Make a turn for the camera

Well, I haven't posted a load of pictures in a while, so I thought I would show you what I've been up to in my spare time lately...

This is me and Kitten at the local zoo.

This is Kitten feednig a giraffe for the first time. There's a silly one of me too, but she looks so collected. You can tell I've just jumped back because I've been slobbered on.

This is a random shot of me sitting on the ledge of the conservation building at our locala zoo. There's some monkeys out on that island out beyond where I am sitting and there's tons of fish and birds below it.

This is a picture I took at the local park with the water feature in it of my Kitten looking awfully cute. We were drying out from a romp in the water feature.

This is us together (obviously). Guitar Hero took this one. The sunshine was glorious that day. I got a bit of a tan, even though you can't tell.

This is our indoor kitty Delylah wanting to play Cranium with us. She looks rather like she knows what she's doing, doesn't she?

The cat came back the very next day

My life as a dj is over. I like it. I've needed the sleep.

In other, and I think more interesting, news:

We have a new cat. Well, sort of. The thing is that about a month and a half maybe two months ago our big grey cat Samson slipped out of the house somehow and he never came back. Well, we were heartbroken and we'e consoling ourselves with the thought some old lady in our neighborhood has taken him in and he's living the high life. In the mean time, I've been looking at all the poor little strays in our neighborhood with an increasing amount of sympathy. Kitten keeps telling me I can't feed them all. And then this one shows up in our back yard:

He was way worse looking at first. He had scratches and scabs all over him and he was way skinnier and looked half starved. His size though, we figured he's only about a year old. Well, I begged and pleaded for Kitten to let me feed him because I'd been calling to him out the back window for half an hour and he wasn't running away. She let me, so I took out a bowl of water and some food for him.

Rather than running away though, he dashed up and started crying at me. He rolled over immediately and let me pet him. Kitten came out and he was rubbing on her too. After we pet him he ate and he's stuck around. He was staying under our neighbor lady's tree but he's moved onto our front porch.

Over the last two weeks he's gotten fatter, and sweeter and he's healing up and starting to look like a healthy, normal cat. At first Kitten swore he was never to come in the house, but she's already making contingency plans for the winter time, so he doesn't freeze. She's even gone so far as to say if I want to risk it I can bathe him.

When she broke down and bought outdoor cat food for him and started making reference to him as our cat, I knew we had a new family member.

His name is Jinx.

I think he's kind of cute, actually.

Don't turn around (pt. 1)

Your face never had soft lines. They were always hard, and deep. Something feirce was always about you, in your smile, in your laugh, in your eyes. You were hard around the edges. I could see it. There was always something feral about you. Something untamed and wild and I loved it.

I wanted to gentle you, to break you, part of me. I never did.

I remember the night I opened the door to you, on my porch, in the pouring rain. You were drunk, and angry and hard. I could see you were scared, though you never ever admitted to that. I remember letting you in, my breath going out of me quickly - my heart pounding. I wasn't sure what to do with you. You didn't want me. I could see that, feel it in your voice. But you did need me, if only for that one night.

I remember the smell of alcohol and cigarettes on your breath as you climbed into bed beside me. I remember the sound of your breathing and you laid there, tense, as though I'd ask things from you I wouldn't have had the courage to ask for even if they had occured to me. I remember the smell of the dye in your hair and the shampoo on your neck as I laid there. The feeling of your car keys inside my pillow where I'd hidden them.

When you slept, you were soft. Your sighs and moans were soft, even if the dreams you were having weren't. Your skin was silk and velvet next to me, shivering in my pajamas and wondering just what I was going to do with you. Wondering why you had come to me of all people.

I remember the feeling of my lips on your neck, brushing your hairline as I kissed you goodnight, and the ache in my chest as I held you close to me and thought of all the things I wished I had the courage to tell you. How could I? I didn't know what you would think, I could only imagine the worst and even at that I had no idea how to say everything I felt. There weren't words for it in my vocabulary - not at the time.

I remember the tears, hot on my cheek and cold as they ran down my neck into the soft floral bedsheet between us. I remember the pain behind my eyes and the throb inside my chest, like a million tiny needles sewing me up tight as I felt myself losing every part of you and me while you slept the sleep of one who has carried more burden than they should.

I remember the hard wood of my porch under my feet and the sound of your car engine as you pulled away. Tiny splinters working their way into my feet and my ears and every other part of me that I was able to feel. There wasn't much left to feel.

The key I held was cold, the fire hot, the ribbon soft as I worked my spell for you. You were gone, you had to be, and I wasn't ready to loose you. Not then, not ever. And so I said to myself I would tie you to me. I would hold you in my heart. I would mix myself into your destiny if I could at all. I remember the smell of the inscence I burned and the rough feeling of the box I put that key into. Waiting, that was all I had left to me then.

It was hot the night I saw you again. Not just warm, but sweat inducing, breath stealing heat that stole through the bar and wrapped us all up as we danced and drank. The lights were blinding for a moment. And then I saw you again. Saw you in red and green and yellow. Saw you in the black you always seemed to wear. And you were hard still. Your arms and legs and back were hard. Your eyes sparkled with the determination to forget and to live in the moment. I felt that tie then, that key glowing in its box in my dresser, waiting for you to feel it as well.

You put your arms around me, like the night I first met you. You were glazed over and raw and you held me closer than anyone had a right to. I let you, and I held you nack and felt you moving next to me and I let myself go. The liquor, the nicotine, everything inside me set loose all in one go and you were there to catch me in the moment of freedom. And then you were gone, at the hand of a friend and I couldn't see you, couldn't find you anywhere.

I grew hard. Colder on the inside. And I remembered why I wanted to be that way. I remember thinking to myself of snow falling in my chest and ice filming over my eyes. And I went home, and let the icicles come down on my pillow and I slept while I waited for you.

I want to be the one to walk in the sun

The last week has been rather uneventful, with the exception of the fact we were rather busiers at The Speakeasy over the last six days. Its almost time for the college students to come back and I am grateful. I think I am improving at my job. It makes me happy. Last night our website developer and all around technology guru Knowsit (because I swear, and I'm not making fun, he seems to know everything) told me I've really hit my stride as a DJ and that made me very happy.

The Fourth was a bit of a let down for me. I worked at both jobs so I didn't do much that was interesting, and seeing as how I live in the midwest surrounded by three very big sporting lakes within a short drive...yeah, no one was out and about. Everyone was shooting off fireworks and enjoying the holiday far away from the city. Of course, it was on a saturday so we were staffed for a big night. I spent most of the evening watching our bartenders and door guys sneak outside and play with these huge sparklers as long as my legs. It was cute.

Last night we had a rugby team that was from Whales in the bar. Apparently they come every year. They were a lot of fun. And they wanted to sing. All night. I loved them. And they were very sweet to me. I liked it. At the end of the night though they were all running around the bar with their shirts off shouting "no shirt Tuesday!" a joke started by one of our now-bartenders that they took with a little more seriousness than I think was intended. I nearly choked on my cigarette when I saw Benz, our bartender last night, shouting from across the bar "Put your pants back on!" A fun night.

I see that Massachusetts filed a suit against the federal government today in response to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) this won't be the first one they've filed, but I can keep my fingers crossed that they are more successful. You can look here for the AP article on the lawsuit. I'm not nearly as concise as they are, although I'll be following this one a closely. In other gay marriage news, federal judge in California set a new lawsuit intending to overturn Prop 8 on a fast track for hearing. That'll be interesting. It feels like time for a change. I hope so....

Brandi Carlisle is coming to a big city near me for a concert in September. I think Kitten and I might go, we might take some friends along too. Its nice to have activites to go on. I feel morelike I have a life than I have in years. I keep thinking that its terrible to ask off of worka nd I'm betryaing my employers and then I think to myself, no I have plenty of time to work and not so muchtime being young. I've wasted a lot of the last two or three years working all the time and having no fun unless it was past 11pm and before 3 am so I had enough time to sleep. Surely part of why I've been healthier lately is I am getting out of doors and enjoying the sunshine and exercising and doing things with my friends that have nothing to do with drinking or smoking and everything to do with enjoying being myself.

Four months until The Honeymoon with Kitten. I'm excited.

Oh, and Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince is released in theaters next week. Squee! Did anyone else read that Rupert Grint had swine flu? I thought I saw that on the AP last week...

That's me in a nutshell. I'm off to do laundry and be a happy housewife.

AG/xx