Tonight's captured fragment: Two men walking at a brisk clip, debating in a language I couldn't identify, when one man raises his arm in emphasis and I catch one work. Republican. Spoken "Reepooblikan."

My behemoth of a cat is starting to show his age, he's getting some white strands in his solid black fur. It's hard to believe that he's coming up on ten years old, and we've been together all that time. I was checking the Internet about average cat lifespans and I found a chart for cat-human comparable lifetimes. My cat is something like 56 years old. I've always known that he's been the thin strand of sanity that I've held onto when things were bad and I had to face them alone. I've never truly lived alone because of th' jumpy and needy little bastard. I love him so.

I've thought about animals alot today. I was standing behind my desk and watching these two pigeons that seem to come to peck around the doors every afternoon. I don't know why I seem to have such an affinity for pigeons, but I do. Most people consider them ugly flying rats that cause random need for drycleaning, and in NYC, they are using hawks to hunt them down. Could be just that, that pigeons are underappreciated. If you look close they aren't just grey and white.. they have all kinds of patterns for their feathers. And the way they walk, with those big feet prancing and their heads bobbing with each step. They just do what they do, even getting really close to you. Have you ever watched a large flock all fly at once from a building on one side of the street to the other? I always stop to watch. The three animals I identify most with are pussycats, pigeons, and platypus. It also means I am damned to alliteration, probably. What else it says, I don't think I want to know.

Just finished: Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Bush-Cheney Junta by Gore Vidal. Also, A Case of Lone Star, by Kinky Friedman.