Patia Stephens :: Missoula, Montana

But first ...

Okay, despite what I just wrote, I promised y'all an update on my Thanksgiving/birthday adventures, Tango and Luna and my two front teeth. So, briefly ...

In keeping with my tradition of traveling for my birthday and Thanksgiving -- which happened to be on the same day this year -- I went to Spokane. I know, not real exciting, but the coast trip I'd been planning just seemed too overwhelming, especially with a new kitty at home. So I ended up spending two luxurious nights at Spokane's finest hotel, the Davenport. I started off my visit with a 50-minute deep-tissue massage and a 25-minute cranial massage in the hotel spa. On the Big Day proper, I saw "The Polar Express" movie at the IMAX theater. (Which was sorta creepy, sorta cool.) That night I had a lovely fireside dinner in the hotel's knockout lobby, while reading Gay's birthday present to me, "The Sweet Potato Queen's Field Guide to Men." Let me tell you, this book is a scream. It was all I could do to maintain my composure while reading it in public. After checkout Friday, I did some shopping before heading home. My only complaint about the whole thing is that it was much too short.

In the next day or two, I will upload a batch of new photos to Flickr, which will include some shots from my Spokane trip. They'll join the rotating collection in the upper-right corner of my pages.

Tango and Luna are getting along smashingly. Well, Tango is still hissing and growling on occasion, but tonight I caught him and Luna playing together. Warmed my heart. Yesterday they both had vet appointments, Tango for his dewormer shot and Luna for a general checkup. The vet surprised me by pronouncing Luna about a year and a half old, based on her teeth. She's so kittenish, I thought she was younger. But I guess her teenage pregnancy stunted her growth. Today, Luna went outside on her own steam for the second time, and I nervously let her out of my sight. Later, before I had to leave, I called her to come home and was about to give up when she came running. What delight!

My two front teeth: They're almost straight. I kid you not. My first adjustment is tomorrow and my teeth are 90 percent straight after less than two months in braces. I can't wait to see what the orthodontist says.

Okay, that's it for a while. I'm not posting again until my finals are finished!

To blog or not to blog

That is the question.

I've been having a raging internal debate about whether I should quit blogging. And not just blogging, but reading other people's blogs, and surfing new and interesting websites, and trying to keep up with news and the world in general.

I've already sworn off politics for awhile, due to overwhelm and post-election depression. But now I'm contemplating taking it a step further and reducing my web usage to the bare minimum. The thing is, I love it. I love blogging and reading other people's stuff, I love the conversations that go on, I love news and politics and activism, I love the vastness of the Web, I love learning new stuff. I'm an information junkie. But lately I'm feeling more and more overwhelmed. I looked at the calendar the other day and discovered I have less than two weeks till the end of the semester. And A LOT of writing to get done before then. I mean A LOT.

I am realizing that, no matter how many articles on time management I read or how well-organized I become, I can't do it all. I can't take a full graduate load and work 30 hours a week and write the Great American Novel and keep my house clean and exercise and eat right and have a social life and blog regularly and answer email and send Christmas cards and floss my teeth and clean the car and .... You get the picture. I know most of us are fighting similar battles on a daily basis. How parents do it all, I don't even know. I have reached a point where something's gotta give -- and I don't want it to be my job or my school or my health. I tell myself I don't have time to exercise, but the truth is, I am able to find an hour or two or more every day to spend on the computer. That's a problem.

So, much as I regret it, I think you'll be seeing less of me for a while. I'll still try to post the big news here and follow a few of my favorite blogs, but at least while I'm in grad school, I need to become more focused. This isn't goodbye -- just an advance apology for my flakiness. More importantly, it is a pact with myself. A pact to quit distracting myself from my dreams, and to start giving my goals the attention they're worth. Yay!

I must, I must

I must increase my bust.

No, wait. That's a different post. Entirely.

What I must is get my homework done. Then I will post about my Thanksgiving/birthday indulgences, the adventures of Tango and Luna, and my two front teeth.

Cat blogging, etc.

Luna LOVES playing fetch. Here she is with her mouse. She has been playing with this thing practically nonstop for a week. It no longer has a tail or eyes.

Tango is still hissing at her when she gets too close, but I think he's loosening up a bit.

Doing paperwork last weekend, I took a closer look at Luna's adoption paperwork. Her impound date was June 30. She was in a cage for four months.

Luna got a new collar and ID tag today. Then she got to go outside for the first time since coming here. She has been trying to follow Tango out the door for the past week. I held her and we walked around the cabin so she could get her bearings. It was snowing. She was nervous and excited. When we came back into the house she leapt about in happiness.

Meanwhile, I have too much to do and not enough time. The usual.

Sorry everybody

Have you seen this? I love it.

Adventures in creative writing: You're invited

noir (nwar)

ADJECTIVE:

Of or relating to the film noir genre.
Of or relating to a genre of crime literature featuring tough, cynical characters and bleak settings.
Suggestive of danger or violence.

ETYMOLOGY:
Short for film noir + Sense 2, short for French roman noir, black novel

I have to write 50 pages of fiction for the final project of a class I'm taking. It can be either two 25-page short stories or a 50-page novella. I've chosen the novella; it seems simpler to have to come up with just one story idea, rather than two. I've been procrastinating heavily. Fiction is a stretch for me, because I'm so accustomed to writing nonfiction -- feature stories, news releases and the like -- for a living. After weeks of fretting and fussing, I finally started writing tonight.

I debated long and hard whether to share the work in progress here. Inspired in part by National Novel Writing Month, I liked the thought of having an imaginary audience to spur me on, expectations to meet beyond just the looming end-of-the-semester deadline. But fiction is scary, and scarier still are the parameters within which I must write. The class I'm taking is focused on American Noir. Its subtitle, as written on my syllabus, is "Lust, Greed, Crime, Passion and Murder: Investigating the Elements of the Page-Turner." If I do a good job, my story will be dark. Creepy. Probably sexy. Not something I want people stumbling across without warning.

So although I won't be an official NaNoWriMo participant, I've decided to share the story via email with anyone interested enough to send me their email address. Updates will be posted sporadically, as I find time and inspiration, but the whole thing should be done by late December. Here are the opening lines to whet your appetite:

When It Gets Dark Outside

She wanted to touch his scars. They were wide, silvery swaths of skin on the back of his neck, one on each side where the curve of his shoulders began.

Want more? E-mail me at cowgrrrl.3376666@bloglines.com.

Montana bloggers in the news

Several of my fellow (emphasis on fellow; where are the women?) Montana bloggers, as well as one of my favorite former journalism professors, are interviewed in a Bozeman Daily Chronicle article today:

Montana bloggers are making noise

It's a nice article and a good introduction to what blogging's all about. Congrats, Dave, Craig, Matt, Ed and Rob.

While I'm at it, I'd like to offer a belated shout out to Sharon at Watermark, a lovely Missoula-based blog of poetry, thoughtful politics, cats and more. Her Friday cat-blogging was mentioned a few weeks ago in a New York Times article:

On Fridays, Bloggers Sometimes Retract Their Claws

Friday Cat Blogging: Smitten with a kitten

The Adventures of
Tango and Luna, Week I

Luna, settling quite happily into her new digs, quickly commandered one of Tango's two sheepskin-lined beds. Prepared for battle, I went to bed each night with lights on and squirt bottles in easy reach. Amazingly, though, I didn't wake up to any cat fights.

Tango (a.k.a. Ol' Snake Eyes) has been admirably restrained. One evening, he had just gotten home after a hard day's work and was about to climb into his remaining bed, when Luna leaped into it and plopped down, pleased as punch with herself. While Tango sniffed in disbelief, I quickly shooed her out of harm's way.

Luna idolizes Tango like a big brother. Tango disdains her like a little sister, hissing when she gets too close, but otherwise doing his best to ignore her. Tonight, looking for all the world like a flying squirrel, she welcomed him home by leaping ON him. He just shrugged her off.

Luna is so happy to be out of that cage. She seems to become more kittenish each day, scampering about after toys and dust motes. She eats an astounding amount of food. She thanks me several times a day with face rubs, snuggles and outstretched paws. We are working on her furniture-clawing and counter-hopping issues.

I am lavishing extra attention and playtime on Tango, who, thankfully, has stopped growling at me when I pick him up. I give it another week or two before Tango and Luna are curled up together. (Maybe even less than that if I turn the heat waaaay down before bedtime.)

It's always something

I had high hopes for accomplishing lots of grand things during this four-day holiday weekend. But so far, I am not accomplishing much of anything. I ended up blowing the better part of yesterday on inner-eyelid maintenance -- sleeping off the last remnants of last week's cold, I think -- and today I woke up to discover my hot-water heater has quit working. Oh joy.

I am the sort of person that, if I don't have a shower in the morning, feels gross and scuzzy for the rest of the day. Now, after futilely rooting around in the mouse-turd-encrusted water heater "closet," I can barely stand myself.

Can't I ever just have a week where everything functions properly?

Booty-ful

Now here's the kind of news that makes me happy.
Big-Bottomed Mannequins Boost Profile in New York (Yahoo! News)

Northern exposure: Aurora Borealis

Well, I missed it, but everyone is talking about the amazing northern lights display visible from Missoula around midnight last night. I was in bed, but two of my colleagues were out taking pictures, which can be seen here and here in UM's Griz Greetings postcard gallery.

UM environmental studies Professor Vicki Watson says the light show should be visible again tonight. She wrote the following description in an e-mail:

While a green curtain danced over the Rattlesnakes, the lights just above Missoula were creams and soft pastels. At times the lights looked like flowing smoke or an ocean of grass blown by the wind. The streaming lights came in from the sides of the sky and flowed up towards the center, leaving a dark area in the middle of the sky. At other times, the lights appeared to be dancers or frisking animals behind a gauzy curtain; you could not quite make out what was dancing behind that curtain. The lights were nearly constant but flickering, as if illuminated by frequent flashes of diffuse lightning.

Friday Cat Blogging: Introducing Luna Bella

It's official: There's a new cat on the block. Luna came home last night. Her temporary living quarters are set up in the bathroom, while we get Tango used to the idea of having a little sister. He's not exactly thrilled -- his first reaction was to barf -- but I'm giving him lots of attention and fancy organic salmon kitty treats. We're making progress, I think -- he's gone from growling to just scowling.

Meanwhile, Luna is the sweetest, most loving little creature. She loves to be held and to rub her nose against mine. She's a real snuggler. I don't think Tango will be able to resist her charms for long.

I've gotten two different stories from the animal shelter ladies on her background. When I adopted her, the woman told me that she came in pregnant and her babies had to be put to sleep. But today, I called and a different woman told me that she came in with brand-new kittens, which were adopted out after they were weaned. Either way, it sounds like she spent a few months at the shelter (and PetsMart, where I found her). I'm so glad she's finally home.

A fat lady sings the blues

Most every weekday morning for the last four years, I have woken up to bad news. My clock radio is set to Montana Public Radio, our NPR affiliate, and after the 2000 election, I noticed a grim, downward slide in the tone and content of the national and international news. The bad news reached a crescendo on Sept. 11, when I woke up to the announcement that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. Thinking it was just a light plane -- an accident -- I hit the "snooze" button. When, half an hour later, the radio announced another plane had hit the second tower, I broke into great, deep tears.

Now, three years later, the perpetrator of those horrifying attacks still hasn't been made to answer for his crimes. But more than a thousand young Americans are dead -- along with more than 100,000 civilians -- fighting a pointless war in a country not even remotely connected to the 9/11 attacks. Many Americans still don't know the difference between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. We are breeding new terrorists faster than we can kill them, and that, apparently, is just fine by the American people.

The people have spoken, and here's what they've chosen:

war over peace
bullying over leadership by example
a draft dodger over a decorated combat veteran
unemployment over economic growth
tax breaks for the rich over welfare for the poor
a deficit over a surplus
test scores over critical thinking
logging roads over wilderness
oil riches over unspoiled habitat and natural beauty
fetuses over grown women, unwanted children and anyone with a disease that could benefit from stem-cell research
industry over endangered species, human health and just about everything else

How is it that the right wing is convinced that good has triumphed over evil, while I am certain of the exact opposite? Word is that Bush voters overwhelmingly cited "moral values" as their highest priority. "Moral values," I think, must be a euphemism for "religious beliefs." Because I think I have moral values, but mine don't include bombs, torture and selfishness. I don't agree that it's more acceptable for two men to kill each other than to love each other. I don't believe in God, but I do believe in kindness, honesty, love and recycling.

Under this morning's gray skies, I went to the Missoula animal shelter to fill out adoption paperwork. I made the mistake of going into the cat room, with its rows of shiny cages and the scent of desperation. Two dozen or more cats slept, stretched, meowed, purred, paced, raced the invisible clock ticking on their lives. Here, a beautiful smoke-gray adult reclining with feline grace. There, a black cat that looks just like my Tango. There, a fluffy tabby teenager looking up at me from a bottom cage, meowing tentatively. Then, three kittens in a fuzzy heap -- three sets of round eyes looking so hopefully up at me. What else could I do but cry? And leave?

I don't think I can take another four years of waking up to bad news. I can't take the morning litany of body counts, human rights violations, economic woes, environmental degradation, civil rights ceded, discrimination legislated. For four years, I have thought that if I read enough, learned enough, opined enough, volunteered enough, gave enough blood, it might make a difference in the world. Today, all I have to show for my efforts is a bad head cold.

It is tempting to blame the Republicans for pet overpopulation, for adhesive labels that won't budge without a protracted battle, and for all other manner of evils in the world. That would be oversimplification, yes. I ache for simplicity. I ache for the bliss of ignorance. I ache to wake up to classical music.

Three percent of the vote isn't a mandate; 150,000 votes in Ohio isn't a mandate. It doesn't matter. They're going to trash the place. Despite the liberal rallying cries ("Hillary and Obama in 2008!"), despite the fact that 48 percent of my fellow Americans voted with me, I want to withdraw like a turtle, stick my head in the sand like an ostrich. I want to be a dumb silly animal that doesn't know what's coming next. I have writing to do, books to read, kitties to snuggle. I'm taking the next two years off from politics.

Am I a sore loser? You bet.

Site update

I've changed the tagline of my website from "Creative Communication" to "A Drivel Runs Through It." I thought up the former while job-hunting, but now it seems a bit stuffy. I'm a grad student now. I get to have fun!

I also fixed the broken site links on my comments-page template and added two new alumni -- Carter Allen and Margie Bush -- to the Spring Creek page.

Meanwhile, I'm doing my best to ignore election anxieties and head-stuffiness, while awaiting a return phone call from Animal Control.

Mousecapades: Got one

I bought a mouse trap the other day. The guy at Ace said it was a "woman-friendly" mouse trap -- it's easy to set and you can empty it over the trash without even looking. I baited it with peanut butter and set it between the wall and the refrigerator.

Tonight I finally remembered to check it: Yup. All I could see was the stiff little tail poking out the black plastic hatch.

I voted for Kerry

Does that really surprise anyone? :-#

I turned in my absentee ballot today at the Missoula County Courthouse. Along with the Kerry-Edwards presidential ticket, I endorse the following:

Brian Schweitzer and John Bohlinger for governor of Montana. A Democrat and a Republican, working together for a change.
NO on CI-96 -- "Require that only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state." We don't need to write discrimination into the Montana Constitution.
NO on I-147 -- "Allow open-pit mining for gold or silver using heap leaching or vat leaching with cyanide ore-processing reagents." Do they really think we're that stupid?

GET OUT AND VOTE TUESDAY!!!

Cat love

I came around a corner at PetsMart the other night and fell in love. She was a small, dark torti with a beige chin, and her eyes weren't even open, but she was stretching and snuggling in her glass cage and I just fell. I've been thinking about her all weekend, and I went back today to meet her. She's maybe a year old -- too young to be a mother but her babies were just weaned -- and she's fine-boned and sleek like Tango. Her eyes were open this time, and they were a luminous green-yellow.

The man opened her cage for me and she greeted me sweetly, let me pet her and rub her freshly spayed belly, batted my hand playfully just a little, and was quiet while I held her.

Tango has been with me 11 years now. He's never had to share his kingdom with another cat. I've never even seriously considered getting another cat till now. Tango tends to be very aggressive with neighbor cats, especially females. Would he ever accept her? Would he ever forgive me? I called my vet, and she thought if I introduced them VERY slowly, he could handle it. I still have to ask my landlady, too.

Can I even afford another cat? Twice the cat fud -- I could handle that, but twice the vet bills? Twice the cat barf and twice the trouble? Ah, but twice the snuggles ....

What to do, what to do?

Of elections and other scary things

I liked this pumpkin so much, I borrowed it (with permission) from the amazing Birdie, a blogger, mom, wacky Avon lady and extremely gifted writer. Go read her ghost stories; you'll be glad you did!

Well, since I'm sick, I stayed home last night, handing out candy to my two trick-or-treaters -- a ghost and a princess -- watching "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" on DVD and casting one eensy-weensy little spell. It was a pretty tame Halloween.

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