don't you just hate it when an entry disappears mid-keystroke?

As I was saying, my housemate will be going to Oregon for two weeks and I'll probably miss her, even though right at the moment I'm wishing for some solitude. Solitude, for me, is an essential, refreshing mind, body, and spirit. I think part of yesterday's out-of-synch feeling stemmed from too much human contact. It's exhausting and confusing.

I cannot meditate or center myself in the midst of a group.

But it's nice to have someone else in the house, especially someone as compatible and clean as she, and the positives in the arrangement greatly outweigh the negatives.

We'll see if I can convince her to accept a dog. If not, there are always the cats for four-legged company. We were talking about animals yesterday and I was surprised to learn that neither my roommate, B, nor my minister consider us humans as part of the animal kingdom, but as different, better, special, apart. We can talk and worship; they can't. My minister disagreed with me when I said that dogs love us unconditionally. She doesn't agree that dogs can love, not like humans.

I thought it was pretty obvious that we are animals, a twig on the tree of life. I'm going to re-visit that conversation with them when it seems like a good time to do it. And obviously neither of them has had a close personal relationship with a dog.

Time to get my act together and take it back on the road this morning, to visit N. The weekend chores won't get done today, and I'll muddle through the week somehow.

The end of the world didn't happen and there are still errands to run, laundry to be washed, and chores to be done. Drat.

Animals are such agreeable friends - they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms. ~George Eliot

You enter into a certain amount of madness when you marry a person with pets. ~Nora Ephron

An animal's eyes have the power to speak a great language. ~Martin Buber

Lots of people talk to animals.... Not very many listen, though.... That's the problem. ~Benjamin Hoff, "The Tao of Pooh"

I had a linguistics professor who said that it's man's ability to use language that makes him the dominant species on the planet. That may be. But I think there's another thing that separates us from animals. We aren't afraid of vacuum cleaners. - Jeff Stilson