cats. i'm being nibbled to death by cats.

this is henry as i see him in the morning: up close and quite personal. usually he's chewing on my hair.

and just because she would despise being left out, here's shiva koja.

i'm posting them because last night before i went to bed, i took a variety of pictures of dan for his blog--and at one point he joked that we should use henry instead of posting dan's own pic of himself. it looks like he's had it doctored some by maggs, but it's a good pic of him. the boy's always moving so we had good pictures in which he was actually minutely leaning back as i clicked...and therefore looked like he was rendered by an impressionist painter.

which i never mind, but he wanted something more clear. fine, sit still, man! (;

I'm supposed to be upstairs showering right now but had to come and check out his pic, and then decided that it'd been a while since i posted kitties...and now it's twenty after 7 and i'm going to be quite late, but i just don't care.

there's been a lot on my mind this week--this weekend we see dan's parents for the first time since last year, grandma's passing, the cookie exchange at work (about which i will post eventually, if for no other reason than to show you the first batch of disastrous bars), shopping for the holidays, work, etc. it goes on and on.

the thing i keep coming back to is serena. it's the holidays, her birthday was back at the beginning of december, and she had the courage to email me in november. i didn't actually check that email account until about two weeks after she first emailed. her first letter was apologetic and reminded me of the first few weeks and months of this ordeal--shaking when i thought about it, talked about it, so on and so forth. course, i've talked about it a lot at this point, with whoever i choose. it didn't sound as though serena had. i am hopeful that she will be able to approach our mutual friend, teresa, or if nothing else, go to a professional and find respite there.

anyway, i emailed her back and said, go for it--no harm, no foul. she emailed back and said that she knew i would have questions and that she was afraid her answers would sound like lame excuses--which they might. hell, dan's did too, but he just stuck to his guns and answered, and i had something on which to chew.

i emailed back with a few questions. that was on december 5th. i've heard nothing since.

i understand that she was back in st cloud recently, for her brother's graduation. and last saturday, as close as uncle hugo's in minneapolis. it made me wonder if she thought about stopping by, or if she thought of me or dan at all.

in conversation, my cari said that i was one of those people who would give cookies to their enemy. that same night, we watched a family guy in which quagmire cheats on cleveland with cleveland's wife, loretta. at the end of the show, cleveland has the opportunity to beat quagmire up with a baseball bat--which he declines, saying: "i just can't cause harm to anyone, even if they've caused harm to me."

which is the truth. i'm angry, yeah. but i don't want to maim serena. it just doesn't seem like it's worth the effort. it's frustrating, because for me, i've found a reason for this to have happened--honesty between friends and family, seeing a therapist for my depression and ADD, being aware of my own limits and learning how to work within and without them, and the gift of truth from dan.

i'd like there to be some reason for this for serena, too. people go through these things for reasons, i think. there were of course many many ways in which this could have played out--but between the three of us, we chose messy over honest and ordered. i feel like dan and i have been working on the mess, working on re-organizing and re-figuring.

i'd like to be able to do the same with serena, but the ball's in her court. i have trouble remembering that. and i keep shoulding myself--i shouldn't have asked her questions, i shouldn't have said anything, i should have just allowed things to go back to normal.

but realisitically, i cannot. in the books about affairs that i read, the prevailing idea i took was that questions need to be asked. which means that my asking the questions was fine. besides the fact i don't think i did so maliciously or with anything other than polite intent.

the first beast at the top of my post is currently playing with the key hooks. and the second one is staring at me in the hopes that i will give her the morning canned food, and soon. i do need to go to work, at some point, as well. so i suppose i should cut this short and feed the felines before they just join forces and chew off my ankles. (;