Post-Tagging Marathon, Creative Brooding, Explaining Weather to Cats

Well, I did it, folks! I spent a total of twelve coffee-fueled hours this weekend going through a decade’s worth Good Typist posts and labeling every single dang one of them. I am so sick of myself and my own inane babbling right now. Apparently, I’ve had a lot to talk about it, despite often being accused of being “too quiet.” At any rate, if you scroll down a bit, you’ll see that you can now search this blog by labels, so if you’re not interested in the aforementioned inane babbling (“essays”), you can click on my poems instead, or read one of my game reviews before you drop thirty bucks on the latest Tomb Raider. Cripes almighty that was a lot of work, but I do feel a rather virtuous sense of accomplishment now that it’s done. And yes, I do realize that the labels are a little goofy at the moment with the plurals, but I’ll clean all of that up later. I should get out of my chair before I meld to it and they have to pry me out with the Jaws of Life.  (Oh, also, you may notice that I made a few small nips and tucks to the blog interface, so it’s cleaner and crisper.)

I would go into a long, navel-gazing reflection about what it was like to look back on ten year’s worth of my writing and emotional history, but it’s just not in me right now. I’ve had enough of myself for a while. Suffice it to say, there were no real surprises, except that, despite everything I’ve been through over the last few years, I actually believe that I’m much happier now then I was ten years ago. Or, if not happier, at least far stronger and more resilient that I ever thought possible. I don’t really believe in happiness per se anyway, at least not in the Oprah-esque, vision board, motivational speaker sort of way. I have come to value strength and emotional steadfastness over the ephemeral and elusive concept of “happiness.” The people I know who chase happiness constantly all seem miserable to me, besides, I don’t think I’d even know what it was if it flitted right up to me and kissed me on the lips.

It’s been a good weekend to hole up inside, brood, and work on this marathon of a project, since it’s freakin’ freezing, dark, and dare I say, even a little snowy here in the rugged Pacific Northwest. I’m happy about this because, one, I always love a good excuse for not leaving the house, and two, I can now legitimately wear my super-warm, thick, snugly Galway hoodie, one of my most prized possessions from Ireland. I held off on buying a hoodie during the trip until I found exactly the one I wanted, and I’m quite proud of this one. It makes me happy to wear it, like I’m being warmly hugged by the spirit of all of Ireland. By the way, did you know Galway was established in 1484? That’s legit ancient for a city, to my American way of thinking.

Speaking of blustery conditions, poor Buddy doesn’t have any sense of object permanence when it comes to weather. He seems convinced that if he comes in, waits two minutes, then goes back outside, somehow in that brief time span, it will magically go from freezing cold and rainy to warm, dry, and gloriously sunny. He is excruciatingly disappointed each and every time, but until recently that hasn’t stopped him from trying. Today, however, I think he finally gave up. At his behest, I opened the sliding door for him this morning. He stood there on the precipice, sniffed the air with a trembling nose, then turned around and stalked off. I found him later slumped in his cat tree, looking utterly defeated. Good. He’s supposed to be an indoor cat, anyway. Maybe he’ll stay out of trouble and stop dragging the dead in for a few months.

--Kristen McHenry