I'm CONSIDERATE, dammit!

Okay, so the Woman doesn't always sleep very well. This makes her cranky and, frankly, a sub-par can opener, so lately I've been trying to help her. The other morning I woke her up at 5:45 and then kept bugging her until she got out of bed, because it made sense: if she got up early, she would be tired at night, and would then be able to sleep.

She was not grateful.

But did I let that stop me? No. It occurred to me that perhaps her sleep issues were related to a cold head, since that's never covered at night. So I jumped up onto the bed at 5 or so, and curled up next to her head, trying to send warms her way. Then I realized it might work better if there was direct contact, so doods, I was super thoughtful and climbed onto her pillow and wrapped my body around her head.

Still, she was not grateful.

Then last night, I wanted to just check on her, so I jumped up onto the bed and simply watched her. Four times she opened her eyes and said "Jesus!" so four times I had to jump down to go see if he was maybe at the front door or something, but no. It was just Buddah and me home with her. I wetn back to report that, and she got up, put me out of the room and closed the door.

Not grateful at all.

In fact, she was so not grateful that she told the Man about it, and you know what she said? SHE SAID I WAS CREEPY AS PHK LAST NIGHT! All I did was stare at her while she slept. I didn't even lie down, I sat there fully upright, except for my head, which I may have had a few inches from her face, and strained my neck in the process.

I might not even bother trying to help her tonight. Just let her see how she sleeps without me. I bet it sucks.

Dangit, Woman...this is MINE!

Seriously. The Woman shared this on HER blog and HER Facebook page, but IT'S MY BOOK.

Today, she printed out a copy because the Man is going to hunt for typos, and she also emailed the digital file to the editor.

Now, the editor is a mean, mean, mean lady who takes her red pen and writes mean, mean, mean things all over a manuscript. This makes me wonder how many monitors she's gone through, because I'm guessing she has to mail those to her writers when she's done, but that's beside the point. She likes to write 37 things on every page, and because it's in red even the nice things like This made me laugh! look angry.

She's liked the Woman's stories but has always had a lot to say about them and has had exactly 34.9 metric chit-tons of suggestions to improve those stories. She's been way nicer about my stuff but this time it's fiction, and I have a feeling she's going to have a lot to say about it.

The Woman says we need to relax now, and start taking notes for the next book, because the first editing pass takes time (that lady is going to read it like THREE times!) and because Tracy the Editor is 6 million years old, it might take a little extra time.

Oh, don't look at me like that. She knows she's old. She used to ride a dinosaur to school for Pete's sake.

In other news, if you haven't read There Once Was a Cat From Nantucket... yet and you have an e-reader with a Kindle app, it's gonna go on super-sale soon. Like, free for 3 days. I don't know the dates yet, but as soon as I do, I'll let ya know.

Ok, I think I need to celebrate tonight. I told the Woman this would be a good night for some real live fresh dead steak and some shrimpy things, but so far she hasn't moved fro her chair, so we'll see. But I really do think a brand new bouncing baby book calls for noms worthy of all my literary efforts.

Really. She needs me.

"Mr. Max," the Woman said, "I've been going over the book so far, and dood...it's a whole lot of dialog."

"So? It's got people in it. People talk. A lot."

"Yes, but novels typically have a narrative. Too much dialog can bog a story down and is often better changed to fit into the narrative."

"I've read your books, lady. They're all dialog-heavy."

"Touche."

"Wick has a lot of lines. I don't want to cut his dialog. In fact, I want him to have more."

"Maybe. Wick is the narrator, so he technically has the bulk of the story. And as cats go, there's not a lot of verbal back and forth with other characters."

"He has the best line. Dry food is for peasants. Keep that one. It's important that people understand that."

"Hey, I saw you eating dry food just ten minutes ago."

"Yeah, well as a snack. Not as my primary source of nutrition. Make sure that Wick gets lots of real live fresh dead things."

"You want me to include his dietary preferences in a novel?"

"Novels have to have some real life in them, right?"

"Yes, but people don't want the minutia of real life. It's boring. Everyone poops but I'm not putting that into the book."

"You should. Pooping is glorious."

"No. And none of this addresses the volume of dialog in the manuscript. You need to start picturing the words in your head, and then showing those same things in the narrative."

"That's what I have you for."

"But the book will have your name on it."

"Well it's my story. My thinks."

"That might be the problem. You're thinking as if this were a script."

"Again, I've read your other books..."

"Fine. We'll leave it like this until the last draft, but then it has to change, okay?"

"This, what we're doing. This is real life dialog, right?"

"It is."

"You're right. This chit is boring. You go back to work and I'll start polishing my thinks. I have no idea how you ever managed to write without me before."

This is glorious!

Y'all know I'm a senior kitty, right? I turn 15 in about a month. Now, I'm a healthy senior kitty, as evidenced by my recent stabby guy checkup (new stabby guy, I might like him because he gives me drugs and I don't remember being there, but because of the drugs I don't really know) so the people aren't especially worried about me. I'm slower than I used to be, and I nap more, and the Woman thinks that a lot of the time I just look sleepy.

And that's okay. I've earned my naps and tiredness, and even my cranky times. But the Woman noticed that I ask for dinner a little early more often than I used to, and I want food at 4 am when I used to just be happy to sing in the hall. So sometimes I get dinner early because I ask nicely, and if someone is awake at 4am--it happens because the Man works nights and sometimes stays up that late when he's off--I get an extra dinner.

Tonight I asked for dinner half an hour early, and the Woman was all "Okay, Big Guy, it's not too early," and she opened a can for us, and while we nommed the People stood in the kitchen (I have issues getting the food unstuck from the dish sometimes, so she waits and unsticks it for me a couple of times) and I heard them say that because I'm an older guy, maybe I should get food when I want it and not just because of what time it is.

Yeah, that'll work for a while, then they'll look at the clock more often again.

The glorious part? The Woman said that maybe it's time to let me have gravy food again. And the Man said that maybe I should also get to have the special gooshy stuff, Fancy Feast Medleys, because I do love them, and...I am fifteen.

DOODS THERE ARE PERKS TO OLD AGE!!! WHO WOULDA THUNK IT?!!??

I'm really hoping the Woman goes to the store tomorrow and gets me some, because I haven't had that in years.

My life won't be awesome again until I do.

IT WILL EAT YOU

Okay, not really, but as far as Buddah is concerned, the new Roomba WILL eat him.

Now, generally, the rule here is that no gets to intentionally scare a kitty, which kept the People from getting a Roomba for years. But then the Auntie got one and really liked it so they decided to go ahead and give it a try. Since Buddah and I tend to nap in a bedroom, they figured they could close the doors and run it while we're sleeping.

Mostly, they thought I would be terrified if it.

This morning, they learned the truth: it doesn't bother me. I made note of it, and then went about my business. And Buddah isn't really afraid of it, he's just cautious. He'll follow it from room to room to see what it's doing, but he's not hiding from it...but I'm still gonna tell him that when he's not looking, the Roomba will eat his soul.

One Facebook, everyone said I needed to get a shark costume and ride it. I think everyone just needs to be happy that I didn't hork a hairball onto it.

Like I did into one of the Woman's shoes.

Oh yeah. I totally did it.

A great big one, right into her spendy running shoes.

Life is good.