Kittens at 7 weeks

I keep wavering between "keep all three of them" (yeah, and become an official "Cat Lady"; along with Mama Henny, having four cats is officially nuts unless you live on a farm) and "god, how will I let two of them go."

The kittens themselves aren't bothersome at all. They're still cute, just now getting bold and rambunctious, venturing out into the living room and climbing up on me. Mama Henny, though, is an indication of what four GROWN cats will be like: Just 7 weeks after giving birth, Henny's been in heat again ALREADY for the past week. She yowls constantly for a half-hour at a time around 4 times a day. (I initially thought she just wanted to go out, but according to online "experts," her constant rubbing and rolling and sticking her butt up in the air mean... in heat. Sounds about right. I yelled at her to STOP IT both yesterday and today, which sent her scurrying away from me into the bedroom. I felt terrible for scaring her. I know she can't help it, but she's been fucking annoying.)

So, yeah, the kittens are cute now, and I love them and their personalities, but... pretty soon they're going to be going through their adolescence and going to need to be fixed, have their shots, etc. (If you haven't had cats before: getting adult cats into a cage to take them to the vet is traumatic for all involved every time.)

So, no, I don't want this angst multiplied by four. Gotta give away two of the babies very soon. (But they're all so cute... And much more importantly, and sadly, than being "cute": I know these babies a little bit. I know their various quirks. I know that they like to sleep with each other and with their mama, and that they like to play with each other and their mama. It's going to be sad separating two of them from their family.)

Solomon, Georgie, and Lily.

Solomon and Georgie.

Tammy Wynette - Another Lonely Song (Hee Haw, Feb 8, 1975)

I like the SPINNING WHEEL shown non-ironically in the foreground at one point. Like the whole rustic framework, a bit incongruous with Tammy's hipster outfit and lifestyle.

A sidenote: George Jones and Tammy Wynette would officially divorce a month later.

Merle Haggard & Tammy Wynette: Wembley Stadium, UK (1988)

I've listened to this dozens of times -- always get goosebumps when Tammy's voice comes in.

Tammy Wynette - Sweet Music Man (1977)

Sing a song
Sweet music man
Cause I won't be there to hold your hand
Like I used to
I'm through with you

You're a beautiful singer
And a powerful man
But you surround yourself with people
Who demand so little of you

You touched my soul with your beautiful songs
You even had me singing along right with you
You said I need you
Then you changed the words
And added harmony
You sang the song
You had written for me to someone new

Nobody sings the love songs quite like you do
Nobody else can make me sing along
Nobody else can make me feel things are right
But I know they're wrong
Nobody sings a love song quite like you

Sing your songs
Sweet music man
You travel the world with a six piece band
That does for you what you ask 'em to

You try to stay young
But the songs are sung
To so many people
Who've all begun to come back on you

Sing your song
Sad music man
You're making your living doing one night stands
They're through with you
They don't need you

You're still a beautiful singer
But a broken man
But you'll keep on looking for one last fan to sing to

But nobody sings the love songs quite like you do
Nobody else can make me sing along
Nobody else can make me feel things are right
But I know they're wrong
Nobody sings a love song quite like you

Sing your song
Sweet music man

Real Housewives of NYC

Tonight, while working at the computer, I had on Bravo's "Real Housewives of NYC" in the background. (Most of the "Housewives" shows are guilty pleasures for me.)

One of the themes of tonight's show, via conversations between Ramona Singer and Bethenny Frankel, was of growing up in abusive households. I wasn't paying super-close attention, but... I THINK I heard Ramona say that one of the nasty things she witnessed while growing up in an abusive home was her mother being dragged by her hair down a hallway... That caught my notice because at age 12, my father dragged ME by the hair down the hallway. (He didn't like the fact that I was in my bedroom both watching TV AND writing in my diary at the same time. He'd told me to stop writing, and I didn't.)

Glad that a rich woman talked about this on a so-called "junky" TV show. It is, indeed, traumatic to watch this happen to your mother. And imagine if you're only 12 and it happens to you personally. (I can kind of see two grownups going at each other for deeply personal reasons. But... what's your "personal reason" for attacking a 12-year-old for writing in her diary while watching TV, you POS.)

(Another, albeit much more minor, related memory: When I was forced to live with my mother for 3 months in 2010 after coming home from NYC, I was once lying on her couch during the day watching "Real Housewives." Mom to me: "What does [watching that] say about you as a person?")

George Jones: Leaving Love All Over The Place (1978)

I love George Jones. But this one: Ewwww... Way too much information. And: How, exactly, did you mess up the DRAPES?

George Jones: Small Time Laboring Man

In a 1969 "Rolling Stone" interview, Bob Dylan was asked what he thought was the best song released in the previous year; he replied, "George Jones had one called 'Small Town Laboring Man'."

"Small Time Laboring Man"

A dollar an hour, eight hours a day
Will soon make a young man wither away
I work for my family with my wrinkled hands
For I'm a small time laboring man.

Six long days each week I toil and I sweat
But on Sunday my family gives me comfort and rest
Then again Monday morning I'll make tracks in the sand
For I'm a small time laboring man.

I'm a small time laboring man
Fighting against trying as hard as I can
I fight for my country with my caloused hands
For I'm a small time laboring man.

Twelve long months each year my life stays the same
Making my honest dollar in the sun, snow and rain
No, you don't see my family on the starvation plan
For I'm a small time laboring man

No One Will Ever Know

In the 1984 George Jones bio by Dolly Carlisle, Tammy Wynette says that this was her favorite Hank Williams song:

I'd go to bed and I'd have a small Mickey Mouse record player that I'd set in a straight chair right beside my bed and I'd put on Hank Williams albums that have the yellow center and there was one song on there I'd play over and over, "No One Will Ever Know." That was always my favorite song. I'd lie on my stomach sleeping, and I'd take my finger and scratch the needle back to the beginning and I'd play it over and over 'til I went to sleep.

Conversation Overheard: Holden

Today in a common area outside my office, a lady that I barely know was talking to two of my co-workers (high school degrees, 60-ish, worked at this same place for over 25 years) about a friend of hers who had just had a baby, whom she named "Holden."

[Me (to myself upon overhearing): Holden Caulfield? That's kind of too precious and trendy. Like "Scout."]

One of the two co-workers: Oh... like William Holden?

Lady: No... I'm pretty sure it was after the character in "Catcher in the Rye."

Both co-workers: [silence for a few seconds, then one of them] Oh...Cool.

Kittens eat solid food for first time + Solomon goes rogue

Mama Hennessy has had her own food and water dishes set out since I first brought her inside with the three babies in April. A couple of days ago, I went ahead and set out some separate low-rimmed dishes with kitten chow and water for the babies, just in case they were ready, after nearly 6 weeks, to start eating on their own.

Yesterday, the black kitten, Solomon, briefly stuck his face in his mama's food dish for the first time, plus then tumped over his mama's bigger water dish and made a mess.

This evening, both Solomon and Lily (the tiger-striped kitten) found the kitten-food dish and ate up for the first time. Mama Henny worried about at first, but then lay down and watched.

Afterwards, though, came some rambunctiousness. First, Lily checked out the George Jones boxed sets propped up on the fireplace. But then she immediately ran back to the bedroom, so Mama wasn't too concerned. Solomon, though...

First, he embedded himself in the bookshelf; then, he wanted to hang out by the couch; and then he wanted to pose next to Joan (in my "for sale on eBay" pile). Mama Henny did not like any of this. She vocalized her angst the entire time. And when Solomon ran into the kitchen, she finally dragged him out by the scruff of his neck (as in his baby days 6 weeks ago) and then pushed him on back toward the bedroom.

Lily and Solomon eating solid food for the first time. Mama Henny watches.

Lily checking out my George Jones boxed sets.

Solomon discovering books.

Solomon: First kitten to explore the living room.

Can you spot the Solomon?

Kittens: Nearly 6 weeks old

Mama Henny (Hennyson/Hennessy) at right. Kittens from top: Solomon, Lily, still unnamed.

From top: Solomon, Lily, still unnamed.

Unnamed good boy figuring out the litter box before anyone else! (Except... Please DO pee but DON'T bury your face in there, honey!)

Unnamed bold climber I.

Unnamed bold climber II.

Solomon.

Unnamed, left, and Lily. (Solomon's back is to us.)

Tammy Wynette: It's Just A Matter Of Time (1970)

Tammy Wynette: Starting Over (1980)

Wondering where the hours go
Catching up on TV shows
It's not easy, heaven knows
When you're starting over

Knowing that the phone won't ring
Back to being lonely me
Funny how I seem to be
Always starting over

Foolish me, I never mend
Almost heal then break again
Looking back I've always been starting over

So just when the hurt is through
I'll see a face across a room
And wonder if it's still too soon
To be starting over

But like a fool I'll give my heart
Then the same old thing will start
I'll watch it slowly fall apart
Then I'll be starting over

Foolish me, I never mend
Almost heal then break again
Looking back I've always been, always starting over

She has risen!

Trying to be grateful, trying not to be bored

At 53, with a good-paying job of 5 years and with an apartment-full of new kittens, I've pretty much given up on trying for anything drastically new. Meaning mainly, I suppose, a move back to New York. My time to move back to New York was in 2012/13 when I was back in Austin in a $575-per-month studio apartment and at one point was living so cheaply and had $10,000 in the bank from freelance work. Too emotionally drained then to do anything but stay put, though.

Today, I've got a ton of stuff that I don't want to give up (after giving up everything in 2007 to move to New York and then slowly, painfully rebuilding post-2010). And my job and its pay isn't something to lightly toss away. Still, though, I have been feeling stagnant for months now.

In decades past when feeling stagnant, I would make moves both drastic and mediocre: "Drastic" = Moving to San Francisco in 1994 to get my graduate degree; and moving to NYC in 2007 to try to find publishing work and experience the city. "Mediocre" = Quitting a job or changing apartments. I think I'm past both the "Drastic" and "Mediocre" stages. So what, then, to do? Live feeling like this ("blah") for the rest of my life? I really don't want to spend the rest of my life doing nothing but working at and then retiring from a cushy-but-mediocre state job. But then I also don't want to struggle financially any more, the way I did for years. Perhaps the simple solution is: Try to find a job that I'm happier at, and that also pays better. People change jobs all the time in an orderly fashion, sans drama or ill feelings, yet with, perhaps, a sense of excitement about the new. I'm scared, though. After so much turmoil in the past, I feel secure now with my job. Not "happy," but "secure." Ten years ago, I had nothing to lose when I felt like a change. Today, though, I have a lot to lose.

This week's horoscope from Rob Brezsny gives me a sort-of hint that the Wild Universe is not yet completely closed off to me:

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Leo poet Stanley Kunitz told his students, "You

must be very careful not to deprive the poem of its wild origin." That's

useful advice for anyone who spawns anything, not just poets. There's

something unruly and unpredictable about every creative idea or fresh

perspective that rises up in us. Do you remember when you first felt the

urge to look for a new job or move to a new city or search for a new kind

of relationship? Wildness was there at the inception. And you needed to

stay in touch with the wildness so as to follow through with practical

action. That's what I encourage you to do now. Reconnect with the wild

origins of the important changes you're nurturing.

Tigery-face is too cute!

I have made special efforts to pay equal attention to all three kittens. They're all cute and active, and all let me pet them and all like to play. But Tigery keeps being the cutest! Look at that face!

Kittens!

What if I can't give two of them up after 6 weeks? The idea of shortly relegating two to a shelter (albeit a no-kill shelter) seems awful. But, still, I can't keep FOUR CATS (three babies plus Mama) in my apartment. That's how people eventually appear on "Hoarders" and how early-middle-aged ladies eventually become Old Cat Ladies.

If I had to pick one to keep today, after 4-and-a-half weeks, I'd pick the tigery-faced one, who's the cutest. But they're all still so little, still only being brave enough to roam around the bedroom... nobody's yet ventured out into the rest of the apartment. I've petted all of them, and the black kitty likes the petting the most, rolling over to let me stroke his/her baby belly---but his fur is so black, I can barely see his eyes and can't tell if his features are cute or not! (And so, Tigery is currently the sassiest and cutest...)

Joan Crawford (Screen Guide, September 10, 1938)

George & Tammy: We're Not the Jet Set

Our steak and martinis is draft beer and weenies...

Kitten Diary: Three babies on the loose!

Nearly 4 weeks old: The three kittens just ventured out from under the bed a couple of days ago. They now like hanging out in the space between the bed and the window. Mama Henny also feels semi-comfortable letting them run around, though she still sometimes fusses at them vocally and then herds them together under the bed. She lets me pet the babies, but also bumps against me and seeks attention for herself first when I'm around them. (Can't tell if it's actually attention-seeking or if she's scared that I'll hurt them. Though I've been feeding Henny outdoors daily since last July---so I think I've built up some trust---she's only been indoors with me for the past few weeks... TV and shower and hairdryer, and ME, must seem strange and scary!)

Black Cat Family

From left: A wine bottle, a wooden bookend, a soap dispenser, and a toilet-brush holder.

Books and plants and cats

I remember back in 1991, after a bad breakup with my first girlfriend, I had, after years of living in apartment complexes, just moved into a rickety duplex on Rainey Street in Austin (now a concrete high-rise and bar hub, but then a series of 1930s wooden homes in a neighborhood) and wrote in my diary (no blogs then, just paper): "I want to be surrounded by books and plants and cats." As it turned out, my very first cat, Frances, disappeared within months after I moved in. And two other cats (Frances' kitten Toonces and a later "Christmas gift," Katie) were run over by cars speeding through the neighborhood. Katie, I found dead in my front yard when I came home from work; Toonces was killed in front of my eyes as I called her to me one morning. (Both Katie and Toonces I buried behind my house; their graves long since torn up for bars.)

I left the Rainey Street duplex to go to grad school at San Francisco State in 1993. Months before I left, a stray cat that I named "Big Sandy" had adopted me. When I left for grad school, I took Big Sandy to my brother's house, across town, asking that he look after him and offering to pay for cat food. A few months later, I got a letter in San Francisco, saying that Big Sandy had died of feline leukemia. (I believed it at the time. Today, though: I don't think my brother and his then-girlfriend/now-wife wanted Sandy around. I think they had him euthanized.)

All of this... I still want to be surrounded by books and plants and cats. Books, though, never change anything. And plants certainly don't. I don't think you are truly blessed unless you have a cat in your home. Thank you, Henny. (Below are pictures of some sort of beauty and meaning that I was struggling for in the meantime: "Look at me! I have a sense of lit'rature and/or knick-knacks...")

I like my office.

Going in to the office today was part of a good day: Woke up at 6:30am on a Saturday, got grocery shopping done, did cleaning chores, did 4 hours of office work, came home and did more chores (like necessarily vacuuming for the first time in months). I felt very productive. (p.s. The big pot o' dirt in the second picture is from a dead plant that had been sitting around the office for years. Because the planter happened to match my guest chair and the pattern of my rug, I finally threw out the dead plant and dragged the planter into my office. One day soon, I will bring in a fresh plant and plant light and grow something both lovely and hardy.)

Coming up: Game 7: Spurs vs. Nuggets

Woke up today really looking forward to the shortly upcoming Game 7 (Round 1 of playoffs) between the San Antonio Spurs and Denver Nuggets. (Nuggets wouldn't scare me at all, except for that amazing Jokic!) I still like football (Cowboys) best, but the Spurs are my second-favorite professional team, and the only that I've ever seen in person in an actual Finals series game: Spurs vs. Knicks in 1999 (Spurs won series).

Kitten Diary

Kittens are 3 weeks old today!

Timeline: Born in the middle of a rainstorm Saturday, April 6, in my next-door apartment neighbor's backyard. Around dinnertime that late afternoon--in a break from the rain--Henny (after not showing up for dinner on Friday) finally answers my calls, and I'm able to see where she's huddling (and shivering) with her babies (which at the time just look like two rather than the three they turned out to be). Right then, the neighbor, not seeing the kittens or me, lets his dog out into the yard. Luckily, "Yahtzee" (I later found out) was kindly... AND scared of the miserable cat hissing and yowling at her so fiercely! I run over to my neighbor's front door (where, I'm ashamed to say, I'd usually only gone to complain about his loud stereo) and quickly explain that a stray cat I'd been feeding had just had her babies in his backyard, and could he please hold back his dog... He (Nick) was SO nice and solicitous. In the next day, he puts a tarp over the corner where she's had her babies, plus leaves food out for her.

Sunday, April 7: More rain. And Henny irrationally (well, weather-wise irrationally, but probably, in her mind, to avoid the activity in the neighbor's yard with the set-up of tarp and all) moves her babies to the fenced-in air-conditioning-unit area between my neighbor's yard and mine. Where she's no longer protected from the rain. She and babies continue to get drenched. When I lure her to my yard with her usual food, she comes by herself, and is shaking while she eats. But when I attempt to climb over the low fence and scoop her babies up into a box I was carrying, she rushes over the fence (right past my face) with a yowl/growl. I back off.

Monday, April 8: Home from work, where I'd been pondering all day how to bring those kittens into my apartment without getting my face mauled! (Especially since I knew the next day, Tuesday, was leaf-blower day at my complex. Those guys would either spray debris randomly into the kittens' faces without seeing them, or else see them and do something stupid with them. In either case, the noise would be scary as hell for them.) Since Henny had often sassily liked to come into my kitchen whenever I left the sliding-glass door open as I prepared her dinner, this time, I fixed her food and set the dish about 20 feet inside---AFTER already setting my "kitten box" outside on the air-conditioner. Her reflexes had been super-quick the day before, so I didn't know if this would work. But... The second she started eating, I quickly stepped outside and closed the sliding-glass door behind me! Heh-heh-heh. She was now trapped inside with her food. In a few seconds, I snatched up all three babies, put them in the box, and carried all back inside, again quickly shutting the glass door. Henny immediately fussed at me, of course. And the second I set the box with babies down, she immediately grabbed one by the scruff of its neck and hauled him to the door. "Nope," I said. And, amazingly, she brought him right back to the box and jumped in after him! Here are Henny and her three 2-day-old babies that evening:

Wednesday, April 10: When I wake up for work that morning, the first thing I do is check the box --- babies are gone! I immediately ask Henny (because she's a weird little cat): "Where are your babies? Did you eat them?" No answer. But her belly didn't look suspiciously fat. Based on the last time I had a mama-cat who had kittens in my house (1990 or so), I checked under my bed: There they were! After that, I pretty much left them alone. Although I did get worried when Henny nearly completely disappeared Thursday the 11th; I think I saw her maybe twice all day, when she came out to eat. By the 12th, though, she had recuperated enough to come out not just for food but also to come over to me and say "hi." We see each other probably 6-8 times a day when I'm not at work.

For the next couple of weeks, I didn't bug them. One reason: I'm too old and creaky to get down on my belly on a hardwood floor in order to check under my bed! Plus, I didn't have a flashlight and couldn't see anything anyway. But an animal-lover at work convinced me that I needed to see what was going on and gave me a flashlight. First check was still just three little squirmers all nestled together with eyes only half-opened. But when I checked again on April 23, the three babies were walking around in completely separate areas under the bed, with eyes fully open and looking startled at the light shining on them!

Just yesterday, April 26, I tucked up the dust-ruffle of the bed. Previously, the ruffle had extended only about 2 inches above the floor, leaving the babies in semi-darkness most of the time. With the ruffle tucked up, there's nearly a foot of light all the way around, and the babies get a much better idea of what's going on in the outside world (i.e., what that tall creature is doing out there---I feel guilty every time I blow-dry my hair in the en-suite bathroom every morning!).

I'm no kitten expert, but I kind of thought that they'd have ventured out beyond the bed by this point. Today, April 27, I took a few more pictures on the kittens' 3rd-week anniversary. One is of Mama Henny at my feet, and the next is of a suspicious Mama Henny as I stuck the camera under the bed to see what the kittens were doing!

Can't wait for them to come out to play with me! Though the next step of this journey will be sad: Obviously, I can't keep four cats. I plan on keeping Henny and one of the kittens. The choosing, and then taking the other two to a no-kill shelter, will be depressing.

Tammy Wynette - Crying Steel Guitar (1974)

George Jones - Bring On The Clowns (1975)

Come all you merry makers

You wine drinkers and heart breakers
Pass me the bottle one more round
Come all of you love takers
All you cheaters and lie makers
Fill me with happiness and bring on the clowns.

There's a place around the corner and I can't wait to go
I can't stay away from there when I'm feeling low
Running from my problems, cheating on my wife
Acting like a hobo, running out on life.
Laughin' loud, telling jokes, drinking too much wine
Gathered 'round the table we're all one of a kind.

So come all you merry makers
You wine drinkers and heart breakers
Pass me the bottle one more round
Come all of you love takers
All you cheaters and lie makers
Fill me with happiness and bring on the clowns.

I thought that I was happy till I saw you walkin' in
And through the loud and noisy crowd you reach out your hand
I know I shouldn't be here, I really don't belong
I'm proud that you still love me and you wanna take me home.

Goodbye you merry makers
You wine drinkers and heart breakers
I'll be gone when the bottle passes 'round
Goodbye you love takers
All you cheaters and lie makers
You'll never miss me when you bring on the clowns.

'Cause I'll be with my baby when you bring on the clowns

Writer(s): G. JONES, B. SHERRILL, T. WYNETTE

George Jones - When The Wife Runs Off With Another Man (1969)

"I've lost so much weight from living on hate..."

George Jones & Tammy Wynette - THE GREAT DIVIDE (1972)

Addicted

Today around 2pm, after doing AM cleaning and getting in some overtime at the office, I drove miles out of my way to get a KFC box and picked up a six-pack, then came home expecting to be able to relax in front of the TV with my KFC and beer as I watched a marathon of NBA playoffs... Only to find that my TV wasn't working.

Sometimes I get home and my apartment complex has had an electric surge that caused the cable box to go out and so I have to re-set it and the TV via the remote. (Or else the cable just messes up by itself, and I have to manually re-set the box that controls both the cable TV and the Internet service.)

This time, though, the TV just wasn't working. Its red light was on and blinking when I clicked on the remote, indicating that it was receiving electricity and signals from the remote. But the screen remained completely black.

I didn't "panic," just felt utterly defeated. I had REALLY been looking forward to eating my KFC box while watching basketball playoffs! I checked all the connections, then re-set the cable box and waited the 11 minutes or so for it to re-boot... I was trying to save the KFC, but gave up and gulped it down sans pleasure while I watched the numbers on the cable box count down as it re-booted...

At the end of the KFC and the re-boot, still nothing from the TV, except the red light indicating that it was, indeed, getting electricity. Fuck. I'd just bought the thing in December. But online, from Amazon. Did it have a warranty? How I was going to lug the big-ass thing into whatever store it came from? A couple of years ago at this same apartment complex, a severe electric storm blew out a TV that I'd also only recently purchased. I wrote that one off as a loss, but a SECOND one?? And what was I supposed to watch now? I have a smaller TV in the bedroom, but I spend most of my life in the living room (including going to sleep on the living-room couch while watching TV)...Was I going to have to now figure out how to disconnect the bedroom TV and move it to the living room? (Which I could probably NOT figure out; I'd have to pay someone to do it.)

I finally thought to just unplug the main living-room TV from the electrical outlet and re-plug it. It then "miraculously" sorted itself out and came on. After much angst!

Yeah, yeah: "First-World Problem." But I happen to have been born and raised within the "First World," and so it was an actual problem! Well, actually, my relationship with TV has not always been so powerful. Born in '65, my family had a black-and-white TV with only the three major networks up until about 1972. In '72, some workmen came into our home and carted off that old TV; my parents pretended that we were getting rid of our only TV. I started crying, only to see the same worker-guys bringing in... a new color TV! 1972 through 1983, when I left home to go to college, there was that same color TV and the same network channels, but with a few extras, like PBS and one or two random channels that showed wrestling on Saturday nights. Although at age 12 or so, I was given a small black-and-white TV for my bedroom.

From '83 through '92 or so, I carted my same black-and-white childhood TV with me from dorm to apartment. VCRs were first being offered in the '80s, but I couldn't afford to buy one, so every now and then, when I really wanted to watch some classic movies, I'd rent a VCR from a video store and lug it home and hook it up.

I finally bought my own larger color TV around '93, at a house I was renting that happened to be offering free cable TV. I've always had a color TV and cable since then.

When I had only a tiny black-and-white TV with only 5 or so stations, I'd keep it off most of the time. In my early apartments as a student in Austin, I'd come home from school or work and usually turn on music and write. Around '95 or so, pre-computer, having a TV wasn't enough. I was desperately going out 4 or so nights a week out of pure boredom with myself. After my mother bought me a computer in 2000, the computer became the focus... I'd have TV or music on in the background, just to have it on, but I was more concerned with my Internet interactions.

Today, though---the thrill of Internet interaction a few years gone---the concept of having no television screen to look at while I write at the computer is actually a bit frightening.

Here are things I'm addicted to (in no particular order):  Beer, cigarettes, TV, computer/Internet.

I've gone without beer for days at a time. I've gone without being on the computer for days at a time. I've had only 3 or 4 cigarettes per day for days at a time. But the last time I was without TV for more than a day was when I moved into my current apartment in 2017 and the cable company fucked up and didn't turn on the cable when they were supposed to. For 2 days, I tried to compensate by listening to NPR on the radio---anything to have some semblance of "life," people talking...

George Jones & Tammy Wynette: THIS GROWING OLD TOGETHER LOVE WE SHARE (1973)

"You're my walls when I want to sit and stare..."

George Jones - The Grand Tour 1975

George Jones "Take Me" & "House of Gold"

A sincere heart forced to be a show-pony.

Tammy Wynette and George Jones: Golden Ring

Tammy Wynette and George Jones: "The Ceremony"

George Jones - Take Me

George Jones: There Might Be Two (1958)

Tammy Wynette: One of These Days (1976)

I won't have to chop no wood, I can be bad or I can be good
I can be any way that I feel one of these days
Won't have to answer to anyone, I'll get up with the morning sun
But I'll be gone like the birds that fly one of these days

I might be a woman that's dressed in black, be a hobo by the railroad track
Goin' any place that I want to go one of these days
Do anything that I want if I want to or if I don't
But I'll be gone like the wayward wind one of these days

One of these days it will soon be all over, cut and dried
And I won't have this urge to go, all bottled up inside
One of these days I'll look back and I'll say I left in time
Cause somewhere for me I know there's peace of mind

I might someday walk across this land and carry the Lord's Book in my hand
Goin' cross the country singin' loud as I can one of these days
But I won't have trouble on my back cuttin' like the devil with a choppin' axe
I got to shake it off of my back one of these days

Tammy Wynette: Another Chance (1982)

When you left you said you's doin' me a favor
I cried and I begged you not to go
Now it's just been two short weeks
And you're wantin' to come back
But I think there's somethin' that you oughtta know

I've rearranged the livin' room to suit me
I gave your favorite chair to charity
That closet you insisted on, it's mine now
So don't bring your old hangups back to me

I'm wearin' my jeans a little bit tighter
Changed my hair style and I'm learnin' how to dance
So maybe you best wait a little bit longer
'Fore you come back and give me another chance

I thank you for your call but someone's knockin' at the door
And he's drivin' a big old Cadillac
I prob'ly won't be home when you come to get your clothes
There on the back porch in a paper sack...

"Gone With the Wind"

This scene thrilled me at age 12 when CBS first aired "Gone with the Wind" on television; it thrills me now... (TCM aired GWTW tonight in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the network's debut April 14, 1994.)

On a 72-degree Sunday in Austin...

Amazing how much you can get done! (Well, if you haven't been up late drinking the night before! But also because the weather is nice and not humid and horrible, as it's about to be through September.)

Today, woke up at 7am. Did grocery shopping pre-rush. Did 3 loads of laundry pre-rush. Went in to work for 4 hours of overtime. Woooo! Much accomplished!

p.s. Kitten alert: No kitten news. Mama Henny, after moving her babies under my bed in the early hours of last Thursday, has been coming out to eat and say "hi" but... I haven't seen the kittens since! I don't want to bug them at all, so... I'll be on the lookout for the first little head peering from under my bedspread in the coming week or so!

George Jones: Six Foot Deep, Six Foot Down

George Jones "Smack Dab" Live (1998)

Tammy Wynette - Kids Say the Darndest Things

My first-grader just said a four-letter word and it sure wasn't "love."

Cain't Stand It

Womanhood (Tammy Wynette) ~ Hee Haw 10th Anniversary Celebration (1978)

"Tonight I've been through hell, Lord..."

Happy Birthday, Henny Babies!

Mama and three lil' babies are now doing fine. Kittens born around 2pm on Saturday in the mud in my neighbor's yard after 6 hours of Austin rainstorms Saturday morning. The bedraggled Henny wouldn't let either of us (me and my neighbor) come near, so we left her alone. My neighbor put a tarp over where she was lying with her babies, but she then moved all of her babies out of his yard and back into the rain. Both my neighbor and I put out food for her.

She endured more Austin rainstorms for hours all morning Sunday. Continued, while soaking wet herself, to nurse her babies in the mud, shielding them from the rain with her body.

I tried to gather her babies during the rain, but Henny hissed and growled and ran at me. I backed off.

Finally, today (Monday), I came up with a plan after I got off work: I took a cardboard box/bed outside with me. Left the sliding glass door open as I went back inside and shook the food bag and prepared Henny's usual dish, which I placed about 6 feet inside the door. When she came inside to eat, I jumped outside and shut the sliding-glass door behind me. Then went and gathered the kittens and placed them in the box and went back inside.

First thing Henny did was grab one little kitten by the scruff of its neck and try to take him back outside... Luckily, this lasted only a minute or so. She then took him right back to the box and hopped in after him. And, for the most part, she has now been busy nursing for the past 5 or 6 hours (with a few trips outside the box to come say "hi" to me and be stroked; to eat/drink; to make tentative explorations of my apartment, which she's rarely see before). Oh, yeah, and she pooped on my shag carpet, which, admittedly, has a ground-like texture (pretty good guess for a previously feral cat).

Here's the now-dry Henny and her three lil' babies.

George Jones and Tammy Wynette - Rollin' in My Sweet Baby's Arms (Hee-Haw 1971)

Where Oh Where

Henny didn't show up for dinner Friday...

Either she's dead or she just gave birth to her kittens. (For the past 9 months or so, Henny's been in my backyard around 5pm waiting for her regular feeding EVERY day.)

In my fantasy, Henny will gradually bring each kitten home to my backyard over the next couple of days. I'll bring them all inside and let the family nurse, then after 6 weeks, call the Austin no-kill shelter to take all kittens but one, plus take Hennessy in to be spayed and then returned to me.

As I was growing up in the country outside of Azle, Texas, we had a stray cat, "Mama Cat," who showed up at our house and then had kittens. She did what I'm now wishing Henny will do: Lugging each of her five kittens home (in the Azle case, to our back porch) by the loose scruffs of their necks 'til they were all in a safe place. In Austin, though, I'm not sure if Henny is going to have that leisure. The apartment complex is surrounded on one side by auto shops, which are abandoned after hours... I'm guessing the stray cats take refuge (and have their babies) there.

For the past half-year, my apartment complex management has been sending out messages about NOT feeding the stray cats, like Henny, roaming around the complex --- so the no-kill shelter could set up feeding traps to capture the cats. Well, I'd already started feeding Penny and Henny, so I couldn't just STOP feeding the cats that were trusting me to feed them...

I WISH that Henny would be able to do all of this (bringing kittens home to a safe place) properly, like a country cat could do...

Every Breath You Take (1994 Sting/Tammy duet)

Wannabe Grifters

Three of the people I've been in love with since 1989 turned out to be creepy low-level grifters.

One was Rick Broussard, the lead singer for "Two Hoots and a Holler," the rockabilly band that I'd see every Monday at the Black Cat Lounge and at Hole in the Wall in Austin from the late '80s through the early '90s. At one point in '89 or so, Rick said he'd meet me at Hole in the Wall. At the door, he first said he needed some money from me to pay for his friends' cover charge. When I pointed out that his band was a regular there --- why would his friends need ME to pay their cover charge? -- he backed off, then later on in the evening, asked me flat out to give him $10. (No. Bye.)

In the late '90s, after I'd been broken up with my first girlfriend since '89, I was back in Austin after a couple of years in San Francisco for grad school. I ran into the ex at a gay club one night and she was acting unusually friendly, asking for my new number, etc. A couple of nights later, she called. Turned out, she wanted me to pay off her credit card! "THAT's why you called?" I said "hell no" and then went outside and sat on the bumper of my car and cried and cried and cried.

Just a couple of months ago, someone I loved said "I love you." I believed her. The very next night, she called and asked me for money. I said no. She stopped speaking to me. And I didn't cry one bit.

There are gray areas in any relationship, but one thing that makes my blood run utterly reptilian cold: Asking me for money. (Oh, yeah, and not driving me to work when you said you would.)

What qualifies for #MeToo

The most traumatic experience with my father, among many, was the time he dragged me by my hair out of my bedroom. I was 12 or so, watching television on my 12-inch black-and-white TV, and writing in my journal. My dad popped his head in the door to see what I was doing. He didn't like the fact that I was both watching TV AND writing; he said I couldn't do both at the same time and told me to stop writing. I thought he was being silly, so kept writing. A few minutes later, he was back... He saw that I was still writing while the TV was on and grabbed me by my hair and hauled me down the hallway and dumped me in the living room.

I didn't grow up in a stereotypical "uber-lower-class" family: No parent was doing drugs or sleeping around, and my father was an enlisted Air Force man and so had a regular (albeit lower-class) income. (Though, according to my grade-school, I did qualify for reduced-price lunches, which was embarrassing to my mother; we did not take advantage of that welfare option.)

I was also, at home, constantly subject to the "fact" that I and "we" (my family) were "superior." In what way, I never could determine. I was always a smart and pretty kid in school. But at home, I was always not allowed to associate with other kids: to spend the night with girlfriends in 6th grade, to go skating at the local roller rink (my father dropped me off at the rink one time --- and forbade me to let my hair out of the pony-tail or to take off my coat; I sat there the whole time by myself, miserable, that time not daring to challenge him).

My mother ended up divorcing my father after he chased her out of the house with a gun one night (also when I was 12) --- he'd gone out one night in his suede jacket and cologne and then come home a couple of hours later and demanded she go to the bedroom with him. When she refused, I was sent to my room, but peered out to see him grapple with her and see her tear the gold chain from his neck, after which he went for the gun and she ran, and he shot after her... He collapsed into a drunken stupor soon after. Hours later, I then crept around the house to see if he was asleep, then went and looked for my mother...

At the time, I didn't think anything of it. I always went to school the next day. (Really? I didn't think anything of it?! According to the Internet, I didn't get murdered or sexually abused, so I had it easy.)

GEORGE & TAMMY - LOVIN' YOU, LOVIN' ME

Yes, I already posted this song a few days ago. I love it. Here it is again, with slightly different pictures.

"Once my life was just a bad routine..."

Tammy Wynette: My Man (1972)

Oh god, I think I'm about to be a grandma...

What began as a feeding kindness to what I thought was a singular stray cat (that I named "Penny") in July of 2018 has recently become: The scruffy, scrappy companion to Penny, whom I named "Henny" and thought was a boy, has in recent months become the apparently pregnant girl cat who faithfully waits for me to come home from work every day (along with the older, beaten-up-looking white and tiger-striped cat that I initially named "Papa Penny" --- probably also a girl cat!).

Since last July: Usually, I come home, give whatever cats are hanging out their food, then shut the sliding-glass door and go back in. With the spring-like weather now, I've been leaving the screen door open. Henny (short for "Hennessy" because she acts like an obnoxious drunk little cat) finally complained so much outside my screen door this evening (for about 3 hours) that I finally let her inside. For about 20 minutes, she explored and sniffed rooms, rubbed up against me, tried to lie down calmly, etc., but failed. Too much new information! After about 20 minutes, she headed to the door --- didn't want to, but DID want to go back out.

It's simple to go buy a litter box and litter. Voila --- an "inside cat." But Henny's belly is swollen --- either she's worm-laden or she's about to give birth to a litter of kittens. I'm hoping she'll give birth to them out in whatever secret place those strays hang out in! But somehow I think she's grooming me to be the birth center. Then, I'll soon have to feel mean and give up the kittens to the city pet-control center. (It's no-kill, but still --- it's traumatic. The mama-cat is extremely disturbed when her kittens are taken away.)

Brought this on myself by trying to be kind and feed the one cat that I named "Penny" last July. Penny has long since disappeared. I'm now left with evil-twin "Henny." I like Henny a lot, despite her ongoing obnoxiousness. But I'm annoyed about the kitten-problem that I think she's about to lay on me!

If God Met You - Tammy Wynette & George Jones (1995)

#MeToo handled funnily and right, 25 years ago.

Le Sacre du printemps / The Rite of Spring - Ballets Russes (initially scandalous in 1913)

Caused a riot and sensation in 1913.

My Rite of Spring

On a newly pleasant spring Austin day today, I came home to my angst:

(1) Neighbors putting coals on a communal grill. (Though at 5:30pm, are they going to stay out there until 2am? I've previously had to go out post-midnight and tell a loud group at that same picnic table to please be quiet.)
(2) Next-door neighbor sitting in his adjoining backyard when I come home from work (when I have to go out into my adjoining yard to feed the Henny cat and say "hi" to this guy when I've reported him multiple times for his loud music).

As it turned out, the (1) BBQ gang didn't make a sound that I could hear, and (2) the neighbor didn't make a sound, either, though I felt a bit awkward for the few minutes while I was banging the cat dishes out and then returning with the full bowls and water and cat-talk while Henny was jumping on me ("Henny, why are you so bad?").

It was all ultimately alright, and so I mocked myself for immediately initially thinking that things would be bad... Truth is, though, things were often VERY bad at this apartment complex when I first moved in 2 years ago. So that memory lingers.

It's Spring, and I can't quite enjoy the Spring. And I keep thinking ahead to late May, when all of the pool parties at the apartment complex will start, some often lasting until the early hours. Not always, but sometimes. Enough to put me on edge ahead of time.

W.S. Merwin is dead --- so what?

When I was a young poet at the University of Texas in the early '80s, I, and everyone else, had W.S. Merwin shoved down our throats in anthologies. He was the ultimate favorite of the Academy, and remained so, right up until he just now died.

But did he mean anything to anybody? Today's elegies in the New Yorker tout him as an "environmentalist" and "anti-war activist," which is bullshit when it comes to being a poet (there's nothing bold or brave about adopting the trends of one's times).

I'll grant him this one mildly good poem:

FOR THE ANNIVERSARY OF MY DEATH

Every year without knowing it I have passed the day
When the last fires will wave to me
And the silence will set out
Tireless traveller
Like the beam of a lightless star
Then I will no longer
Find myself in life as in a strange garment
Surprised at the earth
And the love of one woman
And then shamelessness of men
As today writing after three days of rain
Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease
And bowing not knowing to what

==========================

Though, come to think of it: Even with this grand topic, Merwin is mediocre over nearly half of the lines (though I love "And bowing not knowing to what").

Iowa Park, Texas

Working overtime today, and a geologist stopped by to chat. He's a Trump fan, as I am, and we started talking politics. He brought up the fact that today's media constantly promotes "The Coasts" and talks about anything else as being merely "Flyover Country." You're supposed to be ashamed of living anyplace else.

As an aside, he mentioned "Iowa Park, Texas" --- I perked up: I lived there as a kid for 6 years, ages 4 through 6, and then again from ages 9 through 11. Turns out that this man graduated from high school there in '75. And he knew exactly the street I lived on (514 W. Rebecca)! As soon as I mentioned I'd lived there, he excused himself and came back minutes later with 2 Iowa Park high school yearbooks!

Though I was just a kid before I moved to Azle, Texas, in '76, we reminisced about stores and streets and football rivalries of Iowa Park (Hirschi Huskies and Burk Burnett Bulldogs, et al). When looking through his yearbooks, we even found my old babysitter --- Frieda!

When my family lived there the first time, '69 through '71, we lived on Sunset Drive. Two teenaged babysitters for me lived across the street, Frieda and Connie. Frieda, the red-haired and nerdy, was the "good" babysitter. Connie was the bad one; she left cigarette butts by the fence in our backyard (and there were extra butts there, too, indicating that, probably, a boy had been there with her), and so my parents decided never to use her again. After that decision, Connie confronted me on the street with the argument re why she should remain my babysitter: "Nobody at school likes Frieda." I reported this fact back to my parents; they stuck with their choice of Frieda.

I like this geologist a lot. (1) He's a constantly pleasant and interesting fellow. And (2) He told me today upon finding out that I had also lived in Iowa Park, "And I'd thought you were so cosmopolitan!" :)

Junior Brown: Too Many Nights in a Roadhouse (1993)

Junior Brown - Highway Patrol (1993)

George Jones - Honky Tonk Song (1996)

Please also appreciate the guest appearance by Junior Brown as the State Trooper!

George Jones "Smack Dab" Live (1998)

The man is 67 years old here and still completely into his music. Just watch how he moves when he sings.

George Jones: "Hung Up On You" Live (1996)

A Girl I Used To Know (George Jones, 1963)

Not near rich enough to buy a house in Austin...

...or a car better than a cute lil' Mazda 2 (used), but at least I can buy $100 George Jones sets and $100 Born shoes!

RE George: I love him and want everything he's every recorded.
RE the shoes: My first time to spend $100 for a non-boot. Won't happen very often, but... there aren't any other cheaper red loafers out there, and this is EXACTLY what I wanted. (What a shock: I can afford to get SOMETHING that is EXACTLY what I want!)

George Jones - I Don't Want No Stranger Sleepin' In My Bed (1978)

Tammy Wynette - Almost Persuaded (1967)

1993: Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette & Loretta Lynn

Womanhood (Tammy Wynette, 1978)

I first tried to listen to Tammy Wynette seriously in 1994, after I'd gone to San Francisco for grad school and was still incredibly lonely (despite my "fresh start") and seeking fresh music to make me feel better. A two-pronged approach: Rap and Country. Neither of which I'd ever listened much to before. But at that point I needed to try SOMETHING different, anything. In '94, there wasn't Internet, but there was a monthly CD club, similar to the Book of the Month Club. I ordered some Country (Hank Williams, Tammy's Greatest Hits, then-modern stuff like Garth Brooks), and some '94-popular rappers like Warren G. I ended up feeling nothing for either Warren G or Hank Williams. And with the Tammy Greatest, I didn't like 75% of it --- I loved "Apartment No. 9" and "Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad" and "Til I Can Make It On My Own," but most of the rest of her solo stuff was treacly.

BUT: On the "Tammy Hits" CD, there were some duets with her one-time husband George Jones like "Golden Ring," "Two Story House," "We're Going to Hold On"...  1994 is the year that I became a George Jones fan, thanks to Tammy. Since then, saw him twice in concert in Austin, bought multiple collections and solo albums, etc.

Over the past few weeks, I've been revisiting George (and loving his music more, and ordering expensive United Artists and Musicor collections from his early years) and, in tandem, trying to appreciate Tammy more. The collection I bought in San Fran in '94 that I didn't like so much was from 1987: "Tammy Wynette Anniversary: Twenty Years of Hits." A few weeks ago, I tried again with her with the 1999 "Tammy Wynette: The Definitive Collection." Same reaction: I loved "Apartment" and "Your Good Girl's" and "Til I Can Make It" plus things like "Silver Threads and Golden Needles" (1993 with Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn). But thought most of the rest was filler. I did find one song from 1978, though, that I liked --- and had to dig around to figure out what I suspected: that it was George Jones singing backup on it! (They'd divorced in '75, but he would continue to hang around until '81 or so.)

George Jones Golden Hits

Can't get enough of this guy.

Tammy Wynette and George Jones - "We Go Together" (1972)

The KLF with Tammy Wynette: Justified & Ancient (1991)

This kind of wacky thing is fine as long as it's confined to the music world. Trouble is, this has now bled over into the running of our country. "We're all bound for muu-muu land." (p.s. Tammy SOUNDS great, but she looks like an idiot.)

George Jones - If Drinking Don't Kill Me (1982)

Jones at his coked-up post-divorce peak (or valley, depending). A beautiful singer and soul regardless of his then-current state.

George Jones: "Yabba Dabba Doo, The King is Gone (So Are You)" (1989)

One of my favorite George Jones songs ever. And I love the way he looks and moves and plays his guitar during this. Regardless of decade, George Jones is usually very attractive to me.

George Jones & Tammy Wynette: The World Needs A Melody (1973)

1. 
   

George Jones and Tammy Wynette: Lovin' You, Lovin' Me (1994)

From the 1994 "Burn Your Playhouse Down" George duet sessions. One of Tammy's last recordings, along with songs from her 1995 duet album with George, "One." She died in April 1998.

George Jones and Tammy Wynette - Milwaukee Here I Come

Country song

"All Roads Lead to Home"

I drove all night to our old house
Just to see if I was still there
Circled the drive four or five times
Couldn't find me anywhere

Still hoping for a light that was shining
From your window up above
Found a black-out, just like wartime
No exception for our love

After whiskey and fuel were drained
I drove back to where I came from
At 6am, both dawn and me were breaking
All roads lead to home.

The Plot Against the Giant (Wallace Stevens, 1917)

First Girl
When this yokel comes maundering,
Whetting his hacker,
I shall run before him,
Diffusing the civilest odors
Out of geraniums and unsmelled flowers.
It will check him.

Second Girl
I shall run before him,
Arching cloths besprinkled with colors
As small as fish-eggs.
The threads
Will abash him.

Third Girl
Oh, la...le pauvre!
I shall run before him,
With a curious puffing.
He will bend his ear then.
I shall whisper
Heavenly labials in a world of gutturals.
It will undo him.

1965: George Jones (with Johnny Paycheck on bass and harmonizing): The Race Is On

George Jones (with Johnny Paycheck): "I'm Ragged But I'm Right" (1990s)

George Jones (1956): I'm Ragged But I'm Right

I'm Ragged But I'm Right

I just bought this T-shirt from eBay. Am looking forward to wearing it to some future protest.

George Jones - You Put Living Back In Life (1971)