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from the hope
of the future: the youth
to the backbone of the party: hard-working white people
 this
is bonny. she was a cat that used to hang out in the courtyard of
my apartment complex. everyone loved her and would watch over her
and feed her. she would always call out when she saw me at my door,
expecting handouts.
a few years ago, bonny had a sidekick, her brother clyde. bonny
and clyde, get it? cute. anyway, clyde was this great black cat
who would just jump up on your lap whenever you went out into the
courtyard to sit. he was just so mellow. he died a few years ago
after getting really sick and really thin. it was sad to see him
die in such a way.
i would see bonny more often when i smoked outside on my patio,
but over the last 9 months or so after quitting smoking, i didn't
really see much of her. i saw enough of her, however, to realize
that she had developed some kind of cancer on her ear and was in
considerable pain and discomfort.
 this
week a neighbor took mercy on bonny and had her put down. i think
it was the right decision. i will miss her very much. but i know
that she was suffering a great deal.
bonny and clyde were not always outside courtyard cats. when i moved
in to this complex 5 years ago, i was told that bonny and clyde
belonged to a gay guy who lived across the courtyard from where
i live now. this guy used to sit outside and smoke and talk to everyone
else. very friendly. well, the guy ended up dying from complications
due to hiv and aids and when the guy's family came to clean out
his apartment, they took everything but bonny and clyde. they just
abandoned them in the courtyard. so that's why everyone thought
of them as their own cats.
we've had a lot of feral cats come and go, but none will ever match
up to bonny and clyde. may they both rest in peace.
 strange,
wacky weekend.
must have been the drag
pageant.
or mother's
day.
or getting my tax
stimulus check.
i'm just sayin'.
or maybe somebody's just got me by my disco balls.
"a searing, emotional portrait of a son
who wants nothing more than the love his father will not grant
him, burroughs’s latest memoir (after 2004’s dry)
is indeed powerful. absent is the wry humor of running with
scissors and the absurd poignancy of burroughs's years living
with his mother's svengali-like psychiatrist. instead, burroughs
focuses on the years he lived both in awe and fear of his philosophy
professor father in amherst, mass. despite frequent trips with
his mother to escape his father's alcoholic rages, burroughs was
determined to win his father's affection, secretly touching the
man's wallet and cigarettes and even going so far as to make a
surrogate dad with pillows and discarded clothing. only after
his father's neglect -- or cruelty -- leads to the death of burroughs's
beloved guinea pig during one of the family's many separations
does the son turn against the father. avoiding self-pity, burroughs
paints his father with unwavering honesty, forcing the reader
to confront, as he did, a man who even on his deathbed, refused
his son a hint of affection. his father missed so much, burroughs
muses, not knowing his son. luckily, burroughs does not deny the
reader such an enormous pleasure.
i'll have to let you know what i thought of the book once i get
my hands on it.
posted by lonestarsteve on sat 03.05.08
8:45 AM
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just
got back from my biannual trip to pennsyltucky to see my biological
family. nothing much has changed here in the bayou city.