I have a choice this morning.

I can write about my weekend, about falling apart and breaking down. I could write about sobbing for hours over things I really don't understand, things about myself and how I relate to my writing--or don't relate--and about the novel and how I sat upstairs at J's place away from everyone else and after I wrote the scene at the end of chapter one, went and locked myself in the bathroom and masturbated and cried.

That would be a lot to tell. A lot to venture in public space.

I hadn't planned to write about those things.

I'd planned to write all about our cat instead.


**


"I'm so sorry," he said. I outweighed him by easily twenty pounds, and was a far stronger skater. "Are you all right?" he said. "Are you sure?" he said.

I'd known we were going down, and hadn't thought about anything but keeping him away from the puck. I had that moment of lucid clarity where things slowed to nothing, and I hooked my arm around his knee, and when we hit the boards, made sure he came down with me.


**


I stood in the shower and Bec said later she lost count of how many times I screamed the word "fuck." She liked that I called the pretty, put-together girls with the handbags chinchillas.

Especially at volume.


**


I skated alone most of the game, called for passes that didn't come, fell back when D went deep, quietly did my job of forecheck and grind.

I've gotten to a place, or maybe it where I was at this weekend, where I don't bridle at the isolation. I clock in and out of each shift, and figure when they're ready, when they see me, when they think I'm good enough, they'll bring me in.

I came off after two sprints up and back, given all I had, gasping. R reached his stick out and tapped my shin in passing me to the faceoff.

I remember I'm not alone, no matter how much it feels that way, in the end.


**

"Kate," said our neighbor, coming back into her living room where G and I were visiting, "I just looked outside and I think your cat is at the bottom of the stairs."

I nodded. "I know," I told her. "She's waiting to walk us home."

Lilith has stepped up her hunting habits, just like the last time Bec was pregnant. We can't decide if it's about ridding the environs of dangerous vermin or that she doesn't trust me to provide the pregnant mom with enough tasty snacks.

In any case, we've had three mice, a squirrel, all manner of insects and very nearly our neighbor's calico in the last two weeks alone.

Last week she brought in a live mouse, apparently for Bec to play with before consuming it.

Unfortunately Bec is not as skilled nor as enthusiastic about throwing terrified, squeaking mice up in the air and pouncing on them.

So the mouse escaped, and to our extreme squicked displeasure, has been hiding out in the dining room/kitchen area since.

Finally over the weekend we sat Lilith down and explained to her that while we appreciated the whole u-kill-it mouse present, we were really very inept at these things and would she

PLEASE FIND THAT DAMN MOUSE AND GET RID OF IT NOW???


Last night she'd apparently located it, because she took a sudden and unprecedented interest in the china hutch.

Much chaos ensued, observed by Rebecca from the safety of a chair. I would pound the hutch with a broom, and Lilith would look at me like I was a moron while climbing carefully around the hutch and doing an impressive feline version of a bird dog point.

There, she was clearly saying. Poke a hole *there* and I will kill it for you.

Unfortunately humans are unresourceful and stupid and could only open and close doors for her.

She gave me a baleful look as I finally went to bed, and settled down on the ottoman by the hutch, ears pricked, gaze trained on the napkin drawer, apparently to wait out the night.


"She brought the mouse," Bec told me, while I was taking my shower this morning.

Brought it out, quite dead, and dumped it on the floor of our bedroom.

Rolled on it a bit, to let us know that mice are not only tasty but harmless, and we didn't need to have all that fuss.


I took it out in a newspaper.

She watched me with a resigned look.

You know she's thinking, great. Now I'll have to go out and find something and kill it again.


***
- posted by Kate @ 8:39 AM