First order of business:
If this is your cat, let me know. He's adorable, but I don't necessarily want to keep him. At least I think he's a him, I'm not 100% sure I know the difference between male and female cats by outward signs. Tyra emailed me late Friday night and told me that a ginger cat that had been wandering the neighborhood for a few days was mewling in her entry way, and the weather was bad, so I took pity on him and brought him home. I had been talking in study hall about my kinda plan to get another cat, and how I love orange tiger cats, and lo, the next day one materializes. This, I presume, is the cosmos' way of kicking me off my duff, but I'm not convinced I'm supposed to make him a member of our little family. If I do, I think I'll name him Pursey (he does this cute little thing with his face when he wants something), so if someone out there has already named him, please feel free to spare him the indignity.

As far as the experiment goes, it's hard to tell whether Mr. Mystery and Smokey will get along just yet. There have been some scraps (on my bed no less, while I was sleeping, a singularly unpleasant way to wake up), and my house is filled with hostile feline noises pretty much 24 hours, but I'm pretty sure we're just establishing the pecking order. At any rate, I've had to assert my top position a lot more with the newby than I ever had to do with Smokey, given the former's proclivity for jumping up on preferably sanitary surfaces and his intense desire to seek out Smokey's hiding places and disturb his hard won solitude. He's definately younger than Smokey, but honestly I have no idea what's really going on with him. He could be diseased for all I know, but for now I'm just going to hope I haven't been smited.

Last night Tyra, Sangeetha and I went to Ithaca for the Ani show at the State Theatre. There's something about Ani that's pretty indescribable, I never dance at her shows because I'm always completely transfixed by the way she performs. There's something so private about her presence, even though she's standing before oodles of people. It was interesting at the State because for most of her classic songs (Fire Door, Untouchable Face, 32 Flavors, Both Hands) people were singing along, at times in this barely audible sybillant (sp?) whisper that echoed just after Ani's voice. This was both good and bad, good because it gave a warm fuzzy feeling of community, and bad because she was motivated to sing more classic songs, which frankly, I've heard these numbers too often, they've become bleached of new and startling insights for me. She also played a new song that I flatly didn't like, which is a new experience for me where Ani's concerned. At any rate, seeing her live was important to me, not only because I love her music, but because I think she's one of the few independent female role models I can still hold up. There's nothing compromised about her, she's solidly and (probably) irresistibly herself on stage, and the individuality of her music and performance startles me anew each time.

Ugh, I'm so tired today. Beyond the sleep I lost to the establishment of the pecking order, I've been more or less very hard at work in the last few days. I submitted two papers for publishing of one form or another and I've been trying to catch up with the coursework for next week, which I haven't actually managed to do. Something about school is starting to seem easier, I can't put my finger on it, but the realization that I am no solid judge of my own work seems to put the work I do do in a different perspective. I'm tempted to spend the rest of the day at Dan's house watching the superbowl, but I'm afraid I'd either fall asleep or just be bad company. A big part of me just wants to curl up with a movie and try to wake up tomorrow with something resembling an assembled mental base.

Anyway, I hope everyone is well, wherever this finds you.