"feeding the cats to the mouses"

Since there was already a metaphorical cat in my last entry, I figured this would be a good moment to write the one about real cats that I've been planning for a while.

You see, I have a lot of windows facing the street. Between the street and my building, there's a frontyard that mostly consists of grass and oddly placed shrubs. I cannot see the grass when I'm sitting down, but I catch glimpses of what's going on down there often enough.

So there's this cat. I know nothing about cats, but something makes me suspect it is a male cat, and I am going to refer to him as Cat 1. He likes to hang out below my window.

Cat 1 is black with a few white spots, a bit on the thin side, and seems to think of himself as a dangerous predator. One day as I opened my window, I saw him doing his usual thing, stalking around the frontyard trying to kill birds with the power of his mind or whatever it is he does. Occasionally he would glare up at me, as if to ask who the fuck I thought I was that I dared to just watch him like that, yet knowing there was nothing he could do to stop me.

Then, Cat 2 appeared! Cat 2 is a light brown tabby, slightly more substantial than Cat 1, and seems to be a rather laid-back fellow. If he is indeed the cat I think he is (long story), I even know for sure that he is male. He doesn't hang out here as often as Cat 1, but on that day he came by, strolling into the frontyard as if he were admiring the scenery.

Cat 1 was not pleased with this turn of events. I can only assume that he disapproves of such un-predatory behaviour as scenery-admiring, especially in his territory, dammit!

As soon as he spied the intruder, Cat 1 dashed behind a shrub and crouched there, seemingly ready to pounce at any moment. If Cat 2 had noticed his presence, he gave no indication. When he casually approached the shrub that Cat 1 was hiding behind, Cat 1 decided that he'd had enough of this nonsense and gave a very loud hiss. Cat 2 was thoroughly unimpressed and merely went around the shrub on the opposite side. Cat 1 twitched in irritation. How dare this stranger ignore his warning?! When Cat 2 emerged from the cover of the shrub, Cat 1 did the funniest thing I have ever seen a cat do (though I admittedly haven't seen cats do many things at all). It was a strange sort of half-pounce, as if he'd been going to attack and changed his mind mid-jump. Then he hissed again for good measure.

Cat 2 didn't even react. He continued to stroll through the frontyard at the same pace as before, until he reached the house and changed direction to wander off elsewhere. Poor little Cat 1 could do nothing but watch, frozen in position where he'd landed.

I couldn't help it, I burst out laughing. The whole thing had been funny enough on its own, but what made matters worse was that it also reminded me oddly of a Dragon Age II fanfic I had just read (either on my phone or on my MP3 player as a saved text file). I wish I remembered the title now to have proof of the similarity! Ever since then, I've been referring to the cats as Fenris and Anders in my head ...

"So what do you do in that gigantic house all day?" - "Dance, of course."

Sometimes I regret that I never had a chance to find out how I would have acted if I'd had internet access during my first few weeks here, when I felt so amazing. I didn't really start to miss it until things got worse - I missed certain people, yes, and I missed Google when I had a question, but I didn't miss Being Online as a way to waste spend time.

Finding things to do when I needed to sit down for more than an hour because my feet or my back had to recover was a challenge, but I got the hang of it after a while. Even other kinds of pain, which simply distracted me from whatever I started, could be helped because I was so calm that I didn't mind lying on a heating pad for 30 minutes, doing nothing. If all else failed, I went over to Daniel's to talk to him or play Dragon Age II. Sometimes I reread a book, and on one memorable occasion I even acquired a new book.

There was a time when I went for long walks really often, exercised a lot (an evolved version of my former "morning exercises", which eventually became too extensive to be done before breakfast) and spent a curious amount of time just listening to music, dancing around the place if the music invited it. :D I wouldn't exactly call this a positive development, though ... I think I may have been somewhat manic. It all felt rather compulsive, especially the walking. Still, I did have fun.

What killed it in the end was, of course, when the lack of sleep sapped the energy to do much of anything out of me, while the impulses to do all of the above remained. That was torture - I never missed the internet more in my life.

Now I've got it back, but I don't like having no other options. I hope I can soon start walking again, at least. Also, on another note, I hope can soon post my pictures! There are some of Things That I Made ... not necessarily the most exciting stuff, but I feel I need to display them as proof of the fact that I've done anything creative at all between now and two years ago.