On supportive cats

Last night I had a pretty rough time. I was home by myself, just me and the cat, and I just felt so lonely in the most profound sense. I'd talked to my parents about stuff in general, gotten some encouragement and then everything just broke open and I felt terrible. Even though I've come a lot further since graduating, and I'm not as bad as I was then, I still feel drained and unhappy about it, and I know it'll take time to get back to the way I was. My dad figures I burned myself out in school, and I think him and mom are kinda worried, so they want me to spend some time at their place next week. At this point I feel that it's probably a good idea, all this worrying about everything is making me so weary.

Tara was great though, and I felt bad for having trash-talked her as a pet earlier. She spent most of the evening lying behind my head on the sofa, sticking her face in mine and purring loudly to cheer me up, and I was struck by the sense of gratitude you can feel towards an animal who's so in tune with you emotionally that they stick to you when you need them to. I really appreciate her company.

Speaking of company, the Korean Seventh-day Adventist friend I made keeps pestering me to find him a tall blonde girl for him, and while he's really sweet, I don't exactly feel the need to hook any of my friends up with a Christian who doesn't believe in evolution and who's church believes that women should be submissive to men. If any of you readers feel up to the challenge, then by all means let me know so I don't have to see "So, did you find any pretty girls for me?^^" every time I try to talk to him about, well... anything. In comparison, the Korean realtor who lives in Yokohama is far more fun, partly because he consistently says pee instead of fee and his English is terrible to the point that I don't always understand what he's talking about, but at least that hasn't turned into any creepy hook-up conversations. The most dramatic thing was when he responded "pleaSE BE MA TEACHER" (seriously, this was the exact spelling and everything) when I told him I was coming to Japan to teach English, and that made me laugh for like forever, so I can live with it.

I spent most of the day in a headache haze, but at least the apartment burn issue was sorted out, which makes me feel a whole lot calmer. On the downside, Hemingway was feeling like crap about that and a bunch of other stuff, and that once again makes the distance pretty shitty. It's hard to comfort someone properly when they're half a world away. I'm bad enough at knowing what to say or do even when people are right there with me. I just want to be able to make it a little bit better. Everyone's lives are equally complicated in different ways I guess, which in a way is comforting, but I don't want for people I care about to be unhappy. I wish Hemingway had a cat come over and headbutt him a bit with fuzzy kindness. It actually helps more than I thought it would.