There are those who say that animals have no souls; these people are undoubtedly blood kin to the well-meaning people who think that something so formal and ceremonial as a funeral is supposed to bring closure to the lives of the living.

So much not to say, see.

On Sunday morning I found myself curled up next to Jeff and thinking, "When did this stop being home?"

What was it over the course of four years that did it? There are too many culprits to select just one: friends, cats, mortgage, jobs. All. Nothing. Everything in between.

Painful experiences supposedly get better with the passage of time. Everyone's heard the adage that the pain of labor is forgotten shortly after the arrival of the child, and supposedly this sort of adage applies to lots more things than just labor.

I've got one word for you guys: liars. Tonight, while ostensibly digging for knitting and crochet patterns, I found a folder that I hadn't opened in quite some time. The first sheet of paper contained a grid of some kind, and when I looked closer, I started laughing.

The icky semester.
by domesticat.
[original on flickr]

Ever notice how much we crave understanding from others? It is one of the guiding forces behind our interactions with other people. Failing the ability to allow another to truly see through our eyes, we resort to words. When we talk, we take the best option available to us: we fence with words to (gently or forcefully) turn our conversation partner so that they see the world from a perspective as closely matching our own as possible.

Words aren't magic, though they sometimes might feel like it. For those of us unable to communicate through art or music, they're our best hope of closing the gap betweeen others and ourselves.Sometimes they just can't suffice.

That seems to be my theme for the year: words that just don't manage to say it all, despite my best attempts to make it so.

Thanks to Andrew for passing this little gem on to me. I got quite a snicker out of these.

We sat next to each other on Kat and Sean's slipcovered sofa, in the living room that, over the past week, had begun to exhibit definite signs of habitation by its new owners. We were spread somewhere between the fullness of dinner and the cheerful obnoxiousness that was an evening of gaming with the wondergeeks. He flashed a grin at me and said, "You realize that as of next year, we'll have known each other for over half of our lives?"

I tried to count back without using my fingers, failed, and said, "Has it really been that long?"

"It was the summer of 1990 when we met," he confirmed. Yes, indeed—summer of 1990—before our birthdays, so we would have been square in the midst of the gawky year of 13.

Writers shouldn't be allowed to use phrases like "In the meantime, everything changed," regardless of the amount of truth such a statement might contain. It's too easy of a way to skip over the formative events between then and now, sacrificing story for speed.