January 2008 Archives

I'm a U.S. guy but I'm not much of a football fan, and I can prove it. I was on the phone with a U.S. female yesterday and the subject of Super Bowl parties came up. She gave me a pop quiz: Which teams are playing this year? I'm not sure how important the actual game is in the whole Super Bowl experience but I wanted to do my best, so I thought about it. Like anything where you don't just know the answer, you have to work it out by logic. Now, in looking at some news stories there are others that come into your peripheral vision. And then there's the radio, where there's no choice. I'd heard that this New England Patriots team was very very good, so I felt that I was on solid ground here. I'm a good test-taker, actually.

"The Patriots?" I asked.

Yes, it turns out the Patriots are one of the teams. She took pity on my ignorance and said the other was the Giants. Huh! Whaddaya know. That's the kind of football fan I am.

I have another friend who distinguishes carefully between sports and games. He insists that football and other team sports are in fact games—formal rules, played with balls and bats and such. Hunting and fishing are sports. Which makes me a sports fan after all. I've been busy lately, with one thing and another, so I haven't done the winter trout fishing thing. But I think about it, and will soon, if I can.

I also think about spring, summer, and fall trout fishing, casting a long line quietly under the tree limbs to the fish rising in the shadowy banks. And there's the saltwater, casting heavier tackle out beyond the breakers, and coming tight to the heavier fish you catch there. And there's the Rockies, with the faster, bigger streams and the mountains as a backdrop. And the tropics, with blues and greens and viscous sunlight and frigate birds wheeling slowly overhead. Lately it's been buildings and parking lots and desks and staplers pretty exclusively, but I haven't forgotten that according to some definitions I'm a sports fan. Nothing against games, plenty of fine folks get a kick out of them. But you act according to your nature. Fish gotta swim, bird gotta fly, and all. I have nothing against eating chicken wings and potato chips and drinking beer with a TV in the corner of the room showing a series of extra-edgy commercials interspersed with occasional snippets of a football game between the—wait a minute—Patriots and Giants, right, nothing against that sort of thing. But personally I'd rather fish. And will soon, if the fates allow. Cold, tramping around in the outdoors, a few trout brought to hand and released. That's my idea of a super Sunday. Soon, like I say.

That's not me right now, I'm afraid. This cat business has exhausted me, and the five pills a day he gets are straining our relationship. Of course I understand—if someone grabbed me twice a day and stuck pills down my throat I'd view that person askance. But it's dispiriting, and he's up and down with his appetite and such, and then there are all the other things I fret about. I'll bet you know how it is.

Thoreau's phase "lives of quiet desperation" came into my mind this morning, as I made my second cup of coffee, and I suggested in my mind to Thoreau that he just shut up. What, like he was some fun guy? Devil may care, a song on his lips? Huh. He had some good thoughts about the importance of nature (I have Sierra Club friends, gotta be circumspect here) and he probably had the best observation on the vapidity of the electronic media ever made (they were working on a transatlantic telegraph cable at the time). But I've never heard him accused of being positive, or happy or fun.

No, give me Robert Burns. He had his bad days—that's clear enough from To A Mouse—but he was known for being fun too. In other words, when he was troubled with existential angst or any other sort of botheration he sucked it up and stayed positive. I read an undoubtedly apocryphal story in a high-school English text once, about how a traveler was approaching a Scottish in one night. The lights were blazing, there was singing and laughter and the sound of many dancing feet, and when the traveler got to the door he asked what all the excitement was. "Oh sir," a serving maid said, "Bobby Burns is ben." (Is here, in other words.) It may not be true, but it tells you something about his reputation, doesn't it?

So there you are. The cat and I will put our six feet one in front of the other until things are straightened out. He's a wee, sleekit, tim'rous beastie, but he's also fairly cheerful by nature, so with the twin examples of Robert Burns and my cat to inspire me I think I can soldier on.

Just watched the end of the film/movie/whatever Contact, and it got to me, as it always does. I'm not a big science fiction fan, but I'm a fan of occasionally feeling a sense of wonder and awe. I'm also a fan of the people—I'm not one of them, sadly—who can't bear to sit home, who have to go on quests to find out new things, to cross oceans and mountain ranges and on beyond. If you don't feel those urges at least once in a while—they're part of what defines being human—you might as well be an earthworm or a flounder or something, in my humblest of opinions. The film gives you all that, and you can eat popcorn while you feel it. Pretty good deal. Jodie Foster tears it up, I must say. You believe every scene she's in. (Try to ignore Matthew McConaughey. His role feels a little tacked on. "He's got the girl's part," is what Foster said.)

Perhaps I'm libeling flounders and they feel awe and wonder all the time. But I think it's mostly human beings who'll occasionally do things like stop, keys in hand, halfway between the car and the back door and look up, struck by the night sky on a winter's night. So let's put it this way—if flounders feel awe, then I think we should try to emulate the flounder. That's all I'm saying.

The most exciting things I did yesterday and today were, in order, interviewing a homeowner about a home being featured in a magazine story I'm writing, and giving the cat his pills. This is sometimes referred to as "pilling" the cat, which sounds faintly like some British traditional thing, along the lines of the Royal Ascot meeting, with special fancy clothes and people waving at each other across perfectly manicured lawns. It's Pilling Day! Jolly good fun! But actually life is kind of dull, if you must know, and I got thinking that I'm in a position a friend was years ago. She and her husband had a toddler, and while visiting them I accompanied her on a trip into town to get some food at an old-fashioned grocery store. She had the kid on her hip, telling the guy she needed this and that and this and that, in this tone of semipermanent exhaustion that young parents often have. Finally she told him the last item: "and Sesame Street."

The guy looks at her. "I mean sesame oil," she said. The grocery guy keeps looking—he seemed to have a pretty good idea what ailed her—and he looked at the kid, then back at her. Then he pointed at her.

"You," he said, "should get out more."

And so should I. But first this wild and crazy guy's gonna finish his coffee, open a few bills, and shave. Life is short, man, gotta live it to the hilt.

Yesterday I declared an official day of recuperation. No going out, no doin' nuthin,' just taking it easy at home. Sometimes you can just feel the storm tide wearing your foundations away, like a piece of beach. So I finished The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, and enjoyed it a lot. It's quite a book: The story flows along, and the protagonist interprets everything one way, because he's autistic, and the rest of us are interpreting everything in a very different way. It was very cleverly and effectively done, and it's a page-turner.

Then I watched City Lights, one of Chaplin's most famous films. I have the DVD player downstairs, but the cat has to stay off the stairs for two weeks because of his operation (even though he's running around like nothing happened) so I sat in bed with the laptop and we watched it together. If you haven't seen it, and you like wonderful stuff, check it out. Every moment he's on screen is just delightful. Basically the story is that Chaplin's trademark Little Tramp character one day encounters a blind flower girl. He befriends her, letting her believe he's rich, and eventually through his friendship with a drunken millionaire he gets her the money for an operation to restore her sight. But he winds up in jail, and many months later he's released. He goes in search, but can't find her where she used to sit by the sidewalk selling flowers, then wanders about and discovers that she's flourishing, her eyesight restored. She's never seen him, of course, and believe he's rich, and the end is famous. James Agee said of the moment the truth about her benefactor shows on her face, "It has never seriously occurred to him that he is inadequate. ... It is enough to shrivel the heart to see, and it is the greatest piece of acting and the highest moment in movies." Personally, I think it's like some heartbreakingly beautiful operatic aria, translated into pure images:

Still no Earthlink DSL. As I suspected, I've been able to google multiple examples of recent citywide or national outages that last for days. It won't do, Earthlink, old boy, it just won't do, you know. I was something of a Luddite years ago, but now I've embraced the technological shift, sink or swim, you know, and I've gotten to where I'm at least comfortable with it. I've bought the tools and read the manuals and asked the questions and studied the examples. I've got everything I need to lead a reasonable life as a communications person in the digital age—everything I need except one: a functioning god-damn broadband connection. Which I'm paying for, by the way. Support? Ha! When you get in touch they tell you they're not aware of any outages in your area and ask if all the connections are plugged in and so forth. The tech people live far away—about fifteen hours by jet, I'd guess—which is out of effective punching distance.

So I'm calling Verizon. Fios, baby! Vroom vroom!

Right now? Well, I'm stealing the neighbor's wifi, obviously. I mean, come on, it's an emergency.

Earthlink service out since last night, and now it's 3 p.m. Most annoying. They always say the service is out in "some areas." Which areas? They just go vague. I'm like the neglected spouse, sitting at home, wondering where my ISP is tonight. And that Verizon has been so patient, so understanding, so supportive. Letters and calls all the time. I think Verizon sees me for who I am, the real me, the me who wants a goddamned reliable ISP like that's so much to ask. Verizon thinks I should have fios. And unlimited domestic calling in one package, for what I'm paying now for unreliable DSL. What's that, Verizon? Another glass of wine? I probably shouldn't, but why not, after all. My, it's warm in here. I think I'll undo my top button. I never noticed before, it's funny, but Verizon has beautiful eyes. Listen, Verizon just scooted a little closer on the couch to tell me about its really quite thrilling upstream speed, so if you'll excuse me ... 

Panther, if you're coming to this fresh, is my cat, and he's been through the mill in the last few weeks, but after a third hospitalization that lasted almost a week he's been operated on and came through it beautifully. He may come home tomorrow, they're saying. And home, by definition, is where he belongs.

The problem was recurrent urinary blockages, and two comments in the last episode come to mind. One is what an emergency clinician told me last Friday morning. She had recommended that I take him to the veterinary hospital at the University of Pennsylvania, where they do, she said, "cutting-edge" work. She handed me his carrier, with all the tubes and bags coming out of him, with him peering out with the cone around his head, and she gave me a look. It was the look of hopes growing ever slenderer, eyebrows arched, corners of the mouth turned up, eyes sad. "I hope you have a good outcome," she said. She didn't seem to have a lot of hope in her, and she knew more than I ever will about the facts of the matter, and it made me feel pretty desperate.

The night before, I had picked the cat up at my regular vet. They had recommended that he go to the clinic that the emergency clinician worked at. The woman who gave him to me there accompanied me to the car. "Just thank God, or whoever you thank, that you noticed what was going on, because cats die of this," she said. I appreciated her tact—we're not all believers, after all. I try not to appeal to a god I don't believe in on good days when the days turn bad. But tonight, I'm thanking whomever I thank—the Fates, I suppose. They're implacable, but this time they decided my cat can come home, maybe as soon as tomorrow. He's a sweet, gentle creature, with plenty of vitality and fun and companionship and happiness left in him. Thanks for the good wishes, everyone. I wish everyone, cats and dogs and porpoises and people, could be cared for and healthy and happy. But he's really and truly a nice little guy, and I can't think how the world would be better if he—well—let's just say the world is better if he's in it. It took a lot of effort, a lot of science brought to bear, but it was a pretty damn satisfactory outcome. I'll write to that vet, and tell her so. She didn't sound so sure, at the time. Her advice was sound—maybe she saved his life—and it might be a pleasure for her to know it worked out. I don't know if she'll be moved to thank whomever she thanks herself, but she ought to have the opportunity.

We were talking the other day about Wilson Alwyn "Snowflake Man" Bentley and how on that day, in 1885, he'd taken the first picture of a snowflake. Well, it seems there's a fellow named Kenneth G. Libbrecht at CalTech who's chairman of the physics department there, and he's extremely fond of snowflakes (he calls them "snow crystals") too. And it turns out that Bentley's intuition was right—the science and the math suggest that at least as far as those fancy ones go, there really are no two snowflakes alike, and never will be. It charms me about people, that they like that idea so much, and I'm pleased it's true, for myself and for dear old odd Mr. Bentley too. It's supposed to snow today, and it'll be a pleasure to think about it all.

At least one acquaintance has pointed out that in this blog I tend to portray myself as a kind and thoughtful person. To me this seems perfectly natural because, Acquaintance, it's my damn blog, after all. To show yourself in a good light is only natural. But the fact is that I'm actually a battlefield on which conflicting impulses contend, and I bite back sudden rages about three dozen times a day.

Like yesterday. I'm hanging out with Panther at the hospital, and at the next cage these people are visiting their Jack Russell terrier. Personally I'm sort of a cat person, if you haven't noticed. To my mind, owning a dog is OK, if you think that's what you want to do, and owning a Jack Russell is sort of OK too, in the way that engaging in one of the more out-there sexual fetishes is OK between consenting adults but I don't want to be in the room with you or within earshot either and I gladly forgo the company of Jack Russells too. They run around too much and they're too yappy. This dog's family left and it started whining and then it started yapping. I tried soothing it. It refused to be soothed. I sat holding Panther, whose nerves were not helped by the racket, and considered my options.

My first impulse was to walk over to the dog's cage, right next to Panther's, bend down, and bellow shut up! shut up! shut up! at it but that was just an impulse. I decided it probably wouldn't help. I looked around at the shelves and drawers. There must be some tape around here, I thought; I could tape the dog's mouth shut. But that would be a little obvious. People are always walking in and out, and there I'd be, with the dog's mouth taped shut. It wouldn't look too good. A bottle of barbiturate and syringe, I thought, must also be handy. It wouldn't take long. But I didn't know the right dose—too much would be lethal, and too little would be ineffective. I might, through ignorance, use too little. So I gave that idea up too.

I just sat back, soothed Panther as much as I could, and indulged a favorite fantasy. Jack Russells have springy, well-defined muscles, and I always imagined them skinned, like a lamb at some Mongolian barbecue. They're about the size of a large game bird, a grouse, say, and if you butterflied them and marinated them overnight they'd probably be delicious grilled, with grilled vegetables, wild rice with mushrooms, and a nice pinot noir or zinfandel. No barking, just the clink of glasses and forks and knives, the hum of happy diners. Aaaahhh!! As I say, not all my impulses are kindly, but I do like to make guests happy with a good dinner, that I do.

By the way, Panther was withdrawn again when I got there, and I had to call him several times to make him realize it was me, but he jumped up and came over. The vet student resident who brought me upstairs stood and watched. "He really likes you," he said, as Panther rubbed his face against my hands, purring, spinning around to rub again and again.

"Either that," I said, "or he does a pretty good imitation of it." Another vet student walked in, stopped, and gaped. "Look at Panther with his dad!" she said. "He's reactive!" Panther just kept purring. I felt sorry for him, when I'm not there, and I felt a little sorry for these kids too. Here they've studied how to be vets for the last four years, and they can't get Panther to be reactive. Listen gang, it's just that he's scared, and unlike most pet cats, who've been treated kindly since they were kittens, he knows all too well from his early years about the cruel people. It's nothing personal, but he doesn't trust people until they've got a track record with him. These kids have studied for four years to be vets, see, but I've studied how to be his friend for double that, so I've rather got the advantage of them there.

By the way, they're doing a bunch of tests today, but they think they may already be closing in on the solution to what ails him. And maybe, let's hope, he can come home soon and be reactive all the time, instead of just for one hour out of an otherwise bleak day. I'd feel pretty reactive myself, if that could happen.

I went to the veterinary hospital to visit Panther today, and of course you go to such places with your emotions hanging out there, like a boxer's chin, ready to be affected one way or the other. As I walked to the door, a young woman came out carrying a cat wrapped in a towel or blanket. She leaned her head forward and nuzzled it a little—she loved it, that was clear, and it was going home, and she was happy. Inside, a couple had come from New Jersey (35 minutes, they said; it takes me an hour) to pick up their pet, and soon it was brought out in a small box. Cat? I drifted closer to see. The guy, a regular American guy, picked it up, and now he's nuzzling too: a guinea pig. I know people who have guinea pigs, I've had them myself. They're cute, and more to the point, they're warm, fuzzy creatures who have good times and bad, just like humans. It's not that hard to have a certain sympathy for a guinea pig.

The vet who's overseeing Panther's care met me and took me upstairs. He was subdued, when I first came in, but he pressed his cheek hard against my hand. One is advised not to anthropomorphize, but he's scared most of the time, the poor little guy, and to see his best friend (that's me) in such a situation has to be a comfort. I talked to him and talked to him, and he pressed his cheek against my hand, and at one point I thought I sensed, if just subliminally, a certain vibration. In a few minutes, I knew I was right; he was relaxing, and he was purring. Purring! The poor little guy, he was that glad I was there. I visited him yesterday, but he hadn't purred. But today, it showed that despite the needles and tubes and machinery, despite the cage and the bars, despite the fear and confusion, despite the other things they do to him that I don't really want to know about, despite all that he knew me, and still trusted me, and still hoped that things would be OK. He doesn't know what's wrong, and he doesn't know that he's in what's probably the best veterinary hospital in the country, and maybe the world. But he knows that the people there don't seem so bad, and he knows that I come to see him, and he's brave, so before long he relaxed, laid on his side, purred quite audibly, and flexed his paws as if he were home, kneading my stomach. He was for all the world like his usual self, happy and trusting. The vet had been in and out, but after an hour and a half she came up, and I talked about leaving. They're great about my visiting, but I don't want to overstay my welcome. She reached in to pet him too. "Little man," she said kindly, stroking his head, and I began to hope that she saw what I see in him.

See, I want them to know how special he is. They're the best in their field, they wouldn't be working there if they were unmotivated, but I want them to love him a little. Partly for his sake, partly for theirs. You can be scared, confused, sick, but you can still care and trust—some of us can, at least, and Panther is one of the ones who can. I've learned from him, over the years, and he's still teaching me things about courage and trust. I said a reluctant goodbye to him, but I told him I'd be thinking about him, and I have been. I wish I were a billionaire, and could buy a new wing for the place, on one condition: I could stay with him all the time, until this is over. (I'd have really good food brought in for both of us, and top-shelf liquor for me.) But there are no billions. All I have is the hope that he knows I'm coming, and he's waiting for me, the way he'll often be there waiting when I come home. He's scared and he doesn't understand what's happening, But if he just keeps understanding that I'm his friend, that I want to take him out of there and bring him home, well, that's enough. He seemed to feel that way today, and I'm taking this one day at a time, so that's how things are.

Just thought I'd give us all a little break with a Seinfeldian observation. And what I've observed are those plastic sticks with a hemisphere at one end bridged by a length of dental floss, and where I've observed them is out and around, on sidewalks and parking lots. I've done a bit of research and found they're called "floss picks" or "floss sticks." What I can't figure out is why they're scattered about out in the world.

If people were out for a walk, flossing away, I think I would have noticed. Personally I try to be discreet about flossing. I don't really care to see anybody flossing and I imagined people would feel the same way about me. But there they are, on the ground. I looked at a dentist's site about flossing and found this statement: "Floss picks can be useful for flossing while driving a vehicle or other times when only one hand is free." I haven't seen anyone flossing while driving a vehicle, and frankly I can't imagine why you would do that, but I get surprised a lot by the things people do, so there you are. If public one-handed flossing becomes a big trend, remember that you read it here first. I'm going to be keeping my own eyes open.

Some day I'll take up the question of why you see shoes along the road when you're walking. I don't know how often I've been on my way somewhere and seen a sneaker lying along the road. If a shoe came off your foot as you were walking, wouldn't you notice, and put it back on? I've wondered about that for years.

I suppose these are trivial questions. Some people peer into telescopes, seeking to unravel the mysteries of distant galaxies. Others analyze the data from cyclotrons, pondering subatomic particles, the building blocks of the universe. Me, I'm standing there, looking down at sneakers and floss sticks. I guess I'm just easily mystified.

I'm very, very fried—this afternoon I drove away from a gas pump without pumping the gas I paid for and walked away from a supermarket automated checkout line without paying for the food (both situations recognized and rectified) but before I collapse I want to update my friends near and far on the cat situation. Let's be hopeful, is the short answer. A slightly longer answer is that there's no evidence, at least that I've been told about, of any terminal diseases. And I can also tell you that at the Matthew J. Ryan Veterinary Hospital at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, they don't ask you explicitly or implicitly if you'd prefer the more economical and tidy option of euthanizing one of your friends.

No, I imagine they figure that if you've found your way to Penn, it's a case of in for a penny, in for a pound. But you're paying for cutting-edge medicine and you're also paying for judgment. They got all the information and they think he can be treated aggressively with antibiotics—the whole mess, they think, may be infection-related and he may not need surgery at all. I'm all for that and I think I speak for him too.

The fancy specialists at the Delaware clinic suggested this morning that he go to Penn, and I gulped. What next? Chartering a medevac helicopter? Some clinic in Zurich? In the back of my mind, the thought came: This thing is spinning out of control. But I said to the Delaware vet, "I've been asking this question a lot lately: What would you do if he were your cat?" And the answer was take him to Penn. I finished up work, went to the clinic, and went the 30 miles up the highway to Philadelphia. He was miserable, trying to get out of his collar the whole time in the carrier. But we got him there, I sat for a couple of hours, and finally they told me that despite his bouquet of medical issues they thought they could see a way through. I signed all the papers and handed over the plastic and then they took me back to talk to him. I pushed my hand as far as it would go into the bars of the cage, and he pushed his head against it, the way he always does when I'm petting him. After all I've done to him (how else can he interpret it?), after all that, he still trusts me. Tomorrow or the next day I'll tell you a little more about him, about his history, but for now, all I can say is that it may be a truism but you really, truly can't put a price on that sort of thing. My home is happier when he's in it, the sun is brighter and the grass greener. He trusts me and counts on me and I'll tell you more about his story tomorrow. But I'm tired now, it's been a strain. I wish I could make you see what a sweet, innocent, trusting little soul he is, but you'll have to take my word for it. He's at Penn—there's probably no better place for him to be. They said things that make me hopeful. You see, in case I haven't mentioned it lately, I kind of like this cat.

Yes, we all know we should avoid stereotyping. Stereotyping is when you assume people are a certain way because they belong to a particular group. What I'm saying is that often, within groups, you do notice a subset that shares characteristics. The latest vet in the series, for instance, the one at the fancy veterinary specialist center I was at last night. Young, sensible ponytail, regular features, no makeup, hardly any jewelry, a straightforward, farm-girl manner, brisk and efficient. And occasionally, when she focused inwardly on one of the intriguing aspects of my cat's condition, her eyes would sparkle, and you could see the wheels inside whirring and clicking: a keen mind, working on solutions with an avid, eager fascination, the way hunting dogs react to a bird in the underbrush. I've seen the type before among the broad set of people who excel in technical fields. I've seen as in direct, empirical observation, which is a kind of antibiotic against stereotypes.

As she ran down the complexities of the case, she mentioned that it's very unusual for this problem to suddenly appear in a 13-year-old cat. They wanted to do an ultrasound to check for tumors "before you invest" in the relatively expensive operation that corrects the condition he came in for, she said. Then she ticked off what everything would cost, and again I had the experience of being asked—this time wordlessly—if I was going to ante up. She leaned forward a few degrees, not really perceptibly, and her eyebrows went up a sixteenth of an inch, and again, you couldn't really see it but you knew it was your turn to give your assent.

I was still thinking about tumors. I'm not ready for this, I told myself, but I may have to get ready. At the moment, I wasn't sure what "ready" meant. Now I know that the only thing it can mean is that you react to bad news with self-mastery, with dignity and a rational sense of what needs to be done. Lots of us consider ourselves realistic, serious-minded people. We know we can't ask for miracles. We know that the people and animals we love will have to die some time. All we ask is that the time not be now.

I indicated that they should go ahead and do everything they can do. I wanted this stranger to understand, but it wasn't a place for speeches or emoting, so I just said, "He's my buddy." She was a vet and a smart person—if that didn't make it clear, I'm not sure what else would have.

"He's got a long road ahead of him, and this is where it starts," she said, as I got up. She meant with diagnosis and therapy, but I was still thinking about tumors and investments and throwing good money after bad and how I may have to be ready for something I'm not ready for. I hope he does have a long road ahead of him, and I hope it leads home. Not Home, people, not the home we're all supposedly headed for. I mean home, in my house, with me, where he belongs.

And that's what's going on with me today.

BTW, friends have told me they've tried to use the comments feature in the new software and it's not responding. I'm sure there's some checkbox or something I need to take care of, but things have been hectic. I'll get to it. Sorry sorry sorry.

The cat is having problems again. I gave him a pill they said might help, and I'm watching him at the moment, full of feeble hope—let's see how it's going, folks—nope. Back to the vet he goes, and maybe fourth time's the charm. There's an operation they can do, although I'd hate for him to go through that. I hate the whole business, if you really want to know.

I know there are people with far worse problems than his or mine, of course. Some of them are very good friends. This gives me perspective, but you can hardly expect me to jump up and caper with glee about it. I don't want anyone to have problems.

I got my first Mac just over 20 years ago, and I loved it. Some of the computer-obsessed people I knew then sniffed with disdain. It's not expandable, it's inconvenient to program for in some way (I really didn't understand what they were saying), and their final, crushing condemnation: They supposed that it was fine for people who just wanted to use the computer to, you know, do work and stuff.

Well, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose—the more things change, the more things stay the same. Jobs stands on stage and pulls a computer out of a manila envelope, the thinnest computer ever, three pounds, and a thing of beauty, and the chorus of naysayers start up. It doesn't have this, it doesn't have that, blah blah blah. Geekazoids pore over the list of technical specs, demonstrating their prowess by pointing out the limitations you'll suffer because of some subtle way the computer isn't as powerful as other, fatter, heavier computers. Or they complain because the MacBook Air lacks a capacity that no laptop currently has.

Well, gee whiz. As I complained privately to friends, this is getting a little silly. Lots of us have a laptop because we need to do stuff—simple, everyday, 21st-century work stuff—away from our desktops. We don't need an ultracapable computer, we just need a good, solid performer. And since we don't have native bearers to carry our stuff, we like to travel light. Until I started dealing with digital photos and web applications, I didn't carry a laptop at all, I carried a PDA and a keyboard. Very, very light. When you carry things all day, they get heavier as the day goes on. So you people, just please stop hatin' on the MacBook Air, OK? If you don't like it, for Christ's sake don't buy it. Some of us just want to have a good, moderately capable computer that won't put a kink in our clavicles after a two-day business trip. And if it looks good (well, gorgeous, actually), so much the better. I know it's shameful to admit, but I just want to do work stuff with my computers. You may wonder what I know, which isn't much, you may say I'm a bedazzled fanboy, but I suspect that underneath the coolness and cachet, that's what the Macintosh has been about all along.

We had just a dusting of snow today, but at times it was swirling down thickly, and you could enjoy watching it. This is the first snow we'e had in a while, so I was struck to notice on Wikipedia's "On This Day" section of the home page that on (of course) this very day in 1885, a 19-year-old named Wilson Alwyn Bentley created what is probably the first photograph of a snowflake. If you've ever looked at a snowflake up close, you know that they tend to either melt or simply dissolve (technically, "sublimate") into thin air. They're pretty ephemeral. But young Wilson wanted to preserve them. It's easy to surmise that he loved them—he called them 'ice flowers" and "tiny miracles of beauty." He tried from the age of 15 to preserve the beauty he saw, first by drawing them, and then with photography. His mother gave him a microscope when he was 15, and later a camera. He attached the camera to the microscope, and after two years of trial and error, he managed to get his shot. And he kept at it, eventually creating some 5,000 images.

He was considered odd by the people of Jericho, Vermont, where he lived. They called him "Snowflake Man," but I imagine he was a reasonably well-liked person all the same. I can't find out if he ever married, or any of that. But he was recognized at long last by the scientific community, and I think he had a good life. He was the person who first suggested that no two snowflakes are alike. I always wondered about that—I would look out at a field of snow, and think about all the snow that ever fell, and wonder if there weren't two flakes just alike. How would you know? Where are the snows of yesteryear, after all? But I'm awfully fond of Wilson Alwyn Bentley for loving snow so much, and wanting us to love it too. People today would tell him to "get a life," I suppose, if they didn't understand. But I think he was a lucky man, to care so much about something. He died of pneumonia in 1931, after walking home through a blizzard. But all those years before, on this very day, he took that first photograph, and he must have marveled at it. And he kept marveling for all those years afterward. That seems like a pretty good life to me. 

I had an hour or so last night in which I simply laid in bed and read a new book I've been enjoying, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. This is the first bit of relatively recent fiction I've read in a while. Usually I crash into bed, grab some old favorite from the pile by its side, and read a few pages before falling into a restless, disturbed semiconsciousness. But it's a pleasure to discover a book that's new, that you haven't read dozens of times before, where you pursue the story through each turning page with a sense of discovery and excitement.

There are a couple reasons I don't do this more often. One is that myself and a few others feel that contemporary fiction isn't concerned enough with telling a good story, but that's a discussion for another day. The other reason is that I just don't have enough time. I was telling some friends from my writers' group that I wanted to be sure I'd get something from most meetings, and one of them said he wasn't so concerned, that going to the meetings gets him out of the house. Well, I'm pretty excited when I'm home of an evening with time on my hands once in a row, never mind twice. I don't need to get out of the god-damned house, I need to get in the house, sit down, relax, and read a book once in a while. I'll bet that's true of most people I know.

Cat update: I'm asked regularly for progress reports and I can gladly report that there's progress; he's eating a little better every day, he's eating at the moment, in fact. I don't know much about cat physiology but I'm pretty sure they have to eat.

I have to run now because the trash needs to be taken out and it's still dark. Dark is good because I have a large and ever-growing hole in the side of my sweat pants. This is unintentionally revealing and I don't want the neighbors admiring my sturdy thighs. Going out while it's still dark is my idea of being efficient. It spares me the necessity of buying new sweat pants and it spares my modesty too.

I've been quiet lately, but not because of any problem. Last week was stressful, but the cat seems fine. I'm more or less in the position of someone at a noisy party who's sitting a bit apart, without much to say. If you put your hand on my shoulder and asked if anything was wrong I'd look up, smile, and say, "No, I'm fine. Just thinking, is all."

You can say that at a party, but it seems a little inadequate for a blog post. So I thought, well, maybe an image would convey a thoughtful, contemplative mood. What sort of image? I have a chambered nautilus image—just the whorl of it, framed against darkness, very evocative. Or ivy against a wall? But really, why? I hate to send you away empty-handed, I ought to provide some value, but frankly I just feel a little fried and want to regroup. So let me do this for you: I'll repeat that I don't have much to say, and let it go at that. This sends you on your way, gets your day going, saves you time, the stuff of life. I know very accomplished bloggers who say they don't have much to say and then slap down 800 or 1,000 words proving it. Many sins can be laid at my door, but I think I'll spare you that. See you tomorrow, and be well.

After a fair bit of headscratching I got the blog layout more or less back to normal after I realized that I'd bobbled the picture upload last night and some funky code got written in. But whenever things like this happen I think back to the story of the Sorcerer's apprentice, a ballad by Goethe set to music by Paul Dukas and brought to its greatest popularity by Mickey Mouse. If you're not familiar with it, it's the story of a sorcerer—that much you probably guessed—who has an apprentice, which you probably guessed as well, and the sorcerer tells the apprentice to do the chores around the place and then leaves. The apprentice, not wanting to do everything by hand, uses some imperfectly learned magic to make the tools do the chores by themselves, but things spin out of control and the apprentice is clueless about how to fix the situation. I don't know about you, but I fear I''m going to live the rest of my life in this uncomfortable middle ground—too lazy to do the chores by hand, but too damn dumb to learn all the magic. (Sigh.)

What next! I didn't do anything strange to the site, guys, I didn't pull any levers or press any buttons, I'm as puzzled as you. The tag cloud and category list have dropped off the face of the earth, and all that's left is the stack of entries. And here I am, using software I don't really understand and have no idea how to fix. Damn! In the bad old days when the site was homemade and ugly this never happened. But I've got my best people on it (unfortunately my best people is me) and we'll have this fixed as soon as possible. The cat's fine, BTW.

OK, kids, let's try this one more time from the top. Evidently this urinary blockage business is tricky; when I went home the first time, I got all sorts of warnings to keep an eye on him, and they were justified. But maybe the second time's the charm; it seems he's back where he ought to be, they say, and he certainly seems like himself again. He's dozing by the heater right now, but we had a nice visit earlier. It's a better vibe, certainly.

I was at the veterinary hospital, checking him out, and the staff folks and I joked about how much we'd seen of each other. But it had taken its toll on me, I was swaying on my feet, and at one point one of the staff people handed me a prescription. "It's for Valium," she said. "For him," I asked, "or for me?"

But it's funny, going out the door, I stopped for just a second, eager as I was to get him into the car and on his way home. I'd seen that there was a tree in the parking lot, by the fence, as I came in and out on my trips before. But tonight there were no other cars in the lot, and the tree was lit by the lights at the door. It soared 40 feet in the air, a magnificent sycamore, the smooth bark glowing in the light, strong limbs spreading out from the trunk, and I just stood for a second and looked up. I hadn't really noticed it before, but as I say, it was magnificent. So maybe I had calmed down and come back to myself just a little. Yes, I wanted to get home. But last night my little cat friend was in a pitiable state, gripped by a condition that could kill him if enough hours went by, and tonight he was pretty clearly in much, much better shape, and there was time to admire a tree, just for a moment, standing there with the cat box in my hand.

I'll have to give him some pills in a few minutes, and I hate to bother him, but it's part of the gig. He's a pretty tough little monkey, for all his gentle nature. So if you'll excuse me, I've got to take care of my cat.

I feel slightly less effervescent and ebullient than usual, and maybe part of the explanation is that yesterday I started the day by rushing the cat to the emergency veterinary hospital, where he was pronounced not that bad, took him home, worked hard at work, went home, and rushed the cat to the emergency veterinary hospital again, where he was pronounced a little bad after all. They flushed him out and said that he was now in reasonably good working order again but they wanted to keep him overnight to make sure. I got home and made dinner somewhere around 9:30 p.m., and all this is physically and emotionally draining, so I'm less effervescent. If you need someone to be upbeat I'm sure Katie Couric is on TV somewhere or other.

I realized yesterday that all this has given me a strange ambition. There was a great film that came out in 1987, The Last Emperor, about the last emperor (of course) of China. Puyi is the guy in question, and he becomes emperor when he's a toddler, and part of being emperor back in the nineteen-teens was that about five doctors made it a habit to grab the royal chamberpot and hold it right up to their faces to examine by sight and smell the royal leavings. (The French medical profession is similarly interested in leavings: I understand French doctors will typically ask you, "Comment sont vos selles?" You're expected to provide an appropriate description: Your selles have been hard, soft, a particular color, whatever.)

I mention this because for years I would clean the cat's litter box, taking its contents pretty much for granted. But in the past few days I've been watching that box, trying to ascertain how much the cat has been peeing, and whether he's been peeing all at once, or in dribs and drabs. What I've been looking for is evidence that the cat has peed all at once, frankly and forthrightly, the way he used to, and when I see that again I'll smile with gratification. I thought about that, and the image of those Chinese doctors came to mind. At any rate, that's my main ambition for the immediate future. They say the cat will probably be able to come home today, and I know that the first time he uses the litter box, I'll come up and take the lid off and peer in, like a Chinese doctor of yesteryear, my heart full of hope.

The poor old cat came home last night, and things are back to normal except for the pills. It was something of a strain on our friendship last night: Panther's bad with his hands, and laid my forearm open with one deft swipe like he was gutting a trout. (We became friends again shortly after.) This morning went much more smoothly. He wasn't happy, but there was no rodeo. I learned from this Cornell site that you can put butter on a pill to help it go down. Pretty good trick—I like this Intramanet thingie. Plus which if you're apprehensive about doing something you can go online and look for advice and you're not exactly avoiding the inevitable. At least, it doesn't look that way.

I thought I could give you some heartwarming boy-and-his-cat pictures from last night, but there's no time. Film at 11, like they say.

Come in, stranger, sit down, rest. There's no news about any states in the northeastern United States on offer here today, just the usual musings. No, today I'm thinking a sympathetic thought about a reasonably talented journalist, one Timothy Noah, who had a tough assignment. One of the andidates-cay snuffled a little, and who could blame her? A hundredth of the fatigue and stress of it all would kill me a hundred times over. But snuffle she did, and unleashed a mighty flood of media comment. Our boy Noah had to write about it. And he had to write about it seriously. And he also had to hint that he, and the reader, are also a little above it all and consider the whole kerfuffle a little silly. Just a hint, a soupçon, of that last thing, mind you. But he did it well. He reminded me of those high-wire people who go out there, stand on one foot, and get rings hula-hooping around on their remaining limbs. It's not especially attractive or enlightening—there's really no point to it at all—but it's certainly difficult, you have to admit that.

The cat was acting funny last night, spending too long at the litter box, and this morning he wasn't quite himself at all, so I called an emergency veterinary hospital and they said bring him in. I've lived long enough to recognize the feeling of unreality: The day started normally, and before lunch a young woman is telling you that the emergency treatment required will be expensive (a thousand dollars) and being older with some health problems he might not survive the anesthesia and the prognosis is guarded in the long term too because of the health problems and the other option is putting him down. It's not just that he's not quite himself; he's on the brink of not being at all.

I had my arms around him on the table in the examining room, partly immobilizing him and mostly comforting him. There are no quantitative metrics for the sweetness of cats, so I can't say with assurance that he's the sweetest cat in the world, but he's a contender, I'll swear by that. He's been in my house every minute I've been in it for the past eight years. I looked away, shook my head, and told her in a low voice, as if it were embarrassing even to have it brought up, that putting him down was not an option. "Good," she said, firmly, and they took him away.

I got home. It was quiet in the house, a quiet I haven't experienced in eight years. You could feel the absence. Hemingway said in A Farewell to Arms that there's something not in a room when a person is dead in it. I can add as a corollary to that that there's something not in a house when its cat is absent. They said they would call in an hour, and they did. He was awake, and they'd fixed the problem. But they wanted to keep him three days.

I understand the necessity, but I wish he were here. I'm under no illusions about animal psychology, and I'm sure they don't love us they way humans love. That's not really the point, though, is it? The point is that humans certainly love the way humans love. He's been a warm, gentle, friendly, companionable presence in the house—I mean the home—for eight years, and it's quiet here now. Quiet, and empty, and to fill that emptiness and enliven the quiet is worth a thousand dollars. They could probably have named their price. I can't have the old feller around forever, I know that, but if I can have him around for a while longer I'll take the deal and not quibble over the terms. Night just fell, and the cat belongs here, at home, and he's not. But I wish he were.

For the most part, yesterday was just one of those days you just click through as you hurtle toward the grave. The French have a term for this deadly rhythm: metro-boulot-dodo, "subway-work-sleep." I bought food on the way home, and this skinny, acne-blotched teenager was standing there in a daze as I picked up my bags. But when I turned to go, I heard an unusual series of noises, and only slowly realized he was actually addressing me for some reason.

"Sorry?" I asked. He pointed toward a giant stack of poinsettia plants and mumbled, "If you want you can take one of those."

Obviously they had a huge overstock of poinsettias from the holiday and were trying to get them the hell out of the store before they started wilting and looking sorry for themselves. These poinsettias were on the edge, they were like divorced poinsettias, very nearly over the hill, hanging out in bars with a sense of quiet desperation, trying to pretend they weren't doing combovers and getting Botoxed. At any rate, this was no big deal, but for a moment I reacted as if it were a tremendously generous kindness. If I could see film of the moment, I'm sure I'd see a big smile light up on my face, and I'd be launching into an explanation of how that's really nice but I'm not sure I should take one because see I have a cat and poinsettias aren't supposed to be good for—

And the next thing you'd see, if you watched for it, would be this kid's pupils flickering to the left, just barely perceptibly, as if he were looking for some sort of rescue or escape. I felt sorry for him. He's just trying to make a couple of bucks, and he has to accost strangers all day and offer them plants, and this goof (me, that is) wants to have a conversation about his cat or something. I knew better, is the thing. I just forgot. It's different in other parts of the world, but where I live, there's no point in trying to actually converse with people in stores. They just stare at you. And especially with kids like this. You're an object, not a human being, and your role as an object is to say what you want and then to say whether it's for here or to go. Your cat's health and safety aren't really of any great import in the exchange. And neither are you—you could spontaneously combust right at the McDonald's counter, burn down to a wisp of ash, and the kid would just say "Who's next?"

It's not like that in other places. In the South, the kid would have told me about his aunt's cat who ate a poinsettia once and threw up everywhere but was OK afterward. In California, they're not quite as outgoing but they do talk to you in stores. The first time I was there, a convenience store clerk made a remark about the weather, and I damn near jumped, as if a stump had started talking. The same day, I bought some fishing line in a big sporting-goods store, and the woman at the checkout asked for my zip code, and I gave it to her, and she saw I was from the other side of North America.

"Wow," she said, "that's a long way to come for fishing line."
"Well, I heard it was really good here," I said.

I've learned not to be surprised that strangers can be friendly and charming when I travel. Here in Chester County, we think charm is a quality rightly found landscapes and architecture that evoke the past. But most of us don't want to be charmed by affable strangers. We want them to keep their mouths shut, pay, and leave. I knew that, I just forgot.

I was telling the woman who cuts my hair about my low-key New Year's Eve observance: dinner, a glass of champagne, a fun nostalgic movie. (I do have a life, I hasten to assure you.) "That's cute," she said. Her own New Year's was evidently a bit rowdier. She's a newlywed twentysomething, and they had a party, and when they woke up one of the guests was asleep on the table, wrapped in the tablecloth. "There was food on the walls," she said, mentioning ambrosia salad in particular. It's been a while since I, myself, have been at a party where anyone threw food inside the house, I must admit. I struggled to cast my mind back, and remembered a get-together when I was about her age, where a guy playfullly slung a turkey at another guy as hard as he could. It didn't make as much mess as you'd think, since there was no gravy or anything on it, and I thought about the ambrosia and made a suggestion.

"You might want to try serving mostly dry foods next time," I said. "You know, so they'll bounce."

Then I went to have dinner and play music with a friend (I hack away at jazz piano, and maybe someday we'll have a little film of that), but he and his wife and I wound up just eating and talking the evening away. She brought out shortbread cookies for dessert, and they were amazing. There's this Simpsons episode where the Kwik-e-Mart sells a soda so high in caffeine and sugar that when Bart and Milhouse drink it, they immediately start hallucinating. That's how these shortbread cookies were, so buttery that at the height of its effect you shouldn't be driving or operating heavy machinery. When I left there was no food on the walls, and we hadn't thrown any farther than into our mouths, but it was still a pretty enjoyable evening. I guess that's my public service message for today: Kids, take it from me, you don't have to throw food to have a good time.

I read once that a band member once found Duke Ellington throwing some torn-up pieces of paper into the toilet of his hotel room. Asked what the deal was, Ellington said, "I'd prefer that people not catch on to how badly I can write." In that spirit, I have to explain that I've been feeling grumpy and closemouthed lately. I'll write things down, deem them crap, and rewrite them and then throw them away.

This morning I decided that I didn't want to get out of bed and wasn't in a good mood. It was dark, and it was bitter cold, and it was January. And then I thought, "You know what, though? None of those are actually permanent conditions." It didn't exactly make me spring up with a song in my heart but it was a good point to keep in mind.

I just went on a poetry site, curious about someone I'd heard on the radio (I thought it was pretentious and laughed out loud, but I shall investigate before issuing my final condemnation). I read one poem, said "Meh," and then spent another minute hunting down and killing all the stupid little pop-up and -under ads the site sprouted. Lousy money-grubbing poet bastards! Why don't you get a job, you bums!

And on that uplifting note, I think it's time to go work out.

I can't say the last day of 2007 started with any special drama, except that I went down my back steps carefully because they looked, and were, icy. (I was less wary the last time we had the same conditions, and wound up doing a flamingo's hornpipe for the amusement of the neighbors.)

So warily down the stairs I went, and when I got to terra firma I saw to my annoyance that the car windows were heavily frosted over. As usual, I was running late (breakfast was the traditional cup of coffee, hastily gulped) and this would add a devastating minute and a half or so to the leaving process. But then I stopped myself and looked a little closer.

This wasn't ordinary frost. It was, unequivocally and for the record, the most beautiful, lavish, profligate example of automotive frost I'd ever seen. Every inch of the car's windows was covered with delicately inscribed sprays, curlicues, fringed fernlike shapes, a profusion of delicate, graceful curving lines, with tiny parallel hatchmarks between them. Despite my hurry, I couldn't resist the impulse to put the briefcase in the car, get out the camera, and look the whole thing over, recording its damasked loveliness.

You may never see a car's windows frosted over quite this perfectly again, I thought. You've been late to work before, and will almost certainly be late to work again. Being late to work is not unique. But this is, I thought. It was what Keats would call "unpremeditated art," and it was worth a moment.

The moment over, I had to take this loveliness and ruthlessly destroy it. Hit the rear window defroster button, put the defroster up high, and start scraping away everywhere with a black plastic scraper. I felt bad. But my only other options were to sit and wait until it melted naturally, which might take an hour, or try to drive the car without being able to see out of it, which would result in a lot of crashing and awkward explaining, so you see my position.

There's something about frost, isn't there, when it's patterned like that? It's created only by the laws of physics, so it can't possibly be an expression of emotion, and it can't be art either. But there's something in snowflakes, or frost, or the spiral of the chambered nautilus' shell. There's a mathematical loveliness to it, and some sort of message, I've always thought. At any rate, it's possible to look at that nautilus shell or the patterns in the frost and feel a certain quiet awe. You feel that, and then you snap out of it and start the car, because you've got to get to work.