November 19 - Lucky

There are a lot of interesting characters on the subway in New York. Last night, there was a very drunk man seductively eating a lollipop, which he then put in his hand, and then his pocket, so that he could fall asleep. My hand felt empathetically sticky on his behalf. Sitting next to him was a man who looked like the last guy I tried dating, who kept trying to covertly sneak a glance at me, and then made a sort of show out of getting a dollar out of his wallet to give to a musician playing his guitar on the train. I, of course, was standing near the doors with my steamer. As one does.

The thing that hit me last night is that each of these people has a reason for being on the train at ten o'clock at night. I, admittedly, don't understand the people with infants and toddlers on the train at eleven o'clock or midnight, but every single person on the train has a reason for being there. They're all going somewhere, coming from somewhere, avoiding something, anticipating something. They all have a story, and for anywhere between two minutes and an hour, our stories intersect when we all find ourselves riding the same train together in the same direction.

What also hit me last night was how lucky I am to be living my story. I was on the train at ten o'clock last night coming home from the theatre. I had my steamer with me because I'm the helpful sort who wanted to make our costumes look less wrinkly, and the best night to take the steamer back home was last night because I wouldn't have to move my car for street cleaning once I made it back to my neighborhood. And before getting on the train, I was part of a lovely production where I got to work with some people who I have really come to adore in the last month and a half, and we were lucky enough to get a standing ovation from some of the audience members. We touched lives last night. We made people feel things and we started conversations and we validated those who were in need of some validation. And after doing all of that, and after taking some pictures so that the work done on this show can hopefully help people get more work on future shows, I found myself on the train with the very drunk lollipop guy, the guitarist, the guy who looked like an ex, and a whole host of other people. I wondered, how many of them were on their way home from touching someone's life and making that person feel good about him or herself? Maybe a lot. Maybe none. But I found myself feeling very lucky to have had the evening I had.

September 11 - September 11

There is part of me that feels like this day needs to be treated differently, reverentially or something. There is part of me that was sort of hoping that when I went outside today, my first September 11 in New York City, that I would feel something. A sense of loss, a sense of camaraderie, a sense of something. But I didn't.

Today was a day. People went about their lives as they always do. Some guy said hi to me as I walked past him - I'm sure he's been on that same corner most of the days I've been here, probably works in that store or lives in that building. I said hi back. I went to the library, got a library card, took advantage of some of the amazing services offered by the library, drooled over the collection of plays they have, and then came home to read for most of the afternoon. It was not a day of solemn remembrance; it was just a day. And while part of me feels bad about that, part of me thinks that's the way it should be. Something terrible happened on this day many years ago. And we all know that. We all remember it. But it is no longer all-consuming. We've gotten back to living our lives. Which means the something terrible did not defeat us.

Or something. Feel free to tell me to shut up because I've only lived in New York for eleven days and have no idea what I'm talking about.

August 5 - Time

I have become very aware of time lately. How quickly it passes and how much of it there is. How slowly it goes sometimes when it seems it is about to run out. If we want to get really existential about it, we could delve into the fact that time is basically a human construct, the way we experience it now. The duration of an hour is completely arbitrary. Someone took a wild guess, based on the blooming and dying of native fauna, about how long a year is, and we have yet to measure that amount of time accurately. And those measurements are useless on other planets because they move around their suns at different rates. But there are machines that can measure nanoseconds and all of the things that can happen within a nanosecond. Time is a really weird thing.

I'm aware of how much of my time I spend doing things I do not enjoy, or how much of it I spend with people who do not excite or stimulate me. I am aware of how spending that much time in those activities with those people has trained me to believe that in most situations, I am not welcomed or liked, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I am aware of how much time I have left to spend in my life and how little my desire is to spend it doing things that make me miserable.

Things are changing, time is passing. Things will be different in the future, possibly better, possibly worse, but at the very least, different. And while I wait for the future to get here, I find myself acutely aware of how slow the clock ticks, and how many moments I could be filling with something else. I don't want to waste moments. Even if it means enjoying the time spent sitting on my couch with my cat on my lap, playing some silly game on my phone. I want to be aware of all of these moments in between, to catalog them all somewhere in my brain so when I need to remember what contentment was, or what water tastes like, or how my apartment smells when it rains, I can. And in doing so, I can be transported to another time and another place.

Because, after all, time is a human construct. Why not play with it a little?

February 7 - Helpful (Or Not)

I want to be able to tell you that it's better this way in a way you'll understand. I want to remind you that someone who doesn't want to be with you is not worth your time. I want to tell you that it's okay to be sad for a while and it's okay to not jump right back in. I want to tell you that spending time with yourself just might help you find a more rewarding relationship down the road. I want to remind you that remembering what you love about yourself can help illustrate just how different what you are from what he wants, and I want the logic of that situation to help you stop pining for someone who has moved on. 

But I know that these words won't help. And I know they sound really hollow coming from someone who has been single for 95% of her life. Kind of like when those of you who have spent your lives in relationships tell me to "hang in there, you'll find someone someday." Because we're coming at this from completely different angles and since neither of us has had the other's experience so true empathy is difficult to achieve. I'm sorry about that. 

But mostly I hope you realize sometime soon that looking to the past to find happiness with someone who is no longer present will never bring you the peace you seek. So be sad for as long as you need to be sad, but be sad now so you can be happy later. Because until you've been sad long enough to get sick of it, you'll never be able to find any sort of closure, even a temporary one. 

Or something. 

January 9 - Bodily Functions

Ew, gross.

No, not really.

But maybe.

Kind of.

Since I became vegan, I am much more aware of what my body is doing on the inside. I've always been pretty good with spacial awareness and whatnot, but paying attention to what's happening inside is interesting. Things like what happens when you drink too much water, or how much my digestive system hated me when I was first making the transition to veganism.

Today, all of the organs in my lower abdominal cavity seem to be staging a coup, at the same time I'm experiencing the first honest to goodness cold I've had in years. It's not pleasant. I'll spare you further details.

I do find myself wondering what is causing this coup, though. Because the entire time I was in the UK, I had no problems whatsoever. As soon as I come home and return to my normal eating habits, my digestive system hates me. Is it true that American food is so much more processed that it's hard to digest? I haven't been eating badly since I got home, so what's the deal?

This also puts the idea in my head that maybe it really is time for me to move overseas. My skin was happier there. My tummy was happier there. My sinuses were happier there. My hair wasn't fantastic, but I can play with that and find something that works well. Will they let me immigrate if I have a doctor's note saying it is better for my general well-being to live in London? Can I get a visa with a note like that?

Obviously, this is all affecting my brain function as well.

January 8 - Perception

One of the things that always gets me when I travel, or when I go somewhere where I am surrounded by thousands of strangers (like Wrigley Field) is just how small and insignificant my life is to the vast majority of the other people on this planet. Not to say that my life is unimportant in general, just that everyone has their own things going on - their own circles of friends, their own stresses, their own joys - and as they see my face walk by in a crowd, it doesn't even really register that I have this entire life of my own of which they are completely unaware. I'm just a face. Just as they are to me.

And then there are the few with whom your life intersects for just a short while. Long enough that you may remember the encounter years later, but still brief enough that you don't get to know them as a well-rounded person. I've known a few of those. When I worked in the bagel shop in high school, there was a man who came in every weekend for one of the herb-cheese twists and a cup of coffee. He almost always had exact change and a smile for me, but I never knew his name. There was another man when I worked in the video store who took full advantage of the $0.99 rentals on Monday-Wednesdays and would rent two movies a day for each of those days, every week. He always had his rental card and $2.11 ready as he approached the register. I knew his name at the time from scanning his card, but have no idea what it was now. I probably couldn't pick him out of a crowd these days, but I was always happy to see him come in back then.

It's funny to me, too, that I am that person to others. In high school, the cute guy at the gas station knew me as Clover Girl, because I wore a four-leaf clover necklace all of the time. I'm sure the people at the sandwich shop around the corner from where I work now know me as Falafel Girl because I only ever get the falafel sandwich - it's their only real vegan option. They are always polite and greet me with a smile, and half of the time, they've started making my sandwich before I walk through the door. But that is all we know of each other - I eat falafel, they make sandwiches.

I wonder, sometimes, how I will be remembered by some of these people, if I am remembered at all. My tattoo artist in Dublin said I looked familiar and Facebook stalked me a bit before working on me, and asked a couple of times what my most famous movie was. I told him I do more theatre than film, to look out for Hamlet: the Series, and that he should remember my face because in ten years, it is going to be everywhere. He took a picture with us when we were done and I wonder how long it will be before he forgets what marks he left on us, or why he even took the picture in the first place. I wonder how much the flight attendant on my fourth screwed-up flight in ten days complained to her life partner about the bitchy woman who was pissed they couldn't find her special meal because someone had spelled the name wrong. I wonder if the woman walking her dog on a bright Dundalk morning will remember the two Americans who couldn't find their hotel and if she will think of us fondly. Will my repeated thanks to the cabbie be remembered as polite or insincere? Will the last man I kissed remember my name ten years from now?

I know all of these are rather insignificant moments in the grand scheme of things, and in all truth, the other parties involved have probably already forgotten their interactions with me. But I wonder, because I remember all sorts of things. Not everything, and not everyone, but loads of things and loads of people who have floated in and out of my life in a matter of moments. Am I also so thought of?

I kind of hope so. And I hope most of those memories are positive.

January 6 - Habits

This blogging every day thing is weird. I don't exactly feel like I can stop. I intended to do it for just one year, but they say habits are formed after 21-28 days (depending on which article you read). Now I feel a sort of pressure to keep blogging every day, even though the original time period is up. 

It is sort of like my veganism. I originally meant to try it for a year, but it worked out so well and I enjoyed the lifestyle so much and just got in the habit of being vegan and it has now been eleven and a half years. I will admit, there are some temptations to not be vegan anymore, or at least there were when I was in the UK. And I've asked myself if I can maybe just be a vegan who drinks Guinness on a regular basis. But it is such a habit now to avoid these things that even those thoughts make me feel guilty. 

I know that these habits are my choice. I know that as a person, I can reexamine my life choices as I see fit and make new decisions if necessary. But sometimes habits are a good and helpful thing. And sometimes I just like the routine of it. 

So when will I stop blogging every day? When I can figure out a way to do so without feeling guilty about it. Maybe. 

October 18 - Thought

You know how they say the sound of waves is soothing to us because it reminds us of being in the womb? I wonder if it is for similar reasons that my cat likes to sleep on my stomach, rising and falling with each breath.  

September 14 - Social Gatherings

I don't know if other people get this or not, but I always have that moment right before a social engagement that I organized where I think nobody is going to show up. But then exactly the right people show up and it turns into a brilliant evening. I love that. 

September 13 - Luck

Friday the thirteenth is notorious for bringing bad luck. My day started with the wrong kind of oatmeal seasoned with the wrong kind of sweetener. There were minor annoyances throughout the day, but if we take a moment to thing about the positives, the minor annoyances don't really seem like bad luck. 

I have a job that pays my rent and allows me to have a fulfilling social life. 

I live with a cat who brings me so much joy it hurts from time to time. 

We're heading into good hair season. 

I am basically healthy, despite some weird twinges in my ankle the other day. 

I can afford to treat myself to lunch out or Twizzlers as the mood takes me. 

And perhaps most importantly, I am surrounded by friends and family who love me. 

So my apologies to those of you who are specifically afraid of Friday the thirteenths, but I say bad luck be damned. We're still here, aren't we? So it can't all be bad and it can't all be about luck. 

August 8 - Knowledge

I sometimes wish I knew more about how odor and fragrance actually work. Then I might be able to understand why my city has smelled like sewage for two days and why suddenly, my office smells of three-day old fish.

Somebody hid a fish in the air ducts, didn't they? Gosh darn it.

August 7 - Checking In

I wish I had something interesting and pithy to say. Words of wisdom to impart. But I'm on a bus in horrible traffic, going to meet people I don't know and know very little about except we all have one friend in common. I'm nervous. 

So I'm listening to a Frank Turner album that I haven't listened to yet and I'm loving it. I want to learn to play all of his songs. It's funny - I've not known of his music for a very long period of time, but his voice and his guitar are comforting to me. Maybe subconsciously, I decided to listen to a familiar voice singing songs I don't know as I go to meet strangers who are beloved by a friend I adore to let myself know I'll be fine. There is beauty in comfort, and there is beauty in pushing oneself beyond one's comfort zone in pursuit of something new. 

Huh. Not too bad for not knowing what to say. 

August 6 - Corporate Dress

I am not a fashionista. I think we all know this about me already. It is amusing to me, doing VEDA again this year, to look at my videos and realize that I have been essentially wearing the same six outfits for the past three years. I am not a fashionista.

The one time that this bothers me, though, is in reference to the clothes I wear to work. I wear "business casual" clothing to work. Albeit with Converse sneakers, but it's business casual. Nice trousers, nice blouses, appropriate sweaters, the occasional skirt or dress. I look...corporate. With sneakers. Not everyone in the downtown area has to look corporate, though, and when I walk around the corner to grab a sandwich for lunch, for example, I see guys walking around in jeans and Batman t-shirts and I become insanely jealous. My inner geek wants the ability to rip of my corporate exterior like Superman to reveal the Doctor Who t-shirt I wish I was wearing, so I could be easily identified on the street as a geek and a sci-fi fan. Then maybe they would smile and say, "Cool shirt," and we would know that a bond had been formed between two strangers with similar interests and we would go our separate ways feeling like we belong somewhere in the universe.

Instead, they see a girl in black trousers and a sweater set, carrying a sandwich and don't think twice about her. There is no bond, no belonging, no smile.

I hope that someday, corporate America starts listening to the studies that show that employees who get to wear what they want to work are more productive than those who have to follow some dress code. And that workers are more productive when given more individual freedoms, and that employees are more productive when they feel valued. So maybe someday, when I pop around the corner to get a sandwich, I can do so with my geek flag flying loud and proud for all my fellow geeks to see.

July 29 - Thoughts on Acting

It's funny; a lot of people think it's odd that I consider myself an introvert yet I am so passionate about acting. They think it an odd contradiction to be an introvert but to "crave the spotlight" that comes from performance. The other day, I think I figured it out, and I've been trying to put it into words that are understandable and make sense.

I love acting because it is not about me.

This probably flies in the face of what a lot of actors believe. I have had teachers say that every actor has to have a ginormous ego, every actor has to think they are the best in the world. I think to some extent, that is true - every actor needs to believe in himself and his abilities. But acting itself, for me, is not about me. It is about everyone but me, so it feels comfortable. Let me see if I can explain.

If acting is living truthfully under imaginary circumstances, then what I put on stage will never actually be me. It will be versions of me that are subjected to imaginary, extraordinary circumstances. And the more extraordinary the circumstances, the less actual "me" is there. It becomes an exercise of "what if I had been born to a poor family in the south in 1862 instead of to a middle class family in Chicago in 1977? How would I then react to being courted by someone of a different social standing than me?" There is an element of me in there - my logic, my thought patterns - but the situations and the words are someone else's. It's not about my life on stage, it is about theirs. My job is to bring another person to life. The side effect is that I feel like I get to live more fully because I get to experience all of these other things, through the eyes of other people, that I would not normally if I spent my entire life just being me.

To take it one step further, I believe that as an actor, my job is to make my scene partner look good. I am going to go into every scene I do trying to give my partner what he or she needs to get where he or she needs to be to make the scene work. Hopefully, he or she is doing the same for me. So that's not about me, either. And when I am not doing a scene, but rather a monologue, my job is to make the audience or viewer feel something. It is my job to take them along with me on my emotional journey. So every moment I spend on stage is spent trying to elicit a reaction from someone else. It's not about me.

And even further, and specifically as it pertains to film as opposed to theater, it is about the production design and camera angles and lighting design and music and special effects and whatnot. Film is not an actor's medium. I don't say that to be harsh or to belittle film in any way; I quite love the art of filmmaking and I love performing in films. But I know when I do so, it is not about me. The right editor can make or break an actor's performance. The film would not happen without all of the technicians there, I'm just standing in front of their scenery saying words.

So as an introvert who hates calling attention to herself, it makes perfect sense to me that I would seek out a career where I get to spend time in public (so as to not appear insane) being someone other than myself. I love myself; don't get me wrong. But if people are going to be paying that much attention to me, what better way to allow them to do so without feeling like my personal space is overly imposed upon than to put on a character and do a show?

I don't know that I'm explaining it very well. Suffice it to say that I love acting because it is not about me, and that statement makes perfect sense in my head. I love acting because it is not about me.

July 27 - Happy Happy

My youngest niece turns one today. Happy birthday, punkin'!

I also survived the filming that involved all of the words, and I think I got most of them right and in the right order and even managed to have some feeling behind them. Yay!

And I think my cat understands the phrase "move your face," which is what I say when I'm about to close the refrigerator door and he is trying to investigate the contents thereof. He does, in fact, move his face out of the way of the door. 

I hope to have words and original thoughts back tomorrow. 

July 26 - Words

Hey!

Just a quick blurb. Tomorrow I am shooting two extremely dialogue-intense scenes in Hamlet, so I've spent the week cramming as many Shakespearean words into my brain as possible, which has left very little space for words of my own. I'm not complaining, mind you. I love the puzzle of figuring out what all of these words mean when said in this particular order, and what sort of mindset I would have to be in to say them in this order at this particular time. It's fascinating and fun and brilliant and I friggin' love Shakespeare.

Doing Shakespeare as a film is interesting and challenging - much different than doing Shakespeare as a theatrical production. See, in theater, you have at least a couple of weeks, sometimes a month or two to rehearse, which means you're saying the words and performing the motions every day for weeks until they are so ingrained in you that you can't screw them up. Film does not usually have the luxury of extended rehearsal periods. Often times, you show up to set with your lines memorized and figure out the blocking and props and whatnot on the day. It feels a bit more like "winging it." With Shakespeare, "winging it" is a challenge, because there are very specific words that have to happen in a very specific order and I know professional Equity actors who are thrown for a loop if they have to switch in which hand they hold a prop. So it has required a lot of patience on the part of our entire cast and crew to make these scenes happen the way they are supposed to happen. And since I haven't had weeks and months to say these lines to my scene partners, I find myself cramming for each shoot the week before. I figure at the very least if I know my lines inside and out, hopefully whatever other wrenches are thrown into the system on the day of the shoot, I can handle them. I'm not sure if this is the best way to go about things, but it's working so far. I think.

Anyway. I have a lot of lines tomorrow that I need to make sure are in my head in the right order, so I don't have very many original thoughts floating around in my brain at the moment. It's my own "brainish apprehension." Which hopefully will not inspire me to stab someone through a curtain. Anyway.

Enjoy your evening!

July 15 - Thoughts

I wonder what my cat makes of all these kisses I give him. Does he understand they are a sign of affection?

I wonder if I will ever feel normal living somewhere that has air conditioning. 

I wonder how Hamlet is going to turn out. 

I wonder how hard it would be to launch some of the projects swirling around in my brain. 

I wonder if buying enough lottery tickets to actually win something substantial makes for a worthwhile return on investment. 

I wonder if I will ever be enough. 

I wonder how hard it would be to just stay in England when I go for a visit later this year...

July 9 - Beauty

I watched part of an interview with Dustin Hoffman today wherein he talked about what it was like to try out the make up for Tootsie. He talks about how they made him look like a woman, but he then asked them to make him a beautiful woman and was told that they had done the best they could with his facial features. He cried to his wife, lamenting how he thought he was an interesting person as a woman, but he knew he would not have talked to himself as a woman had he met himself in a bar, and he wondered how many interesting women he has not talked to in his life because we are all brainwashed into thinking that only the beautiful people are worth our time. Take a moment and watch the video - he gets choked up talking about it. And what is brilliant, is that they titled the video "Dustin Hoffman Breaks Down Crying Explaining Something That Every Woman Sadly Already Experienced." Because we have. Women experience this Every. Single. Day.

I know there are those of you who would argue and say I'm one of the pretty people. Thank you for that. I am only now coming to the realization that people see me that way. I've not always been pretty, and it still kind of freaks me out to say I am because I know I am not Hollywood pretty, not Hollywood shaped, etc. Whatever. That's not the point of this.

What is striking to me about it is exactly how pervasive this is in our culture, even in places you wouldn't really think to notice it. Like actors. Think about the male actors you like and make sure to go see their films. I bet a bunch of them are "traditionally hot" - Brad Pitt, Chris Hemsworth, Taye Diggs, etc. Guys with muscles and symmetrical faces and soulful eyes. But there is probably someone in there who you adore who isn't traditionally hot. Dustin Hoffman is a great example. Or Tim Curry. Or Steve Buscemi. Or Phillip Seymour Hoffman. These men have also made brilliant careers for themselves with the odd tooth or the larger than average nose or the pot belly or whatever. We are so willing to give non-traditionally-hot men a chance in Hollywood, and we buy them in all sorts of different roles (hell, even Willem Dafoe has played a romantic lead). But then take a look at the women in Hollywood. Right now, we have the super skinny, super beautiful women who get lead roles, and then the other women who play supporting roles but who are also attractive. Melissa McCarthy is beautiful, but since she is heavier than some of her cohorts, she gets the buffoon roles now. Even if you look at former Saturday Night Live cast members (back when they had female regulars), Amy Pohler is gorgeous, Tina Fey is gorgeous, Kristin Wiig is gorgeous, Maya Rudolph is gorgeous, Gilda Radner was gorgeous, Jan Hooks is gorgeous, Cheri Oteri is gorgeous, Victoria Jackson is gorgeous, Molly Shannon is gorgeous, Jane Curtin was gorgeous, and all of these women were of a certain size and shape. The one woman I can think of in recent SNL history who is not traditionally beautiful is Rachel Dratch, and let's look at her career next to, say Tina Fey's. I'm not saying they are the same woman or they have the same talents, but one has to wonder, with so many funny women from SNL becoming A-listers, where is Rachel Dratch? Why isn't she along for the ride? I don't know - maybe she doesn't want to be or maybe she's miserable to work with or maybe it is because she is not as traditionally beautiful as the women around her so Hollywood doesn't know what to do with her. I don't know. But maybe.

We love seeing the ugly, nerdy guy kissing the super model in a Super Bowl commercial, but the thought of an ugly, nerdy woman kissing a hot guy (or anyone, really) is deemed repulsive and wrong and implausible. Anyone else see how messed up this is?

I want to know when it was decided that women aren't worth as much as men. I want to know when it was decided that a slightly odd looking man can still be a good guy with a heart of gold, but a slightly odd looking woman is crazy, undesirable and untouchable. I want to know why we are so forgiving of the genetic rainbow of male traits, and so disdainful of the genetic rainbow of female traits. Does it go back to caveman days when women would die in childbirth while men were out killing animals? Does it date back to when people figured out that men were involved in the procreation process and they decided they didn't want to rear someone else's kids so they had to put the lock-down on "their" woman? Because female repression dates back a lot farther than one might think and it is still very much alive and well in today's world. I'm not even talking about the horrors that women in some other countries have to endure; I'm talking about the raging debate in the United States about what women should and should not be allowed to do with their own uteri. Decisions being made by people who don't have uteri, for the most part. Frankly, I'm tired of it. I'm tired of all of it.

When I tell my friends that they are beautiful, I am talking about their souls as I see them - they are beautiful people. And my friends come in all different sizes, shapes, and colors, and I see them all as beautiful exactly they way they are. When are we, as a culture, going to embrace the beauty that is the female form with all of its variations and nuances? Because truly, to be female is to be gorgeous. We create life. What could be more beautiful than that?

I'm sorry. I'm rambling and ranty now. It just pisses me off that today, in 2013, as equal rights are being fought for and won for all sorts of minority groups, that it is still culturally acceptable to hold women (the majority of the population, by the way) to unattainable, outrageous standards. I'm tired of holding myself to those standards and hating myself when I don't meet them. I'm just tired of it. Can we be done with it now? Please?

July 7 - Mish Mosh

July 7 already - when did that happen and where was I? And is it true that I've only missed two days of blogging this year?

I have all of the thoughts today - about how women are represented in the media and how we treat each other and how I want to eliminate the word "fat" from my vocabulary when used as an adjective and what amazing friends I have and how I'm kind of surprised that for all of the different and varied situations in which I found myself this weekend, I seemed to get along with just about everybody just fine and I'm hoping they all walked away from those experiences with as positive an impression of me as I got from them and how silly it was for an online food ordering company to send me a coupon last week that had a coupon code that expired May 5 and whether that is a reflection on their marketing person or my postal carrier and how I may be reaching an age where I'm growing into my own beauty and how I'd really like to be reading more but you know what? It is Sunday night. And it has been a long weekend. Honestly - even Friday night feels like a year ago. So I am going to take the cop out route and tell you that I have too many thoughts in my head and not enough energy to flesh any of them out tonight while I wait for my vegan Thai food to arrive. But I did want to write something, so I wrote this.

I hope you all survived the Fourth of July shenanigans and if any of the components of my epic run-on sentence there strike you as an interesting topic for discussion, please let me know and I'll try to get to that one first.  Happy Sunday!

June 28 - Perception

Every day when I get home and I come in through the front door, my cat does his best to escape out onto the landing. I used to be scared of letting him do this, but as there is only one other apartment accessible from that staircase and I've met the woman who lives there (she also has cats), it doesn't bother me so much anymore. I let Owen go out and explore the landing. He doesn't even go up or down the stairs - I think he is afraid of them - he just sniffs around and then comes back in for scritches and dinner. 

I wonder if he thinks that is where I spend the whole day when I am not at home with him, and if he's sniffing around out there to find my scent and cover it with his own.