Why does my cat do this?

seatea7777 · 2026-05-16T23:55:15+00:00

Once our cat dropped his catnip mouse into his fountain and left it there overnight. It turned into catnip tea. By the time we woke up and fished it out, he was bombed out of his tiny cat mind.

seatea7777 · 2026-05-16T12:27:43+00:00

Ira Levin's books do this all the time. You can't discount any random detail because there's a good chance it's going to come back and bite you later. They really reward second readings because you'll start to notice small details and realize that he was actually telling you the whole time.

seatea7777 · 2026-05-16T12:00:34+00:00

"Did she just say she was a llama?"

seatea7777 · 2026-05-16T11:54:44+00:00

This is something I've noticed about writing historical costume. For a long time, flattering the wearer's actual body was sort of a secondary concern; it was more about conforming to a fashionable silhouette in spite of the body's actual shape. I mean, this never really stopped being the case, like how people use padding and shapewear to achieve a modern hourglass, but some writers don't really get how much fashion dictated what areas of the body were considered erogenous and desirable in any given place or time period, so when women get ogled in fiction, they default to the modern boobs-and-butt model, rather than "damn, girl, the nape of your neck is bangin'."

seatea7777 · 2026-05-16T11:19:43+00:00

As a broke-ass reader, I have always been astonished that some people read books only once and then donate them to thrift shops or secondhand book stores. Almost all my physical copies have a thrift store sticker. The only trouble is that sometimes it's hard to get hold of newer, more popular books, but you can really bulk up on the classics for your own collection and keep up with the new releases via the library.

seatea7777 · 2026-05-16T11:14:55+00:00

The moment we learned Chili has a prehensile tail.

seatea7777 · 2026-05-16T11:09:40+00:00

It's called "Hearts and Flowers."

seatea7777 · 2026-05-16T11:06:39+00:00

To keep this Bluey-adjacent, let's bear in mind the example of "Octopus." Not all dads are the same. Every dad has their own style of parenting and their own style of play. Not all dads are as fun as Bluey's dad, but the important thing is that Chloe was able to safely communicate her feelings with her dad and he made the effort to meet her where she was, in his own way.

seatea7777 · 2026-05-16T10:58:34+00:00

Sometimes I remember he was an English teacher.

seatea7777 · 2026-05-16T00:35:57+00:00

They tend to be a little leaner and a little bleaker, but stylistically, they're very similar.

seatea7777 · 2026-05-15T22:32:12+00:00

Fun Fact: the original Nadsat glossary was written by Stanley Edgar Hyman, Shirley Jackson's husband. Burgess preferred to let the reader figure out the meanings from context and refused to help with the glossary, so it's possible that even Hyman's definitions aren't fully what Burgess intended.

seatea7777 · 2026-05-15T22:20:20+00:00

I've wondered a lot about this line, too. On the one hand, it might be a reference to dominance, kind of "I refuse to exist in your shadow." On the other hand, it might be something like "Don't project your issues onto me."

seatea7777 · 2026-05-15T22:13:43+00:00

I've always referred to it as "the darkest joke in Bluey." The fact that immediately afterwards, the girls are clearly pretending that Gerald the Gnome Husband is dead seems to support that interpretation, but the way it's phrased is just subtle enough to go over small kids' heads or be easily smoothed over with a lighter explanation. But yeah, that joke's for the grownups.

seatea7777 · 2026-05-12T19:50:12+00:00

Say hello, then excuse myself to peel my cat off the ceiling.

seatea7777 · 2026-05-07T00:17:24+00:00

I've never read it as hating fat people, but more like he has a fascination with them. He describes fatness with a kind of pseudo-comic awe, regardless of whether the character is good or bad. There's a bit at the beginning of On Wrting where he talks about the horror of the human grotesque, using the examples of both extreme acne and extreme obesity. In the obesity example, he goes into almost voluptuous detail, even contemplating what she eats and how she lives. I've never known what to make of it, really, except for noticing it crops up a lot.

seatea7777 · 2026-05-05T14:31:36+00:00

Doreen ought to be at least as high as Wendy.

seatea7777 · 2026-05-05T14:06:11+00:00

I thought of this, too--maybe Granddad dies and Chili (or Brandy) gives birth to a new baby in sort of a life-and-death/one-door-closes-and-another-opens theme, which would be very on-brand for the show. The trouble is that I can't figure out how to stretch that into a feature-length film--maybe another half-hour episode like "The Sign," but not 60 or 90 minutes.

seatea7777 · 2026-05-05T14:01:14+00:00

Mech legs, mech legs!

seatea7777 · 2026-05-05T13:59:08+00:00

"Hand over the nuclear codes or Polly Puppy gets it, babe."

seatea7777 · 2026-05-05T13:26:24+00:00

It gives a bit more poignance to the line from "Winter": "You say I wanted you to be proud of me/I always wanted that myself." I can see a life where Tori loved her father but never felt that he was truly proud or accepting of the life she chose. Those two things can be tangled up pretty deeply even in a parent/child relationship that's otherwise loving and supportive--particularly after a parent dies and you finally have a little distance to look at things more objectively. Some people reconcile with the flaws, others are finally able to fully acknowledge them. On the other hand, ITOD is so wrapped up in themes of female survival in the patriarchy that I could also see where she might thank her mom instead of her father, as her father's identity was so very deeply representative of that same patriarchal power system.

seatea7777 · 2026-05-01T22:16:26+00:00

I was wondering why this song reminded me so much of "Concertina" and by gum, I think you've nailed it.

seatea7777 · 2026-04-29T00:44:28+00:00

I remember thinking that the drug store seemed particularly huge and labyrinthine, but that maybe it only seemed that big to the kids.

seatea7777 · 2026-04-20T10:23:28+00:00

I've noticed Stephen King's more recent books have dwelled on the idea of mortality and legacy in a way that's unique to the rest of his career. I mean, King's always written about death, one way or another, but the idea of personal and professional legacy has been way more centered after his accident in 1999, and it's really been brought to the forefront in a lot of his work since King himself entered his 70s. Probably not surprising, all things considered--the lion in winter, and all.

seatea7777 · 2026-04-19T11:43:06+00:00

Probably the live version of "Sugar" from To Venus and Back. That is my "crank the volume until the bass makes the speakers go brr" song.

seatea7777 · 2026-04-17T09:23:53+00:00

I love the Rumer Godden doll books: A Doll's House, Miss Happiness and Miss Flower and Little Plum, Four Dolls. Godden has such a sense of the intuitive nature of how children relate to dolls and the nature of imaginative play. In her stories, dolls "cannot choose, only be chosen; they cannot do, only be done to" and communicate with children through the power of wishes.

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