Since I've had absolutely nothing of interest to write about for the past few days, I'm going to open up the forum in a rather dangerous manner. I've been thinking of marking 'cat.net as "out to lunch" for a few days, to take something along the lines of a quickie vacation from daily writings. (Most of you know I do that a couple of times a year.)

There are, however, some options. Just because I'm bored with my standard non-fiction doesn't mean that a couple of my oh-so-disturbing fictional columns can't come back for a few days.

I received the following email this morning, and given its urgency and importance, felt that I should both reply and make my reply available to you, the loyal readerbase of domesticat.net:

Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 22:50 -0800
Subject: domesticat.net
To: webmaster [at] domesticat.net
From: Katherine Rappaport [katherinerappaport [at] link-builder.com]

Sorry about not providing the next installment of 'Without Prior Notice' tonight. We ended up getting an unexpected invitation to visit a friend's house, and…how to say it?

Readers, you so got ditched. I know, I know, the suspense has been killing you. I'm sorry to suck all the oxygen out of your reading existence today, but I'm horrible and need to be smacked. So why sit here and write out a different post? Well, because I've discovered another sufferer of the Just Don't Get It Syndrome (affectionately abbreviated to JDGI Syndrome).

Greetings, readers, and welcome to the newest little addition to domesticat.net, known as "Ask Domesticat." You, too, can now have the pleasure of having your questions answered* in a public forum by the one and only domesticat! Our first question comes to us from a severely snowbound reader a stone's-throw from Canada:

Where do you get your "domesticat-esque" impulses from? Or, what makes you so "domesticat-ey" (domestikitty?)

Answer:
The short version: chemical therapy. As many of you know, I spent most of my teenage years completely unable to relate to anything not placed within 0.000005 inches of my own skull. Somewhere around my seventeenth birthday, someone switched my daily drug feed from "self-absorbed teenager" to the mostly-decaffeinated "decent human being" blend.