I think I decided, perhaps without any conscious knowledge, that I needed more suffering in my life. Not genuine, Job-like sufffering, but greater frustration, humiliation, and inconvenience than my life had provided up to that point. Thus, I mishandled situation after siutation until I arrived here in Purgatory, where I am now slowly working off my sins. Am I Catholic because I view the world in these terms or do I view the world in these terms because I'm Catholic? I tend to believe the former.

"Did I listen to pop music because I was depressed or was I depressed because I listened to pop music?"
--Rob Fleming (from Nick Hornby's High Fidelity)

Hello, Kitty
I was awakened by the meowing of the cat this morning. He fell asleep on my bed and I was turing in and I made the mistake of leaving my door open so he could escape. This of coure also allowed him back in when he was feeling neglected and desirous of voicing his objections to that neglect. Sam, I understand your desire to be loved, but how in the high holy hell am I supposed to pet you while I'm asleep? I leave you in piece during the thirteen hours a day you sleep, why can't you pay me the same courtesy. Of course, rational reasoning has never prevailed over him in the nearly eighteen years I've known him; Bog only knows why I thought it would this morning. So, I reached out to him, but he remained outside the range of my arm. Still whining. Gah, that's simply unsporting. Feeling Niagara Fall in my bladder, I stumbled out of bed - yes, I stumble on my way out of bed, before I've ever gotten to my feet, I am that maladroit - grabbed by robe, and blundered down the hall to the w.c. As I was standing there, which is quite unusual for me, I usually sit as my aim is not necessarily up to snuff that shortly after waking, Sam persisted in his demand for attention. Samuel, please, I cannot pet you, I'm a little tied up here. Nevertheless, he continued. As he was weaving between my legs, it suddenly occured to me what on odd thing it must be to be him. Not to be cat, I'm sure as a cat that seems perfectly natural to him, but to be surrounded by creatures many times your height and mass. As a Hedjemid (a human being), I rarely have the opportunity to experience such conditions. So while there are creatures heavier than Man, horses and gorillas come to mind, not even the elephant or the giraffe tower over Man as Man does over the domesticated feline. For that manner of gigantism, we must turn to our mammalian brethren of the oceans, the blue, humpback, and sperm whales. Yet even those cretures do not properly relpicate my kitty's experience, as to interact with them we must enter an alien envirnonment, whereas both Man and manx makes his home on terra firma. How bewildering it must be to be a cat! Armed with this new appreciation of Sam's daily plight, I washed my hands, scratched his cute little head, and made sure to shut my door when I went back to sleep.

Banzai Beard Bonanza: Day 62
The Massive Mustache Mistake has been cancelled. I refuse to play along with this outrage one moment longer than is required. I want my face back.