Rehoming

[pallas_athena]

I have been living in my new house for about a year now. The changes it has wrought in my life are fairly astonishing.

Having a living room which doubles as a rehearsal venue means that I'm meeting all sorts of artists. Not that I have to be super-close friends with everyone who uses the space, but it's always cool when that happens spontaneously.

My friend mothninja's show The White House was a particular boon; the director and the AD have both since used my place to rehearse other shows, which has been good. Some of the alumni from those are coming over on Friday for a Shakespeare reading-and-working session. That play also introduced me to a circus artist whose aerial hoop class I joined, which has been an enormously fun skill to acquire. And then she moved to LA and left a bunch of her stuff with me, which means I now have an aerials rig in my living room. Hell yeah.

All sorts of people have been using the space, but there's a core of artists now who come by regularly enough that it feels a bit like having a family. To a long-term bachelor like me, that's a fairly mindblowing concept. Obviously these things work best when one doesn't get emotionally overinvested, but I am grateful for and happy with the friends I've made. To say nothing of the dividends of the free-rehearsal-space-for-free-catsitting exchange.

Speaking of family, having cats has also altered my life for the mostly-better, I think. I could not have done that at my old place, but Milo and Mystery seem fairly happy to live here:



Milo (black-and-white, male) is about a year old now, and Mystery (tuxedo, female) about two. I have had them six months, and they are pretty well settled in. Mystery in particular has blossomed: my shy little hiding cat no longer hides, but comes to investigate most people and things. She likes to climb onto my lap while I'm sewing or websurfing in the evenings. Milo, meanwhile, is everyone's friend and rehearsal mascot. He doesn't mind the sound of singing or piano, and will happily curl up and sleep on a nearby chair while I'm practicing. (He has quite the voice himself, especially when there's cat food in the offing.)

The really lucky thing is how devoted the two of them are to each other:



Photos by the ever-talented wyte_phantom. Go buy clothes from her; they're amazing.

So... a family. At least for now. The new house sort of attracted the life that goes with it, and that life turns out to be pretty damn awesome. Obviously I could still wish for more work, but at least the downtime's not being wasted.

Comments

[larissa-00.livejournal.com]

Ah, what lovely cat photos wyte_phantom has done for you. The second one is particularly cute.

[artnouveauho.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you like them! She is a dedicated photographer of cats.

[larissa-00.livejournal.com]

I'm amused by her photos of Tiggs determinedly sitting on sewing fabrics. Alas ben_fur has been similarly inspired and has a fetish for blue linens . . . woe betide the human that tries to lift him off that!