Dear Log,
On the jukebox: Radiohead, "Nobody Does It Better"
I found a bookstore that's been craftily hidden just around the corner from me for years. Sneaky, that. They had two copies of the book no-one else in the state had: Shaughnessy's text and translation of the Mawangdui Yijing manuscripts! And the copies were used, so half-price! It is a happytime.
I walked in the store, found the right section, and started looking thru their Yijing stuff. It was on the bottom shelf, so I sat down crosslegged on the floor.
Immediately, as if by radio dispatch, a very old black cat (with that thinning hair over the eyes, up to the ears, which I always think of as a Siamese thing) walked directly up to me, and directly onto me, sat in my lap, and immediately fell asleep, purring. And drooling on my trouser-knee.
So I had to stay there a while, and flip thru the books that were within arm's reach, eventually finding the Shaughnessy books. Eventually I had to get on with the day, so I slowly tried getting up. The cat wanted no part of this; he suppressed me with claws and mind-control. But it got up eventually went elsewhere, probably to find a CPU to sleep on.
Note to self: become fabulously rich, and then buy one of my alma maters a new library building, with reading rooms stocked with purring cats and comfortable couches.
There is some precedent for this: my undergrad U had a dog that would walk around campus. I think it was one of the frat's mascots. His name was Banta, and he always wore a scarf, and always seemed to be going someplace. On his own. Running errands? Going to class? Beer run?
I'm curious, though -- a bookstore in the area (I can't remember the name right now, I want to call it Lippincotts) has, you guessed it, a black cat. Coincedence? Or are the cats trying to absorb knowledge for dastardly purposes?
