Franka was invited by Erin, who is in the undergraduate Humanities program at our school. Franka then invited me. I had to work early the next day, but I owed her one. I flaked on Franka the week before, and plus, she was leaving for Alaska on Sunday so it was my last chance to hang with her.

As an aside, Franka's uncle won the Iditarod sled dog race two times. I was impressed by this and told her one of my ambitions was to ride a dogsled. Then she told me that her uncle is a jerk, and dogsled racers mistreat and abuse their dogs. So although it would be cool, I may have to pass on that particular ambition of mine. I have no desire to support any type of cruelty to animals, which is why I patronize neither circuses nor the Gillette company. (Even though I just bought a leather jacket so I am a big hypocrite.)

So anyway, we went to Erin's. Erin's apartment is organized like a house in Holland: it's a long rectangle, and there are high ceilings everywhere. I covet that apartment. But Erin is allergic to the cat she lives with, and so she's moving to an apartment that's two minutes from school. She's going to be living, weirdly, with Probst.

Another interesting Erin connection is that she's going to be one of my (so far three) students next semester. So I went over to the house of one of my students and got drunk with her. Imagine if I was still dating Probst when they moved in together-- she could listen to me lecture during the day, and listen to me having sex at night! It's an incestuous little school.

Okay. Back to the party. I didn't know anyone there except Franka and Erin, but put a couple of drinks in me, and I'll talk to anyone. I had a fine time conversating, which is not a word, with random strangers who walked into my blurred field of vision.

Except for one little weasely guy. He had this smirk on his face and he was talking about how all modern poetry is just crap. Only stuff with iambic pentameter that rhymes is "real poetry." Anything else doesn't take any effort at all, and is produced by hacks and morons off the street.

His friend basically agreed with him, but at least he was interested in discussing it with us. He was asking us what we thought the function of modern poetry was-- interesting questions. But the weasely guy was just interested in badmouthing our choice of career. Just interjecting insults. Man, have some fucking respect. Poetry is hard work. At least, good poetry is.

I guess I don't particularly have a point here. Except that he harshed a perfectly good mellow.

I spent today hanging out with my friend Joey, for our Monday afternoon poetry workshop. Also, I brought her my reader in progress (right now it's just a list of poems) and we talked about her involvement in my class.

We picked out which lecture she would be giving (on Voice) and talked about the poems I was planning to include in the reader under that topic. (She can change them if she likes-- so far I've got one Dickinson and one Whitman, and one from Maggie Estep.) She also may be involved in the lecture on Point of View.

Then she told me about a cat she had seen on a local animal shelter TV station-- Mr. Spangle, was his name. Her boyfriend finally agreed to let her have a cat, and after talking about Mr. Spangle, we were so psyched that I drove her straight to the animal shelter in the hopes that he'd still be available.

A couple of hours (and $45) later, we walked out of there with a cardboard box containing a cat named Mr. Spangle. Well, I was still calling her Mr. Spangle. Joey insisted on dropping the prefix upon discovering that she is a girl cat. But I have a girl newt named Mr. Heckles, and I do not bow to the gender label pressures of society! Or something.

We even made up a song for the cat. To the tune of Mr. Sandman: "Mr. Spangle... give me a cat... make her fluffy... and not very fat... give her a purr that is like no other... and let Joey be her brand new mother, Mr. Spangle..."

I'm the next Stephen Sondheim or something!

The animal shelter was really sad. Just rows and rows of cages with abandoned cats, and you just know that most of them will end up being put to sleep. And they were all so friendly and affectionate, and meowed at you plaintively as you walked by.

I fell in love with one long haired cat. She had bright blue eyes, and fur the color of caramel popcorn. I wished I could bring her home and let her live in my house. You know, with my birds, and the other cat that lives here, and the dog, and the three year old. But that isn't exactly a feasible plan.

There are volunteers that come and play with the cats from time to time. I applaud people who can do that. (I immediately thought of my sister's girlfriend, who is such an animal lover, as the type of person who could do it.) Because I bet you fall in love with these animals and their sweet personalities, and then after a while, if nobody wants them, they are killed. It's tragic.

I guess everyone is used to the familiar riff, "Please spay and neuter your pets." But it's so important. Because these poor animals live miserable lives in tiny cages, and then they're euthanized, and for what? Because somebody was too lazy or too irresponsible to get them fixed.

I also place a huge part of the blame on pet stores that sell dogs and cats from puppy mills or-- I don't know, are there kitty mills? Why would you want to go to a pet store and get an animal, when you can adopt a great pet that needs a home from a shelter? I swear, so many of those cats are gorgeous, with obviously affectionate, sweet personalities. It's heartbreaking. I wish I had the wherewithal to save one of those cats from doom.

Come to think of it, I think Tim needs a "welcome back to San Francisco" present when he comes to visit me. Think he'd like a popcorn colored cat?

"If there was a best friend Olympics, he would win every gold medal. If there was a best friend pageant, he would get the tiara. If there was a best friend election, he'd win in a landslide. You see where I'm going with this?"