ritual, routine and unconditional love (saved for shari)

i like to read a book before i go to bed. if it's late, or i'm particularly tired, or both, i do it anyway. 20 pages, give or take, on those nights. it puts me to sleep.

i like to turn off the light, lie in the dark, and smoke a cigarette at night. it's the last thing i do before i go to sleep - think about today, think about tomorrow. tomorrow is always fun and exciting, never realistic. tomorrow never really happens. but i keep thinking about it.

in the morning, i like to wake up 20 minutes early, so i can spend some quality time with the cat, who's only affectionate when i first wake up.

i like friday afternoons. friday afternoon is the only time all week i'm guaranteed at least five hours alone. i like to buy something nicer than usual to eat, and watch a sad movie in my pajamas.

i wish i had time in the mornings for a cup of tea (soy milk, soy milk, sugar) on the porch. this i don't.

i like mondays and wednesdays between 12 and 1. i like to watch everyone i see then, i like to relax and hope i'll meet someone worth talking to.

i like to spend monday evenings at the coffeeshop, smoking cigarettes and talking to shari.

i like everything to happen in the same order as it always happens. get in the shower; wash hair, rinse hair, condition hair, wash self, rinse self, shave, rinse hair, wash face. get out of the shower; dry off hair, moisturize face, clean ears, brush teeth, comb hair, dry self, get dressed, dry hair, put on makeup, straighten.

i get really cranky if for some reason i can't shower and get ready in that exact order

i think i'm getting old; lately i'm wondering how it might feel to live alone. i know i'd get lonely, at least right now, but i'm not sure that after this lease runs out next winter, i won't want to try it. we'll see. i like living with shari and the boys more than i've liked living anywhere else, even without windows. and i think a lot of the desire of living alone is the desire to be able to reduce all my activities to routines like that of my shower, or my before bed ritual, uninterrupted and always safe.

as for unconditional love, let's just say that my cat loves windows. at the old house, he could lay on my bed and stare out the window, and he used to spend hours doing that exact thing. at the new house, i have four more windows in my bedroom, but none of them reach low enough to be looked out of from my bed. and kitter doesn't really understand that he won't fit into a windowsill if the window is unopened. so at 8 on monday morning, when he tried, he failed. failed right onto my face, claws out.

for a while, i looked like this:


now i look like this:


i love that little bastard, all fishbelly white. he's part of my routine.