the house of kitten

I caught myself the other day automatically getting up and taking clean whatevers and putting them in the latest spot that the Mad Kitten has claimed as her own because as she went to lay down she gave me such a look of "how could you" that I stopped mid-sentenced to respond to her unvoiced desire.


I got another "how could you" when in the middle of the night I moved. I could feel the disapproval battering the outside of my eyelids and sure enough, when I opened them, there she was, moved by oh about an 1/8 of an inch and staring at me with perfectly round and horrified eyes.


She has almost completely her transformation to an indoor cat. I tried to catch her on video tape last night doing that thing with a jug of water (which always ends with her dumping it all over the carpet, leaping back and giving me the "how could you look").


I just stopped writing and turned around. She is sitting on the floor behind me with the "how could you" look in her eyes.


It didn't help matters much that yesterday, around 7pm I literally crapped out. A pounding headache came on and I laid down with the intention of napping, woke up at 11, unfortunately that was California time (I hit the time zone on the snooze at some point) and realized I had 1 hour to make an article deadline.


One of the conversations that keeps coming up is about the nature of spending time with people. It can be hard and sometimes draining to just go "hang out." People like to do things and often things that enhance their sense of connection and closeness. "hanging out" often deteriorates into two people sharing air and making comments or spouting small monologues but not connecting unless there is some kind of drama or problem woven in. The idea of "group games" has come up alot, the taboos and trivial pursuits and all of that and how games like this have done more to damage our ability to connect in social situations then most people are aware of, they give such good illusion of socializing. But the games are designed and and structured so that there is no real interaction. Each player is directed (usually with a time limit) to respond one at a time (or at the same time, but not in relationship to each other - like scattergories) so it becomes a group of people not interacting with each other, but taking turns performing in pre-defined ways. It is, perhaps, the epitome of hidden passivity. More so then watching a movie with someone. While you may be able to sense their presence, what you are really sensing is your own interpretation of their presence and not what is actually there. Yet movies are standard fair for "date nights" that are supposed to deepen people's intimacy.


The whole http://wordsintofood.com thing is going well and is also providing all of us involved with a unique education into how online socializing works, what are the most passive environments when it comes to taking action, what are the most active and which sites support passivity by coloring as participation. Rather then beginning to form a condemnation of one site over another, we are starting to see the defined roles of each site and how people interact on them and how they are willing to interact. This will go miles in helping people plan other drives.


Which by the way...and I will keep this up till Thanksgiving, the site again to go help turn words into food is, of course, http://wordsintofood.com. You can purchase the t-shirt/poetry magazine issue and the price will be donated, you can page down to the donate button and donate with credit card, echeck or paypal any amount that you can, or, if you do not have the means to participate electronically - you can mail your donation direct to Amos House (just write wordsintofood in the memo) by sending it to this address.


Amos House

415 Friendship Street

P.O. Box 72873

Providence, RI 02907 U.S.A


it is not important that the donations pass through wordsintofood, its just important they get there.


off to the races


2010. Cassandra Tribe. All Rights Reserved.