounding, so I decided to really snap myself out of the dream, thinking maybe the cat was destroying more of the house, but it was just the cleaning crew vacuuming the hallways.

And so then I was here, and not there, and I don’t know how to find my way back. I really wish I could locate the path to semi-awake-land, but it seems to be nowhere that a waking mind can comprehend. I could try going back to sleep, but, even with a direction in my head, I don’t imagine I’d find the way. I sure hope one day I return there. And maybe have a bit more of my wits about me, and a bit more time to explore a vast subconscious brimming full with wonder and mystery.

Nike tells me that I’ve completed 40 runs for a total of 100 miles (and they even offered me the opportunity to print out an achievement certificate to “prove” it). I’m not sure that this particular accomplishment is super-impressive (average 2.5 miles per run, eh) but I guess its certainly better than nothing. Maybe my goal should be to get to my next 100 miles in hmm, say, 30 runs. And then the next 100 in 20? Its just a lot harder to keep motivated on this little quest at this particular time in my life/the season/etc. Maybe I really should post the certificate on my wall. 🙂

Having a big Berkman project kick me in the ass all day every day (pardon the language). Taking night-time walks around Harvard Square to take advantage of the beautiful weather (and take a break from aforementioned project). Finishing _The Neverending Story_ (no joke), letting the New Yorkers pile up. Neglecting my running. Getting stuff done around the house. Looking forward to some theater. Trying not to go crazy, but it’s tough.

I dreamt that I was at a large IOCA event and was burying all of the board games around the hill/stairs to the site and covering them with snow. This after spending a very long time trying to create a xylophone with magnets (because the one that the band was using, from a Costa Rican tourist shop, was terrible) and failing. Next everyone sat on the steps for a Berkman conference. I came up with a fully formed and cogent argument for why Facebook is an evil spammer, and was arguing loudly with Yoni about it when I got in trouble for disrupting the introduction of the newest Berkman fellow, an old woman from Africa who was frail and could not speak English. A couple other things happened and then I woke up. My thoughts on Facebook didn’t entirely make sense, so I won’t repeat them here, but I mentioned Eben Moglen’s “stuff about ownership of data” several times.

So that was weird.