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2004-01-12 - 8:10 p.m.
I rented a bunch of movies yesterday and took today off in anticipation of getting Lucy back from the vet. I planned to sit on the couch all day with her because more than anything she likes to be sitting on a human being and I thought it would be a nice thing to do for her. Unfortunately she wasn't able to come home today. I did spend an hour with her bent over her cage petting her and playing with the cat in the cage next to her. I got to wondering how it was that I became such a cat person. I mean, why do I fall so easily in love with cats? That cat in the cage next to Lucy was hilarious and I want nothing more than to take her home with me when I take Lucy home. Why do I do that? We always had animals when I was growing up. Cats, dogs, guinea pigs, a rabbit, a pig, goats. So I was always an animal person but never a "cat person". Meaning, for the first 22 years of my life I was more inclined towards dogs, but still didn't have the desire to actually have one of my own. After much thought I realized that I have come to be a cat person, I have come to be the person that falls in love with cats, because I know cats. Because by having cats I have learned to see their personalities easily. One loves what one is used to. Just like I will never fall in love with a gangster, rapper, junkie, flunkie, I will probably never love a dog the way I love cats unless I ever have a dog and grow to love it the way I love cats. I will never be able to look at a dog and know it instantly the way I can know cats. I wonder how much of why we fall in love with who we fall in love with is because of what we are used to? I mean, I wonder if I would have loved E. as much as I do had he not been the kind of person I was used to being around? I often wondered, in the past, why I didn't love (romantically) certain people. Like my old neighbor Rich who was the nicest, would do anything for me, was cute, sucessful at his career (electrician) and loved his dog. There was nothing about Rich that should have turned me off. But he was not what I was used to. He wasn't intelligent in that way I was raised and used to. He didn't read books, he didn't have a large vocabulary, he ate typical American food all the time and wrinkled his nose at even Chinese food. While I couldn't have a conversation with him about the state of the world or even about the state of our village, we had a lot of fun together and there was never a silent moment. But I never fell in love with him, I never loved him as anything more than a friend. And I just wonder now if that was because he wasn't my "kind"? Before I met E. I was really distraught about not loving Rich. Not because I wanted someone to love, but because he had nothing wrong with him, at all, and because he was someone with whom I was totally comfortable and happy with. We had no issues or discomfort between us. Nothing that would have hindered a romantic spark. But it was just never there. That bothered me. Of course, now I have E. and I am so glad I never found any romantic spark to kindle with Rich because I would have had to leave him to be with E. But I just wonder about love. I wonder how much of "love", or at least the inital falling in love, has to do with preconceived notions of who you are supposed to be with. I know that the love I feel for E. is vastly different now than it was when we first started dating. I didn't realize it at the time, but looking back I realize how little, in the beginning, I actually really knew him. But I was still in love with him. Even though I didn't know him as well as I thought. Now that I know him very well, can see him crystal clear in my mind, can even see what expression his face is wearing just by hearing his voice on the other end of the line. Now I love him no matter what, even if he stopped being the kind of person I was used to being around. Like the cats, I will love them no matter what now, even if I didn't start out as a cat person, I became one. I don't know if this makes any sense at all. Anyway. The whole point of this entry was about movies. I wanted to say that I had intended to watch movies all day today with Lucy. But since she wasn't here and I had set my mind on it, I watched movies anyway. And when I got to the last movie I was hoping, ten minutes into it, that it would be a long movie because I was so enjoying being on the couch in my pajamas and didn't want it to end. I didn't even care that it wasn't a particularly good movie, I just wanted to be on that couch. I needed a day of doing absolutely nothing, being totally lazy and relaxed. I really, really needed that. Watched Life as a House this afternoon. I was totally unprepared for a tearjerker and guess I should have listened to the girl at the movie counter yesterday when she told me to get a box of tissues before I watched it. Crazy thing about watching that movie is that I always pass it by at the movie store, have been for a long time. But yesterday I just rented it. And when I told my mom today that I had watched this really sad movie called Life as a House she started laughing because apparently my youngest brother watched it on TV last night and cried like a baby too. (Don't tell anyone though because he thinks he is some tough, kickass thug and would kill me if he found out I was telling people he cried like a baby.) Bath now. |
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