What Are Words For?

 Over the past few weeks I have been burdened by words. 

There are only so many topics that our cat will discuss before he slinks off for a nap. One is food. The other is how quickly can the food be delivered so that he can get back to his nap. 

While my wife has been a way the words have stacked up not unlike jets awaiting clearance at the San Francisco International Airport. I have dutifully attempted to parcel them out to those in need of my verbiage, or at least to those who are kind enough to tolerate it. 

And then there's this place. There have been plenty of early mornings when, after being prodded awake by yet another debate over whether three in the morning is too early for his feline highness to receive his num nums, I have lay awake with phrases and sentences that provide me distraction from the half-empty house in which I found myself. 

Note: I do not mean to be specist, but the cat whose personality at times pervades our shared environment disappears abruptly after the previously discussed needs have been met. This leaves me with a word surplus that I do not experience while another sentient human being is roaming around the house, attempting to figure out what to fee that cat. 

So I reflect on the times when I used to keep a journal. Or way back when I had a manual typewriter sitting on my desk throughout high school. There was always some stray thought or misbegotten conclusion being tapped out there. 

Because for so very long I was looking for an audience. 

And here you are. Back in junior high school I started writing great long treatises on the relationships I wandered through, which stemmed from an early exposure to Harriet The Spy and eventually morphed into page after page of notes to my high school girlfriend. Even now I sometimes sit across from my patient wife as she reads these posts, with the expectation of further discussion. 

And the praise for being especially witty. 

Let's face it: the cat just doesn't get sarcasm.