Mallory's Camera

It's still snowing, and I don't want to jinx anything, but...

It's looking like we were well outside the bombogenesis perimeter.

Yes, "bombogenesis" is a real word! It refers to a storm where barometric pressure drops by at least 24 millibars in 24 hours. With this particular storm, the barometric pressure dropped a mind-boggling 44 millibars, but it dropped somewhat to the south and east of where I'm located. Which made for some crazy totals over comparatively short distances: Like 15" in Fishkill but only 5" in Poughkeepsie.

We ended up getting around five inches of the Hideous White Stuff here.

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We expected snow all day yesterday, but it didn't come. Instead, it was just dismal and grey and awful. I went into the office and sat there reading Midnight In the Garden of Good & Evil, which left me with a deep desire to visit Savannah even though the best thing about Midnight In the Garden of Good & Evil is its title.

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In the evening, Ichabod upset me on the phone by reminding me my housing options would be considerably better if I didn't have pets.

Of course, I know he's right, but the kiskas have more-or-less saved my sanity these last few extremely difficult months. They have functioned effectively as a family for me; they are good company and affectionate in their highly idiosyncratic way. As awful as this place is, I'd rather live here forever than give up my gurlZ.

But I hope it won't come to that.

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Writing-wise, I am preparing to embark upon the Daria portion of the novel.

Ideally, I would pull this off with a Jennifer-Egan-style switch of the PoV voice. Realistically, I may not be a good enough writer to do this. The important thing here, though, is not to show off my dazzling writerly gifts but to finish the damn thing however best I can.

To that end, I am setting up an interview with real-life Daria.

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Here is a photograph of real-life Daria:



She's very beautiful, as you can see! Kinda Snow White-ish with that pure white overflip.

What I'm primarily interested in is her sexual relationship with Brian.

Grazia and Neal don't have a sexual relationship, so in the first part of the book, Neal combines the best qualities of a father and a wisecracking teddy bear.

But in the second part of the book, Neal must come across as an erotic god!

Which should be challenging.

I've read my share of porn & erotica over the years. And written it, too. For pay! 😀 My porn was always criticized for "too much story"! I guess the sexual tropes that turn most people on do very little for me; it's always the relationships that drive the sex that make it hot for me. The single most erotic book I ever read was Susannah Moore's In the Cut, wherein a professor of English stumbles into an affair with a homicide detective who drives her mad with desire with a strange little crooking gesture he does with his forefinger.

So, yes, I have to study up on real-life Neal's kinks.

But I also have to figure out what it feels like to be so fluent in three languages (as Daria is) that the languages all swirl together in your brain, and what it feels like to be that seductive—because real-life Daria is oh-so-seductive.

Also, I have to come up with a rescue situation that can play analogously to Grazia's cult rescue. Doesn't have to be as dramatic. But that's a connecting thematic element in each of the three parts of the book: Neal saves each of the women in some way.

If I'm braindead, so be it!

I'll spend the rest of my life watching movies.

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Last night, I watched something called The Friend, in which Naomi Watts inherits a massive Great Dane from Bill Murray after he commits suicide, and it was the saddest movie ever because even though Naomi Watts eventually comes to love the dog, at the beginning of the movie she doesn't, she's just stuck with him because nobody else will take him, so the movie made me think of the fragility and ultimate unenforceability of the compacts we form with companion animals.
This hit home for me because I don't love the two cats currently my companion animals as much as I've loved companion animals in the past.

Molly & Mabel are not cuddly cats.

They don't sit on laps. They don't like to be picked up and... packaged, enfolded with affection. They will struggle if I try to do this. They are wary & guarded with everyone but me: Gus reported he did not see them once while I was away in Ithaca over Thanksgiving, and Icky reported that while Molly kiska would sit at the head of the stairs and stare down at him, she would never come down.

Sometimes, they are even wary & guarded with me.

Mabel will still hiss at me occasionally—not because she is an aggressive cat but because she is a very frightened cat. She has a scar on her head swooping down from her ear to her left eye, and I suspect she was badly used as a kitten, poor little girl.

Clearly, they love me in their own way.

Molly always trails me downstairs whenever I cook and at night, crawls into bed alongside me and kneads on blankets there; Mabel is forever flopping down on my feet and exposing her plump belly: Pet me please!



It's so odd the way both of them adore having their bellies rubbed but can hardly bear to be touched on any other part of their anatomy! Most cats of my acquaintance have been the other way around.

They are quite the most talkative cats I have ever been around. Molly will meow to me for 15 minutes straight if I keep asking her, "What, Molly? What?"

"It's good that you have the two cats," Brian told me. "They're like your little family. You need a little family."

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But I am disloyal. I keep thinking, It would be easier to move if I didn't have the two cats. It would be easier to travel.

And I feel bad for thinking that because I take the animal/human compact very seriously. These kiskas are so eccentric and idiosyncratic that no one would ever want them except me—and I only half want them.

They trust me.

They hardly trust anything else outside their own bodies and instincts.

But they trust me.

Betraying that trust would be like betraying the universe somehow.

But I'm tempted to sometimes.

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

HIDEOUS WHITE STUFF FROM THE SKY!!!!!

Plus Icky is being an absolute dick, telling me I can't hire someone from Rover to look out for the cats while I'm gone over Thanksgiving because "I don't want strangers in the house."

I mean, like really, Icky?

What do you think they're going to steal?

Your "Burning Man" t-shirt? Your priceless collection of aging hipster metal ratchet jewelry? Your Viagra stash?

If I'm going away for five days or less, I will typically load the kiskas up with food, water, litter boxes, and toys, and just depart.

They are not the world's most interactive cats.

I mean, they interact with me, but it took them a long time to become interactive with me. They certainly won't yearn for the calming presence of other humans in my absence.

But I'm going away over Thanksgiving for a week, which is too long to leave them unchaperoned and their litter boxes uncleaned.

Anyway, I called Christine, the spawns' mother, & she said she would be very happy to do it.

"I'll pay you!" I said.

"No, no," she said.

If she won't take cash, I'll get her a gift card!

Win/win situation!!! 'Cause nothing pisses Icky off quite as much as anyone having positive interactions with his X.

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In other news, the gym yesterday was an absolute delight. I had to force myself not to go in today! At the age of 73, I am thinking one-day-on, the next day-off is the right schedule for the gym.

I may force myself to go tromping today.

May.

It is currently only a single degree over freezing here, so the idea of spending time outside is not very enticing.