The Cat Whisperer

Tori and I went to visit Jack.  We were there so that their two kittens could meet.  Tori needs someone to watch her cat now, and we were all hoping that Mocha and Feets would get along.
On the drive over, Tori told me that they have now secured all of her father's guns.  He had fifteen rifles and five handguns, which is a small arsenal.  Apparently it's normal for hunters to have about ten rifles.  I was just worried something walked off, which would be scary.   
We tried a lot of things to get the cats to like each other.  At one point, we just opened the carrier Mocha was in, and Feets tried several times to wander up to it.  And Mocha would hiss at him.  Jack tried to pet Mocha, and Mocha started hissing at him.  And then me after that, even though there was no way I was covered in cat fur.

Meanwhile, one of Jack's roommates, David, stopped by.  He was just dropping some stuff off before heading out.  He has a degree in music and women's studies, and I thought that sounded suitably hot.  And then I met him and he was sort of adorable and nice.  He plays music at a church, and was planning on doing stuff from the most recent movie version of Pride and Prejudice.  I was definitely going to swoon, but Jack told me after he left that David was gay.  Of course he was, I thought.  This happens to me all the time. 
"We should have some music," Jack said.  Jack started showing us the stuff on his I-pod, and I picked out the Beatles.  That was something everyone could agree too. 
Then Tori held Mocha and Jack held Feets facing each other.  And they both freaked out, but at separate times.  Mocha would hiss, and then Feets would get all riled up and start clawing the air.  And then Mocha would start hissing again.
Jack was cool enough to make us some food.  As we waited in the living room, I began looking at Jack's books.  He had a lot of stuff I was interested in reading.  Lots of Ronald Dahl and other classics of young adult lit.  And books on Wicca.  I was thinking the day before of getting back into Wicca, but this would take a lot of work and time, and I really don't have much of that right now.  I sang along to Yellow Submarine.  I used to love that song and album as a kid. 

It occurred to me as we were waiting that the reason Tori asked me to come was because Tori didn't really know Jack all that well anymore.  Out of this particular group of friends, Jack is actually the one I stayed best in touch with.  And since I was the matchmaker on this one, maybe it was best I come along. 
Jack, like Jimmy, is a great cook.  (Are all of my friends amazing cooks?  When did this happen and why have I remained mostly ignorant of it?)  Jack made us pork chops, beans and rice.
Some of you will recall I don't eat pork.  This is still true, but I ate Jack's pork because it was good.  Seriously, I usually despise pork, but this was excellent.  He told Tori and I that he had added some cinnamon to it, which was surprising.
We waited for the two cats to sort of meet cute and get it over with.  No such thing.  We opened Mocha's carrier, and waited for her to come out, which she never did.  Finally, Tori pulled her out of there.  And then she sat up against the couch, trying to get under it.  The couch was too low, and this annoyed Mocha deeply.  Every time Jack got too close, Mocha would hiss.
One of Jack's other roommates, Kim, was apparently good with getting cats to like each other.  So we were waiting for her.  
Eventually, I suggested that we watch Friends.  I figured that this was a good way to pass the time.  As Jack was looking at the episodes, I was struck by how attractive Jack was going to be, even when he got older.  I kept imagining him with graying hair and wearing his glasses down his nose.  I could totally imagine him wearing sweater vests and working as a professor.
I was struck by a similar set of thoughts about Daniel months ago.  I was watching him walk, and I realized that when he looked older, he wasn't going to be all that different.  Like, more hunched over than he already is, and with white hair and maybe even a bigger beard, but basically himself.  And, like Jack, he would be cute.  He would be adorable as an old man. 
I realized a while ago that I've been nursing a little crush on Jack.  I'm not going to do anything about it because he has a girlfriend and he's been with her for four years, which I'm really impressed by.  There's no way I could compete with that, and I don't want to accidentally ruin Jack's life by telling him.  He's a sweetie and deserves better than that.   
We first watched "The One with All the Embryos" which had the Mom from That 70s Show and the episode that is an alternative reality of what their lives would have been like.  We had a good time giggling, while Mocha sat there and hissed every time Feets tried to come into the room.
I joked that Feets was like a thirteen-year-old emo boy who really wanted to get close to the girl, but kept getting scared off.  And then would inevitably have to go and write sad little songs about it. 
Kim finally came home.  She sat down on the floor next to Mocha and Mocha didn't hiss or anything.  Kim just petted her and that was that.  Mocha was definitely going to be able to stay.  Kim really was the Cat Whisperer.
Tori, Jack and I got some extra cat stuff (scratching post, bowls, toys) out of Tori's car.  Then we parted ways.  I was afraid Tori was going to have a hard time leaving Mocha, but she seemed relatively all right. 

Parents Just Don't Understand

I happened upon this post about recently banned books.  I notice they're almost all young adult books, which makes me shake my head and quote a particularly great rapper: Parents just don't understand.

If you look at that list, you don't seen poetry books by Charles Bukowski or novels by John Updike.  No, it's the stuff that teens read.  I feel terrible having read only two of the books on that list, but some of these books weren't even out when I was a teen, and I can already tell you, my teen!self would be totally all over at least one of them just based on the title alone.
And if there's anything my parents failed to do, it was stopping me reading, especially if I decided I needed to read it.  I worked through a lot of romance novels and religious books as a teen because I wanted to. 
So, besides all the other problems with censoring books, I'm pretty sure it's a useless endeavor because bookish teens are usually the last people who are going to be told what they can't or shouldn't read.  And if anything probably encourages them, it's telling them no. I can say from personal experience that it is really easy to hide books from your parents.  I just removed the jackets of my Danielle Steele books and put all my religious books under the bed for easy night time access.  (That's right: normal teens put porn under their bed; I put The Book of Mormon.) 
So make sure you celebrate banned book week by doing something naughty: getting into bed with an "illicit" book.  Trust me when I say it doesn't have to be a dramatic choice like Story of O. 

Being a Medievalist

The professor was actually impressed today during the review for the final on Wednesday. We were actually asking good questions so that we would understand it.
I'm really sad about leaving medieval history, though I suspect I won't have enough time to get upset about, seeing as I have another final, two research papers and a thesis to write in the next nine days.
So maybe I'll postpone that until after the term is over.
But thinking about it now, a few things become clear. First, becoming a medievalist was totally a fluke. I decided one morning freshman year, while asleep in my bed, that I wanted to try a second major in history. All year I did not have history classes and it made me sad. Every history major has to take the basic class, and I choose a class based on location and time. When I signed up, there was no subject and no teacher attached. It was all random that I got medieval. I suspect if it had been something else and the teacher had been cool, I might be obsessed with that now.
Secondly, I'm so glad that medieval happened because it forced me to learn a little Latin and to see how complicated European history is. It's easy for Americans to brush off stuff and just focus on the plague or the Crusades, but other stuff happened, like the Investiture Contest, like the splitting of Charlemange's empire, like the Pope's policy of neutralizing any significant political power in Italy. All of it had long reaching consequences, and all of those examples are important to understanding things today. I'm happy for that perspective.
And also, being a medievalist is just another way I'm nerdy. It's a different kind of nerdy, but one that Dungeons and Dragon kids can appreciate.
I'm hoping that in the future, I will occasionally make time for medieval history. I'm want to keep reading about it.

If you happen to be like me, I can suggest the following books:

God's War: A New History of the Crusades One of the best books I've read on the Crusade. Easy to understand prose. He doesn't shy away from explaining the important ways the Crusades were influences by other things happening at the time.
William Marshal: Knighthood, War and Chivalry Crouch is Marshal's main biographer, and this book is a decent explanation of his life. Might be a little harder to work on if you're not familiar with the events at hand.
Medieval Architecture, Medieval Learning: Builders and Masters in the Age of Romanesque and Gothic One of the strangest books I've encountered in my studies. I'm not sure I buy the argument of the book, which is that architects and masters worked sort of in tandem to create great masterpieces in their respective fields. But the explanations of medieval architecture are perfect. And there are pretty pictures. My copy has those pictures in black and white, but I'd love to see a color version of this book.
The Song of Roland One of the first poems in French. It's the classic story of the brave knight Roland who sacrifices himself to save his beloved king, Charlemagne. Though not accurate historically, it's still a fun read.
The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings A glorious book. Easy read and great images to bring the Viking world alive.
Arthur: The Seeing Stone Though not an actual history book, this is easily my favorite fictional book about the time period. Although written for a young adult audience, it's delightful.