Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, Redux

[EDIT: For zyphryus' pleasure, now more boring digression on eighteenth-century British pr0n!]

( Because I'm nice, and I spoiler-cut. :D )

[EDIT the SECOND: So okay, I did about fifteen minutes' worth of Wikipedia research, and it turns out there was a pirated edition of Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure in which the hot guy-on-guy scene appeared. The scholarly consensus seems to be, and I say "seems to be" because that's not my field and I'm not up on whatever raging debates are taking place among English Lit fags, that we can't be sure whether it's something Cleland actually wrote or not. "Pirated edition", of course, only means it was published illegally; we can't know whether or not additional material was added before it went to press. And it seems that there is a healthy amount of speculation that Cleland himself may have been homosexual or bisexual. Wonders never cease.]

Everybody Come Back Sometime

I haven't made a public entry in a couple of weeks. Holy crap.

Anyway: I had an interview with a title company in Bloomington on Tuesday, and I was supposed to hear from them by Friday if they decided to hire me. I didn't. I suppose theoretically it might have taken them longer to make a decision than they expected, but I'm really not holding my breath. Disappointing, but I'll live. Eventually, someone's going to have to give up and hire me.

I have decided, greatly against my will, to start confining Callice during the day. She's peed on my bed. There doesn't seem any effective way to make her stop (we've already established that there's nothing physically wrong with her), and I can't afford to take off work for a couple of weeks just to teach her that the only place she can pee and not be punished for it is the litterbox. In addition to which, I really can't do anything when I'm not here, other than close off rooms; she wasn't a pet before she came home with me, so she doesn't understand about doors. I don't want her to associate my leaving with abandonment and punishment, but I really don't see where I have a choice, because it's either this or get rid of her. The shelters in my area are all no-kill shelters, so it wouldn't be a death sentence, but I think that's a stupid reason to get rid of an animal, and she can't understand why I'd be taking her back. And when I move out, she's going to have to live in the bathroom all day. I hate to do it, and I think it's cruel and unnecessary, but she cannot run free and urinate wherever the hell she feels like it, the more so given that anyplace I'd be living would necessarily allow pets, and I can't know who lived in the apartment before me or whether they had animals. Even though apartments are cleaned, she can smell things I don't.

You know, I really do not understand why people sentimentalize their cats. Callice does not love me in any human sense, or in the sense that people mean when they say "love", and I know this, and it does not bother me. She loves living in a house instead of in a box. She loves having food and water served on a regular basis, and she loves flopping in front of the fan or on the bathroom tiles on a hot day. She loves curling up in the mitten box to sleep, and she loves pets and not being spanked (which is why she pees when I can't see her, because she knows she WILL get spanked if I catch her at it). But she wouldn't give a shit if I dropped dead. She'd notice that I was engaging in some sort of unacceptable tomfoolery wherein I hid and refused to come out, but eventually, she'd get used to my not being there, and I doubt she'd care as long as her present standard of living continued.

Anyway, that train of thought aside, yesterday was fabulous. My birthday's on Wednesday, so we got all the stuff-we-can't-do-on-work-nights out of the way yesterday; we saw Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, which was a damn good ending to the trilogy (though they left the possibility of another film open at the end). The opening scenes in particular sent chills up my spine (always a good omen). Also ate at Iwataya. Mmm, raw fish. ♥ But hey, raw fish is just what I want most of the time. (Mom poked at the tsukemono with her chopsticks and asked what they were; I tried not to let my own bias against tsukemono, based on a tale of H's misspent youth, influence me, but it was hard).

The Herald-Times was a goldmine this weekend. Huzzah.