hell among the yearlings

Music: Martha Wainwright: I Know You're Married But I've Got Feelings Too (2008)

MY JONES

Last weekend I hosted a number of folks for dinner, some friends relocating to Austin from Minnesota, an already-relocated couple from Minnesota now in San Antonio, and my super-cool, soon-to-be-hitched neighbors Jeff and Lindsay (Jeff's from Buffalo, Lindsay, San Antonio). We had a marvelous time, in part, because none of us knew each other very well. We did a lot of "me too"-style bonding. We had some Mean-Ass Joshritas and I read Tarot. We ate gumbo. We yapped, yapped, and yapped. I learned Jeff and Lindsay were fans of Aimee Mann (they spied my CD collection and noticed I was too). I already knew they worked in radio. I did not know, however, their radio connections scored them tickets to Aimee Mann's show last night. They told me so. They said they had tickets to spare. I shat my pants and then said, "hell yeah!"

Ok, so, most of my buds who read the blog already know, but, you who know me less may be surprised to learn I have a thing for singer-songwriter ladies with skinny arms. Just the idea of an Aimee Mann show gives me [delete] [edit]: goosebumps. I'm happy to report the show was most excellent, not just because Aimee is smart as frack and delicious, but because the musicianship was top notch and the sound design un-freakin' believable.

Aimee and band played at La Zona Rosa here in Austin, a sort of concrete floor shack---a large shack---with a tin roof and terrible acoustics. I've seen about five bands there, all sounded like a sort-of buzzing through mud unless you were standing in the very center. But somehow the sound reinforcement folks figured it out and did an amazing job. I was really surprised. Mann's set was super-heavy on electronics---two keyboardists! One was hitched to a howling B2 that was just incredible, and the other to one of the new horizon Moog thingies and a Mellotron! I've not got the new album, but I gather it's keyboard heavy; the "single" she played had simple Boards of Canada riff thing going on (it was quite lovely). The harmonies Aimee and her bassist made singing would make the Louvins proud. The show was just tingly good; I even got a little lump in my throat when Aimee did a reworked version of "Save Me." This really tall, lanky, uber-geek with that Trekkie-smell standing behind me was singing along with all of his off-key heart. It was touching. I would've saved him myself, were I not pining away at bumpy, strumming knuckles too.

STAIGER SPECTACULAR

The Aimee Mann show followed a fun, fan-boy day with Janet Staiger. Janet is a professor in the Radio, Television, and Film department. I read a good deal of her work in graduate school (my secondary area was in film theory) and taught it myself while on the Audio/Visual Arts faculty at LSU. When I moved here, everyone and their colleague in some odd department urged me to meet her. I finally figured out a way to ask her out: teach her work and then ask her to talk to my class. So that's what I did, and fortunately, she agreed. I took her out to lunch before her talk and we gabbed.

Janet studied with David Bordwell at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. She was in the Speech department, which in the early 80s housed film and media studies. Small world, heh? One of her best buds is John Lucaites, currently the editor of the flagship journal in rhetorical studies, The Quarterly Journal of Speech. So she knew all about what I did as a scholar (which was super nice not to have to explain), and I knew a lot about her work, so lunch was sort of fun and effortless. Her talk to my class was super, though my students seemed a bit sleepy (summer school jet set, you know).

So, like, yesterday I was already blissed-out when I hit the Aimee Mann show. Best. Tuesday. Ever. The only thing better would have been if I could've slept in, but I had to wake early to get to the vet, about which more below.

DEBT

Despite an awesome Tuesday, there's a nagging mental murmur: oh, how much I owe others in the writing department. [Dear lord: I've just turned on the Sex in the City syndicated show and Blossom Dearie's "They Say It's Spring" is in the soundtrack . . . another voice I get goofy to]. I'm giving a talk next Monday for my lodge's annual festive board, and I've little more than chicken scratch on a notepad at the moment. Promised encyclopedia entry is due next week. I need to work on my essay with Shaun. I should be writing on my book. I've got a revise and resubmit that should be tinkered on. I need to finish my syllabae.

All of this, and what I really want to do is go to music shows and watch season two of Carnivale. And season one of Six Feet Under, which I just got as a gift from my houseguests.

This, and I still need to finish my lecture for tomorrow on Baudry's "cinematographic apparatus" and Christian Metz on the psychoanalytic turn in film studies. My finances may be in order (almost), but I still find myself running in debt . . . .

HEART KITTY

Twenty-four years old and recently broken-up, I was, it seemed, marooned in a very cold place with three friends and coursework for as far as the mind could imagine. That's when I first found a therapist and stumbled into psychotherapy. That was also the time I thought I might adopt a pet---a puttie to sit in my lap as I typed out term papers. The problem was that, um, I'm allergic to anything that moves, especially of the domesticated animal variety. I researched for months and found that some folks with allergies can tolerate Devonshire Rexes. I found some people in Minnesota who had them and stuck my nose on their cats. Mild itching, but nothing horrible.

When loans came in the next semester I adopted a Devon from Terri in Kansas, now a friend of mine with a different last name in Houston. His name was Vico, and he died within a year of FIP. I was heartbroken. Terri sent a replacement (FIP is genetically linked) and, from some strange turn of fate, a companion too. Ten years ago I picked up a brown Devon and a nekkid Sphynx from the Minneapolis airport. The Devon came named---"Obi Wan-Derful"---and I named the nekkid girl "Psappho Alpurgis." I cannot believe I've had these kitties ten years now.

Over the years we've grown as co-inhabitants of my various apartments and now home. Psappho refuses to use the litter box. Thousands of dollars helped me to determine that's just the way she is: no illness, no problems. She's just picky. So she shits on the floor and pisses in the sink. And that's why I have bleach under all the sinks in the house. And that's why I'm constantly picking up poop.

Obi, on the other hand, is simply a super-sweet lap kitty. He just wants to be on you all the time. He eats. A lot. Or, at least, he used to eat a lot. He got super fat last year, so I started taking up his food. Slowly he started to lose weight this year. I went away this summer for a couple of weeks. I returned finally last Monday. I noticed Obi was skinny. He wasn't sleeping with me at night. And he couldn't jump up on stuff.

A few days ago Obi just stopped eating. He stopped drinking. He just slept. His meows were week. I phoned a vet and made an appointment for this Friday, but then, I worried myself so much, and he seems so pitiful, I couldn't wait. I asked if they could see him today.

So I took him in and left him. They had to sedate him because (they say) he got nasty (I'm not sure I believe this; he's so weak . . . and they get $80 for "sedation"). The "in house" urine test revealed his glucose at 1,000 (I have no idea of what units). Apparently he has kitty diabetes. I await the blood work tests. $400 of tests today.

When Vico died, Terri said he was my "heart kitty." What she meant by that was that he had become someone implicated in my self-identity. Vico died so young, I don't think he was that. Obi, however, has been with me for ten years. Right now he's in my bathroom, sort-of lying there. He got insulin today, but he still won't really move. I tried to get him to eat, and he did a little. But then collapsed in a pathetic bones and fur sort of way, just piled on the bathroom rug and exhaling a groggy "maaaahhh." I'm worried if the vet did the right thing. I'm worried about losing him . . . he's the real "heart kitty." I know he's old in kitty years, but still, he's too young to leave just yet---and from what I can tell from his pathetic protestant meows, he ain't ready to leave, neither.

I think tonight I'll help him get on the bed so he can sleep with "us" (that is, me and the other kitty). I just hope he can pull through this. I'm sort of done with death for the month. Too much death, too much. No more, dear Death. Pretty please, with a cherry on top? I promise I'll clean the house more often and stop eating chicken.