strange days

I'm naturally a depressive person, but even though these are dark days in the life of Lutz, I'm working on it.

These things help (and seriously, if you have no room in your heart for cute cat pictures, I have no room in my heart for you):

Little Lady Phoenix lends a hand.

Bubbie is real serious about cleaning his belly fluff.

Like a lazy junkie, Fifi spends the whole damn day in bed.

"Runaway train, never comin' back..."
Yeah, I was a teenager in the 90s.

valentine's day from A to Z

In honor of Valentine's Day, I figured it was only appropriate to compile a whiny, self-loathing list about why I'll probably die alone in a silver bullet trailer surrounded by my 35 cats, who will then proceed to eat me.

Altercations with authority figures: Sometimes I have them.
Blankets: I hog them.
Cats: They are my best friends. (Pictured below: Bubba Lee Kinsey licks Phoenix's face.)

Desire to travel: The only reason I want money.
Energy level: It is generally low.
Food: I suck at cooking it.
Generalized social anxiety: I have it.
Hairbrush: I'm not sure where it is.
Intuition: I base important decisions on it.
Jewelry: The weirder, the better.
Kansas City Royals: I'm going to keep taking their shit.
Lies: I suck at telling them.
Modesty: I have none.
Nudity: Sometimes it accidentally happens in front of the window.
Openness about thoughts and feelings: It's only achieved when drunk.
PMS: When I have it, you will know.
Quiet: I am, excessively.
Random and socially inappropriate things: Sometimes I do them.
Shyness about farting: I do not have it.
Twenty-three-year-old, creepy, balding sociopath: He proposed to me when I was 16.
Underwater creatures: They're neat, and one day I will live near them.
Very tall coffee sleeve tower: It is my pride and joy. (Pictured below: Containing coffee cup sleeves from Starbucks, The Roasterie, Muddy's, Einstein Bros. and 7-Eleven, my three-foot-tall coffee tower is nearing the ceiling of my office.)

Whiskey and wine: I like them.
Xavier: He's my godson, and he's more important than you.
Yoga: Without it, I'm a bitch.
Zack Grienke: He's on my shit list for marrying a supermodel and moving to Milwaukee.

facebook is ruining my brain

I swear, I used to have an attention span. At least I think I did, back in the days when I was a kid who genuinely thought learning was fun.

Though I didn't have to, I would spend a weekend memorizing the postal codes and capitals for all 50 states, writing 15-page letters to my best friend R. (which I would then mail, even though I was going to see her at school the next day), and learning the defining characteristics of every breed of cat (did you know the majority of calico cats are female?).

My pretty calico girl Phoenix wants in from the porch.

At some point, probably when I got sick of the other kids copying my homework but making no effort to extend their friendly overtures beyond the amount of time it took them to get the information they needed, I decided to start playing dumb. I purposely answered questions wrong on biology and math tests. I stopped raising my hand in class. I pretended to think the books we were reading in language arts class were stupid (except To Kill a Mockingbird, which so totally captured my imagination that I forgot I needed to pretend. My best friend R. and I probably read it to each other back and forth over the phone ten times, and we even left Boo Radley-style gifts for her neighbors).

I like to think that somewhere beneath my current mess of daily boredom and distractions still lies the girl who would eat Hershey's minatures to the point of puking to have enough wrappers to build a cover for her book of whiny high school poetry, but sometimes I wonder at the sheer deterioration of my attention span and lack of determination. I suppose I could blame my inability to get to bed before midnight, or my infatuation with red wine, or my multitude of misguided and just plain bad choices, but mostly I just blame Facebook.

Facebook is always there, and especially now that I have a BlackBerry, it's always available. I've probably checked it 15 times while writing this blog post. Facebook is a lot like that friend who "forgets his wallet" every time the two of you go to the bar. You want to play a game of pool or hit on that hot chick, but so-and-so needs another beer, dammit, and for some reason you have to oblige.

Facebook allows me to see others' private -- and sometimes triumphant, sometimes painful -- lives in bite-size, easily digestible snippets. In fact, similar to the way obese people or alcoholics say their problems happened "slowly, and then all at once," Facebook has slowly whittled away at my ability to focus and made my natural penchant for voyeurism so accessible (I'm kind of a creeper/peeping tom -- if you leave your shades open, I will look in) that I find myself unable to finish reading a short story or watching the State of the Union address without checking the feed of status updates.

For granting me the ability to simply click a button and be barraged with an onslaught of mostly mindless drivel, I blame Facebook for reprogramming my brain to require immediate, rapid-fire channels of information and instant gratification. My own lack of self-control notwithstanding, giving a peeping tom/creeper/voyeur unlimited access to the daily grind of other people's lives (granted, carefully maintained and filtered access, but that's a whole other blog entry) is similar to giving a compulsive gambler unlimited lines of credit at the casino.

So screw you, Facebook; screw you.

depressed? zoloft can help...

...but heed this warning: once you start, you can never, ever stop taking it ever again.

grateful and 28-ful

My mom, still beautiful in her 60s, is fond of saying that having another birthday is better than the alternative. And in the weeks leading up to my 28th birthday, I would grumble and agree only begrudgingly, shocked that the gradual, stealthy approach of my late twenties has left me clinging white-knuckled to my youth as I struggle to avoid the gaping maw of the big 3-0.

But last Wednesday, the night before my birthday, I went to yoga class, and while mired in the pain of a three-minute forward fold I was reminded of the importance of being grateful. Sure, getting older is stupid and I'd rather be 21 forever (who wouldn't), but on this fucked-up journey I'm also surrounded by a whole lot of luck and a whole lot of awesome.

Why I'm grateful at 28

1. My friends know I can veer a bit toward the "not so much" side of sane, but they seem to like me anyway. I would be lost without their endless kindness, e-mails, lunch dates, travel plans, and numerous trips to Glace (pictured below).

2. My boyfriend is smart, sexy, kind and encouraging. And probably the funniest person I know - he says things that will make me laugh all over again 20 minutes after the fact (he calls it "deep comedy"). In the three years we've been together, he has changed my life for the better in so many ways.

3. My parents and my brother would probably do just about anything for me, as I would for them. I'm extremely lucky to have such a reliable source of love and security.

4. My cats, Bubba Lee Kinsey and Phoenix, literally amaze me daily. (Pictured below: I totally caught them snuggling. Bubba is the big gray tabby; Fifi is the calico.)

5. In this shit economy I have a good-enough-for-now job that allows me to write, be creative and afford my own place, which is at times claustrophobically small but where I can experience the joys of eating sandwiches in bed, leaving my Christmas tree up all year, and draining a six-pack of pumpkin beer on the porch on a weeknight.

6. I am in the best goddamn shape of my life. Not even during my days as a whiny aspiring high school sprinter have I been this ass-kickingly buff. By summer I will have a six-pack. (And this time I'm not talking beer.)

7. My godson is one hell of a little dude (and his mom is one of my favorite people as well). I can't wait to watch him grow up and introduce him to the mindfuck of Royals baseball (no, really - it will make him stronger).

8. I am healthy and I have access to clean water and food. So many people can't say the same.

9. Cheese is delicious. I am really stupidly thankful for cheese.

10. I love that my mind can still be blown. Most recently I stood in horrified awe of the bulbous, bulging starfish on the columns beneath a pier in Seattle (pictured below).

day 24: i put stuff on my cats

Sometimes on stormy Monday evenings, the only thing that can stop restless dissatisfaction and ennui from seeping through my pores like the rainwater down the chimney is fucking with the cats.

It is endlessly amusing to sneak up on a sleeping Phoenix and watch her demonstrate her ten-inch vertical jump, or convince a confused Bubba Lee Kinsey that the laser pointer he's been chasing really is hiding under the chair, and he just needs to keep looking.

And the web site Stuff on My Cat offers yet another possibility: waiting until your cat is in repose, and then piling household objects on him or her. My cats were surprisingly tolerant of this bullshit:

Wind-up crab on Phoenix

Zack Greinke on Bubba Lee Kinsey

Jack-o-lantern on Phoenix

 

St. Theresa on Bubba Lee Kinsey

Halloween candle on Phoenix

Giant crow on Bubba Lee Kinsey

day 7: i donated to an animal shelter

Do you want some of my money?

Then tell me about your sick pets. Got a dog with worms? A kitten that needs to be spayed? A bunny that has fleas?

Yeah, I’ll totally help pay for that.

You should also know that I believe getting a pet is a lifelong commitment (pictured at left: my cats Phoenix and Bubba Lee Kinsey go head-to-head), so I have a special place in my heart for older animals. If your furry friend is on his or her last leg, I will be even more inclined to help. And the more heinous the affliction, the greater the odds I will empty my pockets into your waiting hands.

Puffy Paws Kitty Haven, a cat shelter in Englewood, Florida, is pretty much the ideal recipient for my disposable income (which is, like, ten dollars. No kidding).

Caring for more than 100 unwanted cats with physical, health and behavioral problems, including feline AIDS and leukemia, the no-kill, all-volunteer shelter also adopts out healthy cats and kittens.

The Haven is especially unique because it's also the home of founders Rick and Chrissy Kingston. One picture on their web site proves that Chrissy has lived a childhood dream of mine: to be covered from head to toe with kitties like a furry, purring blanket. (I have since revised this dream so I sound less deranged; now I just want my two cats to sleep on my feet in the wintertime.)

Puffy Paws’ e-mail newsletter provides pictures and anecdotes about the kitties living in “the world’s greatest cathouse” and is pretty much gravy for a future crazy cat lady like me. As a nonprofit organization, the Kingstons rely largely on donations to cover food, transportation, litter and veterinary costs, so the newsletter is also forthcoming about financial struggles.

When I received the following plea, I could not say no: 

One of the kitties a 18 year old boy named Alex just came into the Haven and upon inspection we found out that his claws are grown into his paw pads in the front. He is undergoing emergency surgery at Loving Care Animal Hospital later today.

Old kitty? Check.
Relatively horrific and painful-sounding affliction? Check. 
My ten dollars is yours? Check.

from the great minds of my midtown apartment

...comes this fucking blog.

Meet the contributors:

BUBBA KINSEY
(pictured during one of his many apparitions of the Virgin Mary)

Likes: salmon-flavored kitty treats, satire and irony, stout beer, long naps in the sunlight

Dislikes: being fucked with, running out of kitty treats, skank-ass bitches, complacency

Brings to the table: a misspent youth on the mean streets of KCMO


MS. PHOENIX
(pictured after being disturbed from a pretty serious nap on the windowsill)

Likes: being the center of attention, new toys, the nostalgia of early fall, playing fetch with skill and tenacity most dogs would envy

Dislikes: loud noises, religious zealots, douchebags, water guns

Brings to the table: relentless vanity and narcissism


A.M. LUTZ
(pictured exploring Lava River Cave in Bend, Ore.)

Likes: singing loudly when alone, organic food, swear words, traveling anywhere, anytime

Dislikes: loud, tactless people, boredom, hangovers, corporate greed

Brings to the table: mad typing skills