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I thought I could toilet train my cat. Really, I thought I could it. I saw a kitty potty training video and thought, Hey! That looks simple. I’m sure I can get Dixie to use the toilet. Well, I was wrong. My cat was miserable. He hated the sitz bath I’d affixed to my toilet as there wasn’t enough room for him to fit his big butt. So he’d wake me up in the mornings — after a long night of holding in his poo — to remind me that he couldn’t use his new toilet properly. So I’d be up at ungodly hours in the morning, sitting on the edge of my bathtub, coaxing my cat to urinate in the sitz bath: “Please, Dix. Pee for mommy. C’mon… pss-pss-pss-psssss.” After throwing out half the litter onto the floor, he’d finally relieve himself and dash happily through the apartment.

Today, I finally broke down and just bought him a hooded litter box. I bought the “jumbo” size to ensure that all 12.4lbs of him would fit in there. Because of its large size, though, I can no longer keep his litterbox in the bathroom as I previously did. Now I’m struggling to find the optimal spot for it. However, Dixon seems thrilled to have a normal-sized litterbox again and to be able to dig his way to China… without getting litter absolutely everywhere.

Besides turning my cat’s world upside down, I’ve also been making some changes in my own life. For example, I’ve gone vegetarian. It’s a month-long experiment to see how a meat-free diet makes me feel. So far, so good. I’m feeling much healthier, more energetic, and just generally happier. And it’s only been 5 days! Maybe it’s a placebo effect, maybe it’s not. Either way, I’m enjoying learning new ways to incorporate fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, etc., into my everyday life.

With my new vegetarian diet, I’m noticing that I’m throwing out a lot of items (e.g., egg shells, peels, coffee grounds, etc.) that decompose naturally. I’m not comfortable sending these things to the landfill. So I’m looking into starting my very own compost bin. I learned that the city has a compost project and that I can get a bin for about $20. I emailed my local project site and asked when they’ll have some of these bins in stock. I’m looking forward to beginning this project! I can start with lawn clippings and tree leaves and go on to add all of the produce items mentioned previously. In a couple of months, I’ll have nutritious fertilizer for the flowers and vegetables that my mom has growing in the yard. That’s exciting to me.

Additionally, I’m trying to cut back on the amount of plastic that I use. I’ve invested in a stainless steel water bottle so I am no longer dependent on plastic bottles. I’ve also purchased a faucet water filter so I can have clean water straight from the tap. I also bought reusable shopping bags so I can finally stop using plastic shopping bags when I go shopping. (I was recently cleaning up in my kitchen and decided to tackle the cabinet that I used to store the copious amounts of shopping bags that I’ve amassed over the years. I was appalled.) I’ve been trying to reuse the bags I have when I go shopping but I always forget to take them with me. The last time I went grocery shopping, though, I noticed that there is a bin in the vestibule with a sign that reads: “Recycle Plastic Shopping Bags Here.” So I’m going to round up many of my bags and deposit them there. (I’m going to retain some to use as liners for the small trashcans that are kept throughout my house.) Once I get rid of all of the plastic bags, I’m going to throw some of the reusable bags in my purses and store some in Alex’s car, so we’ll always have some when we go shopping. Like the nerd that I am, I’m looking forward to this also.

If my family hadn’t moved to Staten Island when I was 15 years old, I may have never gotten my driver’s license. Back when we lived in Brooklyn, I had no reason to learn to drive. Everything was either within walking distance or near public transportation. It was quite a shock, then, to move to a remote neighborhood on the lower end of Staten Island. The closest store is about 1.5 miles away from my house. There are a couple of buses nearby and a train station 1.5 miles away… but they’re all really poor forms of transportation. It takes way too long to get around. Therefore, getting my license was imperative. In fact, I spent my 16th birthday at the DMV so I could get my learner’s permit.

Getting my permit was the first step. The second step in my plan was to learn to drive. I bugged my dad for months to go driving with me. You know what, though? All that bugging paid off because, by the time my 17th birthday rolled around, I had my license. (That was also partly due to my taking a Driver’s Ed course that allowed me to get my license a year earlier than normally allowed in New York.)

The third step? Getting a car. I bugged my parents for that, too. But that paid off, too! During my senior year of high school, I drove a 2000 Mercury Cougar. I loved that car. It was small, it was sporty… it was mine! I drove it to my 3 (!) classes that year, I drove it to work, I drove it back to school for Yearbook, I drove it everywhere. I only had it for two years, though, before my parents sold it. It made sense — my parents had two cars and only ever had one out at a time. So the idea was that my sister and I would share the other car. However, it turned out that my sister got a little greedy with it and I can never use the car without asking her in advance if I can use it. However, this wasn’t a big deal since Alex got a car and I began commuting to school with my parents. It was just a nuisance that I had to deal with every once in a while.

Next year, though, I’m going to need my own car. I’ll continue living on Staten Island, NY, but I’ll be going to Rutgers in New Brunswick, NJ, while working at the Brooklyn College Library in Brooklyn, NY. (Speaking of which: I may be hired as an Adjunct Reference Librarian in the fall. I’ll know more about this later in the summer.) So that’ll be a lot of driving.

Needless to say, I’m looking to get a fuel-efficient vehicle for my driving needs. This is why I’m considering getting a Toyota Prius. The numbers just add up: it gets an average of 45 MPG for about $200/mo for a 36-month lease. Getting a Honda Civic Hybrid — which also gets about 45 MPG — will cost anywhere from $80 to $130 more per month for the same 36-month lease. (For some reason, Hondas are very expensive to lease.) So my current plan of action is to save up as much money as I can from my current gig at the Brooklyn College Library so I can put down a decent down payment on a Prius so I can pay less per month. I don’t have too many other expenses (I don’t pay rent, I don’t pay for groceries, I don’t pay for my cellphone service…) so it shouldn’t be too hard.

I will have to figure out how to pay for graduate school, though. By the time I get my MLIS, I will have spent over $30,000 on school-related expenses. I’m going to have to take out a loan, obviously. However, I know nothing about these things. Anyone have any suggestions?

Unless you keep up with my life outside this blog, you probably haven’t heard the news: I got a kitten. His name is Dixon and he’ll be 4 months old soon. When I first got him, he was very thin (you could see his hips protruding from his body) and extremely docile. All he did for the first week was sleep. Now, three weeks later, he’s at a healthy weight and practically unstoppable. He will play with almost anything: plastic bottle caps, toy mice, crumpled up pieces of paper, his own tail, plush balls, loose strings, tubes of lip balm, and pens. Yesterday, Alex and I bought a laser pointer that drives Dixon wild. He chases that thing as if his life depends on it. When the red dot suddenly disappears, he looks confusedly around, wondering where it’s gone.

Other than my new pet, there is not much else going on in my life. I’ll be turning 21 on Sunday, I guess that’s something. To celebrate, I’m planning a small get-together on Monday night. (In my family, the actual birthdays are always reserved for family and family friends.) So far, the plan includes a trip to a Mexican/Spanish restaurant in Manhattan, followed by a trip to a nearby comedy club. By the time it’s all over, it should be 11 PM. I don’t have anything planned but if my party and I are in a mood to continue our night, we’ll be in the Village, so I’m sure we’ll find something to do.

The next big thing that’ll be happening in my life is my week-long trip to Montréal with Alex in early August. We’ll be celebrating our second anniversary there. To prepare, I’m trying to learn some French. (After all, French is the official language of Québec. At the very least, I need to pick up some basic words and phrases, no matter how ugly and uncomfortable I consider the language to be.) I am also brushing up on some Montréal history, so as not to venture into another country without prior knowledge of the region’s past or present. I’ve purchased some guidebooks that I’m perusing in order to figure out which sights, attractions, and restaurants we’ll want to visit. I’m also keeping a close eye on the Montréal LiveJournal Community, gathering tips from fellow travelers. However, I am willing to listen to everyone’s suggestions. Therefore, if you (or someone you know) have been to Montréal and have some recommendations, répondez, s’il vous plaît.

Feminism is not something with which I was ever able to identify. (In fact, I’ve always been somewhat of a misogynist.) This may be due to several factors (one of which is my bout with Kallmann syndrome) but I always imagined feminists to be a group of women sitting around a large conference table, griping about babies and complaining about men. (And, yes, there are projectors and pie charts and everything.) The only time that I actually got to read something written by so-called feminists was during my first semester at Brooklyn College, in a class entitled “People, Power, and Politics.” It was offered conjunctly by the Political Science and Sociology departments. My professor was a young hipster of the male persuasion. He made Thomas Jefferson and Karl Marx exciting. However, when the semester dwindled down and the readings began to echo the ideas of feminism, no amount of this professor’s enthusiasm could make me take the topic seriously.

We read several works, some of which included “The Woman-Identified Woman” and The Feminine Mystique, and I was not impressed. All that I was able to extract from these works is that all women do is complain, complain, complain. At least the male thinkers we covered in this four-credit class had something to say! The feminists did not philosophize, theorize, or conceptualize. All they did was discuss how unhappy they were and how horribly dull their lives were.

I side more with women like Phyllis Schlafly; those who call themselves anti-feminists appeal more to my belief system. Women need to learn to embrace their womanhood and admit that they are the weaker sex. After all, there is a reason that the sexes do not compete with one another in the Olympics, wrote Schlafly. But this is nothing to be ashamed of, for there are things in which women excel but in which men cannot succeed. Of course, I’m not saying I agree completely with The Power of the Positive Woman, but I think Schlafly was onto something. There are innate differences between the two sexes. Their roles in society have always been different from those of men.

In my bones, I can feel that I am different from my male counterparts. I am more of a nurturer. I believe that this is the reason it is so difficult for women to let go of their sons: they, as women, feel the need to nurture those who crave nurturing. Women do not feel a similar desire to care for their daughters. (Of course, a woman loves all of her children… but she realizes that her daughter is bound to grow up just like her. She can see it in the way her young daughter plays with her toys and mimics mommy, which I do not think happens by accident.) The female children will grow up to be independent thinkers who will have their own love to give away. The male children, however, will lag behind because they require more of their mother’s attention… and the mother is more than willing to give her son everything he wants. However, once he grows older and finds a wife, the mother’s heart breaks because she no longer has a son on whom to dote. (This is probably around the same time that the mother begins to nag her children to give her grandchildren, for her need to nurture never leaves her.)

This, of course, leads to the question of homosexuality, where the gender roles are slightly skewed. While I think that there are psychological reasons behind homosexuality, I do not think that there is anything wrong with being gay. (Note that I don’t think that gay people are sick in any way.) And, yes, the gay men portrayed on television shows likes “Will & Grace” are exaggerated… but there is still some truth to the idea that there are inherently polarized gender roles being fulfilled by people of the same sex. So there are almost definitely man- and woman-specific traits, whether they be carried out by males or females.

I should be writing a paper on ALGOL 60… but I decided to take a small break. So here I am, writing down six strange facts about myself. (I have nothing better to do, I guess.)

1. I’m terrified of revolving doors. If a building has revolving doors, I reach for the swinging door on the side. If there is no other option (such as the one-way revolving doors at the subway stations), I take a deep breath and walk/run through as quickly as I can.
2. Hard candy (Skittles, M&Ms, etc.) must be eaten in twos. No emphasis on the colors in the pairs, just as long as there are two of them.
3. It takes me a long time to gather the courage to call someone. Before picking up the phone, I have to write down everything I think will be asked of me. (If I’m calling a doctor to schedule an appointment, for example, I write down my full name, address, phone number, insurance company, etc.) Once on the phone, I end up pacing the room with the receiver to my ear.
4. I love to eat… a lot. And I don’t discriminate! I eat everything. However, gaining weight is hardly ever an issue for me. (My metabolism is remarkably fast.) I mean, I know I should be exercising on a regular basis (to keep my heart healthy, to burn off excess fat, etc.)… but I don’t. And, surprisingly, I’m not a big, fat blob!
5. Sometimes, I’m superstitious. More specifically, I believe that one can jinx oneself. (For example, I am now scared that I will become gross and obese.) This is mainly due to my belief that the power of suggestion is mighty powerful.
6. Small, monkey-like hands completely and totally creep me out.