It's Friday!

A slow afternoon at work. Going to try to catch up on a few things I've been putting off.

Seanan McGuire, filker, poet, writer, artist, and all-around wonderfully insane woman, wrote this lovely poem for me, as part of one of her intermittent Iron Poet challenges. She'll post asking for prompts, you give her three words and (optionally) a mood or form, and she'll write you a poem. She usually limits these to ten or so requests, but she left this one open for more than a day and got a couple hundred, I think. She is amazing and the poem she wrote for me simply blows me away. My words were Mountain, Wolf, and Courage.

I'm simply blown away by this. She doesn't know me from Adam, and yet she's gifted me with this work of her hands/mind. Wow.

I also have a piece of her artwork coming, but that I paid for (and gladly!) It's, err, well, it's worksafe, but I might take it down from my wall when my mom comes to visit again. She's awfully pretty; go take a look if you're so inclined.

I tend to swing back and forth between being more interested in men and being more interested in women. I think I'm swinging towards women again (no, not that kind of swinging, ya lot). Dwen's not my type but awfully attractive; I've been turning to look at women when I pass them on the street. But! Life is complicated enough, and I'm staying faithful to my men. They don't mind if I look, though.

I have a meme and five interview questions to answer, and I have two different posts to make with pictures in em. I have a post on the title of this blog that I've been meaning to do for months (Mrs. M, thanks for making that an interview question, cos now I'll have to actually do the post). I have a sermon or so to write up (me! with a sermon idea!) and a few thoughts on things that aren't sermons but might get there. Working on a regular schedule is great for me getting the physical things in order but it seems to be making it harder to focus on mental, emotional, spiritual things. I'm going to have to work on that.

Things are okay with Shanti. Alas, my lease does say something about all pets must be on a leash, so they've got me on the 'don't let her run around alone'. I think I'll be relying on a combination of letting her out after work and the occasional 'oops the cat got out'.

I've also talked to Lark the Expert on All Animals who has given me plenty of suggestions. Her theory that it was all a territory problem seems to be borne out by the results of giving Shanti more space -- even when I kept her inside yesterday she was still happy, and my pillow was still dry. I can't usefully make my one-bedroom apartment larger but I can give it more cat-space -- I've already cleared space on a couple of shelves for cat beds (though they're not using them yet), and I stacked the little cat tree (two feet high, alas) on top of the big wooden box in my bedroom, so it's about four feet off the ground now. Shanti's using that to look out the window and enjoying herself thoroughly.

See, for cats, 'up' space is just as good as 'over' space. And I can make plenty more 'up' space where I am. I don't know if it'll help enough to let Shanti integrate with the rest, as Samson is still insane, but it's worth a shot and they'll be happier anyway.

Lark pointed out, correctly, that bigger cat trees would give them plenty more 'up' space, but also that cat trees cost an average of 6589021394867390154 dollars. I'm going to set about making a few, though, as it's not hard. Knew there was a reason I've been pulling lumber out of the dumpsters. The apartment complex is remodeling, too, and I'll be able to get plenty of carpet for free. All I'll have to buy is sisal rope and possibly a staple gun. I may scam Tim's camera and document the process.

Blah, blah, blah, mundane stuff. I want to get back to writing about my spirituality again. I think I need to find it first, though. Maybe it's in my left back pocket, or possibly up in the park. Wouldn't surprise me if Shanti ate it. She's a stinker.