What is it about paper writing that makes me so crazy? It seems to make everyone crazy, so I'm not alone. But of course one's true colors emerge under pressure, and mine are like one of those magic eye pictures. There's something there, everyone says so, but for the life of me I can't tell what I'm supposed to see, I can't focus my eyes correctly. I RUN from the work. If it weren't for the endless depths of the interwebs I wouldn't be able to stand even the pretense of being chained to the desk. It's just hard, and my life is so easy otherwise. I'm spoiled for hard work, that's the long and short of it.
Nonetheless, I'm in a cycle of procrastination, and I figure it's more productive to turn the insides out than simply keep refreshing my scrabulous games waiting for any one of my six opponents to make their freaking move.
Smokey and I went to Donovan's house today and had lunch with the host, Nell and Job, the host's cat. We imagined it as a kind of experimental playdate, and I must say the two beasties acquitted themselves admirably. Smokey was pissed to be put in the carrier, both times, but when I let him out at Donovan's he was cool, calm and collected, hissing minimally and not so much interested in Job as in the various appointments of Donovan's apartment. Part of the impetus behind the whole thing was to see if Smokey was freaked out by other cats. I don't know if he's ever been exposed to other cats, so I thought it was worth investigating. He gets into these moods where he can't leave me alone, but he doesn't really want me to do anything except talk to him. He doesn't want to be pet, he doesn't want to play, he doesn't like it when I chase him or try to wrestle, he just doesn't want me to do anything else either. I go through this whole routine whenever he does this, I check his food, his poop space, everything's invariably fine, he's just... I dunno, unanswerable. If I do turn my attention elsewhere he lets out these deep throaty yowls that I imagine the neighbors must be able to hear and the only thing I can do to stop him is to talk to him, ask him what's wrong, make fun of his voice. Then he looks at me, with this fascinated expression, and if he comes over it's not so close that I can reach out and pet him (if I try he runs away), it's just close enough that he can get a better look at me speaking (or so it seems anyway). If I stop speaking and just look at him, he gets all self-conscious and turns away, ostensibly to do something else, and then as soon as I think it's all over and done with, he'll start with the yowling again. So far as I can tell this is his only symptom, of whatever condition I can't imagine, and it happens maybe once every other day, usually in the evening, until he decides to stop.
It seems especially appropriate that I should have a cat who's fascinated by speech, if that's really what it is. At any rate, my cat has a Face, in the Levinasian sense. He makes demands and I go crazy because I don't know how to give him what he wants. I don't know what he wants, so I theorize and plot. The kitty playdate was a precursor to a perhaps plan that I've been cooking up to get another cat. Two cats is a lot for a one bedroom apartment, and I'm not at the point of wanting another right now. But I wonder if maybe Smokey is just lonely for intra-species conversation, as it were, and I am, of course, completely inadequate for the purpose. If I could time it right, Job would come over when Smokey was being crazy, so I could see if his eyes lit up. Today at lunch he seemed to be completely detached and uninterested in Job, but that was a narrow window of time, and the first of such experiences for Smokey, as far as I know. I'm glad my Elder Admiral feels comfortable enough to express himself so openly, but I need to figure out what it is he's trying to tell me, or we're going to start resenting the misunderstanding.
Which, through a labyrinth of barely distinguishable connections, brings me to my Lacan and the Symposium paper... this concept of the agalma inside the little ugly statue of the silenoi. The magnetic jewel inside the repulsive body. Ostensibly this is Socrates through the eyes of the rogue Alcibiades (I love calling him that), but part of Lacan's point (as I gather), is that beloveds are invariably like this. They hold something out to their lovers that cannot be described, cannot be accounted for or made understandable to anyone else. We love them in spite of themselves, and despite our own images of whatever lovableness another being can possibly contain. That quality precludes rationalization partly because it isn't real, and partly because we cannot resist our own imaginations. Desire is a force beyond reckoning in the human sphere, and all this talk of religion and knowledge and the good, the beautiful and the true is just so much noise when you believe that adornment is there, inside that, waiting for you to break through the barrier. Socrates speaks, and Alcibiades is possessed by his words: "When I hear them, my heart pounds and the tears flow" (215d), and this from a great manly man who could swing wars with his genius (rhymes with...). So this prince pulls out all the stops, risks every cent of his pride to get this goatish older man to let him inside, and Socrates keeps his face turned away, saying, "it's not me." I understand how Alcibiades feels, enraged at the sudden confrontation with the boundary of his not inconsiderable seductive power, forever crashing against the gates of Socratic virtue. "So, I forcibly stop up my ears and run away, as from the Sirens, so that I won't grow old just sitting there beside him" (216a).
How to turn this into some kind of professional document? That is the question.
Nonetheless, I'm in a cycle of procrastination, and I figure it's more productive to turn the insides out than simply keep refreshing my scrabulous games waiting for any one of my six opponents to make their freaking move.
Smokey and I went to Donovan's house today and had lunch with the host, Nell and Job, the host's cat. We imagined it as a kind of experimental playdate, and I must say the two beasties acquitted themselves admirably. Smokey was pissed to be put in the carrier, both times, but when I let him out at Donovan's he was cool, calm and collected, hissing minimally and not so much interested in Job as in the various appointments of Donovan's apartment. Part of the impetus behind the whole thing was to see if Smokey was freaked out by other cats. I don't know if he's ever been exposed to other cats, so I thought it was worth investigating. He gets into these moods where he can't leave me alone, but he doesn't really want me to do anything except talk to him. He doesn't want to be pet, he doesn't want to play, he doesn't like it when I chase him or try to wrestle, he just doesn't want me to do anything else either. I go through this whole routine whenever he does this, I check his food, his poop space, everything's invariably fine, he's just... I dunno, unanswerable. If I do turn my attention elsewhere he lets out these deep throaty yowls that I imagine the neighbors must be able to hear and the only thing I can do to stop him is to talk to him, ask him what's wrong, make fun of his voice. Then he looks at me, with this fascinated expression, and if he comes over it's not so close that I can reach out and pet him (if I try he runs away), it's just close enough that he can get a better look at me speaking (or so it seems anyway). If I stop speaking and just look at him, he gets all self-conscious and turns away, ostensibly to do something else, and then as soon as I think it's all over and done with, he'll start with the yowling again. So far as I can tell this is his only symptom, of whatever condition I can't imagine, and it happens maybe once every other day, usually in the evening, until he decides to stop.
It seems especially appropriate that I should have a cat who's fascinated by speech, if that's really what it is. At any rate, my cat has a Face, in the Levinasian sense. He makes demands and I go crazy because I don't know how to give him what he wants. I don't know what he wants, so I theorize and plot. The kitty playdate was a precursor to a perhaps plan that I've been cooking up to get another cat. Two cats is a lot for a one bedroom apartment, and I'm not at the point of wanting another right now. But I wonder if maybe Smokey is just lonely for intra-species conversation, as it were, and I am, of course, completely inadequate for the purpose. If I could time it right, Job would come over when Smokey was being crazy, so I could see if his eyes lit up. Today at lunch he seemed to be completely detached and uninterested in Job, but that was a narrow window of time, and the first of such experiences for Smokey, as far as I know. I'm glad my Elder Admiral feels comfortable enough to express himself so openly, but I need to figure out what it is he's trying to tell me, or we're going to start resenting the misunderstanding.
Which, through a labyrinth of barely distinguishable connections, brings me to my Lacan and the Symposium paper... this concept of the agalma inside the little ugly statue of the silenoi. The magnetic jewel inside the repulsive body. Ostensibly this is Socrates through the eyes of the rogue Alcibiades (I love calling him that), but part of Lacan's point (as I gather), is that beloveds are invariably like this. They hold something out to their lovers that cannot be described, cannot be accounted for or made understandable to anyone else. We love them in spite of themselves, and despite our own images of whatever lovableness another being can possibly contain. That quality precludes rationalization partly because it isn't real, and partly because we cannot resist our own imaginations. Desire is a force beyond reckoning in the human sphere, and all this talk of religion and knowledge and the good, the beautiful and the true is just so much noise when you believe that adornment is there, inside that, waiting for you to break through the barrier. Socrates speaks, and Alcibiades is possessed by his words: "When I hear them, my heart pounds and the tears flow" (215d), and this from a great manly man who could swing wars with his genius (rhymes with...). So this prince pulls out all the stops, risks every cent of his pride to get this goatish older man to let him inside, and Socrates keeps his face turned away, saying, "it's not me." I understand how Alcibiades feels, enraged at the sudden confrontation with the boundary of his not inconsiderable seductive power, forever crashing against the gates of Socratic virtue. "So, I forcibly stop up my ears and run away, as from the Sirens, so that I won't grow old just sitting there beside him" (216a).
How to turn this into some kind of professional document? That is the question.
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