I’m never going to sleep tonight. I didn’t get up until 12:30 and then I had a really lazy day. Met up with some friends, had dinner, then came home and watched television. It was raining all day today, and somewhere around 5pm it just started pouring. It rains a lot in Seattle, but it’s almost always a light drizzle. When it comes pouring down in big drops, the city kind of panics. We don’t see a lot of that around here. It just felt like a good night to come home, curl up and watch TV.
That’s not always the best choice for me, though. It takes so much energy to be around people, so I think I want to just come home and be alone with the animals, but after a few hours, if I don’t have work to do, I start getting stir-crazy. I’m so, so bad at just relaxing. It occurs to me again and again that I have no idea how to just relax. I’m incapable of it. I get really jealous of the voices of people coming home from the bars outside my apartment, of the people having a beer up on the deck, of the people who are capable of unwinding. But then I have to remember that the stories I make up in my head about these people are not always necessarily the whole story. And I have to remember that I’ve been alone in my head for a few hours, which makes my head exceptionally untrustworthy. But I get so mad and envious and I feel so short-changed. The most relaxed I am is when I first wake up in the morning, when I’m still in that groggy half-sleep state. I’m happy there, curled up with my pillows and my dog and my cats. And then the day starts and I’m not relaxed again until I’m asleep. Not even when it’s pouring rain and I have the whole evening free to watch television. I don’t know how to change that.
But I have to say that my animals are being exceptionally adorable. The temporary cats are fitting in better and better — they hang out in the living room with the permanent cats, and Chloe even jumps up on my lap to be petted. Leo got upset over that and started chasing her around the living room. I called him to me and held him on the couch while Chloe escaped to the guest bedroom. Leo watched her the whole time, growling. I tried to calm him down, but once I finally let him go he headed for the guest bedroom, stealthily crawling under chairs and hugging walls, so as to approach with maximum surprise. I actually laughed out loud.
The temporary cats won’t be here much longer, though. My other friend is going to take them next week, and she’ll be able to keep them until their mom comes back. Her cat passed away a few months ago — he was 17 years old! — so I think she’s really excited to have kitties around again. I know that Chloe especially will be really good for her, since she loves to cuddle. I feel bad for the cats that they have to move again, and honestly I don’t mind having them around and I’m going to miss them. But I just can’t take on two more cats. That’s how it starts: Two cats here, two cats there, and suddenly I have 35 cats and I’m eating off the floor and saving my fingernail clippings. I have to resist the urge to keep them indefinitely.
