5 +1

a few things have happened recently. not many. but a few.

1. the lip ring is gone. it was a long debate to take it out during the summer and finally i decided in september that i'd had enough. no one really noticed and when they did notice they thought i had just taken it out the night before or something. i probably wouldn't have noticed either. so it's gone. sometimes i miss it. only when i see old pictures. but there are new changes coming. permanent ones, if you know what i mean.
2. i have learned how to be a good student. i think it has something to do with the current living situation and how crappy my computer has become. but i start assignments ahead of time (!!!) and still have plenty of time for six feet under. am i doing better? nah, not really. but i feel better and that's the point.
3. i don't really feel better, at least not in ways that aren't school related. but that's a whole different story and not a happening, which is the point of this list.
4. i reached the 4 year mark in terms of vegetarianism. my attitude towards vegetarianism has changed dramatically in the last year and i have a feeling that it may be close to the end of this era. i have changed a lot since november of grade 11 and there's no point in pretending that i still hold the same values i did back then. it's not fun anymore, i know that much.
5. pete and i passed the year and a half mark, which was almost forgotten then quietly celebrated. pete said "i don't think 18 months count as an official anniversary." i said "don't be a poor sport." any reason to celebrate, right? we're happy. well, i'm happy at least. he's sleeping now and the cat is too, back to back they are.
6. we'll have had the cat for one month tomorrow and he sure does think he owns the place. today he was calmer than usual and i'm learning how to deal with his tantrums. having a cat is strange when you're used to dogs and i really didn't expect him to be so needy but i'm not complaining. i just need to learn how to treat him like a cat and not like a dog.

i think that's all. maybe not. who cares? blogging is so passe. aha. just joking. i check them everyday.

jeffrey

his name is jeffrey.
he likes doors and yellow feathers.
he farts a lot. well, he gets the blame.
he is fourteen weeks old.
he watches everything.
his name was "slinky" at the spca. it suits him.

we adopted him from the spca in duncan on saturday and he's been just a barrel full of laughs ever since. he cries outside the bathroom door when you go inside, fights everything that moves, and when the time is right he crawls up into your arms and lets you cuddle him until he falls asleep or something moves that he must investigate. he watches a lot of tv. he uses his litterbox like a real champ. he doesn't claw the curtains. pete pretends he doesn't like him but i believe that secretly he does. jeffrey likes pete but he also knows that pete is the boss and therefore i excuse myself from most disciplining. sometimes i say awkward things like "it's like pete and i have a baby!" and pete scrunches up his nose but it kind of is like that.

he gets his name from a funny little story that goes something like this. one year, a few years ago, at my grandparents house, my gido was trying to get the attention of our dog, jessie. instead of calling her jessie he said "jeffrey, jeffrey!" katelyn and i thought it was the best thing ever and decided that when i lived on my own she would buy me a cat named jeffrey.

et voila.

mystery

september 30, 2006
7:15am - hungover taryn wakes up to the sound of pete's alarm clock and turns it off.
7:20am - taryn wonders why pete didn't turn the alarm off himself.
7:22am - taryn realizes that pete is not in the bed.
7:25am - pete is not in the bedroom, on the balcony, in the closet, in the kitchen, or in the bathroom. conclusion: pete is not in the apartment but all of his stuff his.
7:26am - his car is not in the parking lot. conclusion: of course it isn't, we left it at rachael's last night after the party.
7:27am - pete is found!
7:27am - pete is completely naked and asleep on the tiny, old loveseat in the apartment lobby. he is quite happy to be naked and in the lobby.
7:28am - taryn realizes that the laundry machines have been turned on. conclusion: he has been seen like this.
7:30am - taryn and pete return to the apartment and establish that pete did in fact get back to the apartment last night as his clothes and personal possessions are here.

ideas:
1. he peed himself and wanted to wash his clothes. possible as his boxers from the evening are missing in action.
2. we had a fight and i kicked him out.
3. ninjas.

as i remember nothing more of the evening than getting out of the cab and thinking "i wonder if anybody would notice if i puked beside that dumpster" i really can't offer much insight.

dreambaby

i've been having funny little dreams lately that i can't really distinguish from reality. like pete telling me that i should get an electric toothbrush because it will cut my brushing time in half. or seeing candice outside of the sub. i don't have dreams very often. well, now i do. but i never really used to. pete would say "what did you dream about?" and i would say "nothing." and there was no feeling that i did have a dream and forgot it, it was purely nothing. and now there's always something there. some dream that i promise to remember and then forget. or there's those little dreams. maybe parts of big dreams or maybe just random glimpses into my subconscious. is that where dreams come from? i took psychology in high school and got 100% (bragbragbrag) but all i remember is about pavlov's dog (i also learned about that in motor learning second year) and that 1 in 5 albertans suffers from depression. i also remember a woman that came to talk to us about schizophrenia and she convinced me that one day i would become schizophrenic because i always used to be scared to think things because i could never tell who could hear my thoughts. she did not actually convince me but she talked about how paranoia is a leading symptom. that is not a normal behaviour so i was thinking about how if i knew i was going to get schizophrenia then when i got it i would be able to say "no, taryn, those voices aren't real. ignore them. you are just schizophrenic." that's kind of unimportant now and i don't think like that anymore. anyway, i've been having dreams lately.

303

our apartment is small and oldfashioned and it smells like body odor if we don't leave the windows open. we have a tv now and a futon for guests. we're supposed to sleep on it until we get a bed but the air mattress is where we usually find ourselves. i don't mind. most nights we both end up rolling into the middle, not much more than an inch of air protecting us from the ground. he mumbles in his sleep and puts his arm around me and it makes all those days we spent apart worth it.