Storytime

Today, I would like to present a silly allegory I wrote, inspired by someone mispronouncing a word I use regularly; cation. It's usually pronounced "cat ion." I would like to thank my wonderful PartnerPenguin for his marvelous photoshop skills and willingness to participate in my silly schemes.

Before that, I would like to make a quick comment about Ms Caitlyn Jenner. A conversation with a co-worker resulted in his positing that everything regarding Ms Jenner seems attention seeking and unnecessarily over-discussed. I countered with a quote from Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: “Gay hasn’t even gotten to Indiana yet.” America is ridiculously large and a lot of people want to talk about this because they have never talked about it before. A lot of people are not aware that gender is a social construct and individuals can manipulate societal perception of themselves, whatever direction they so choose. People do this regularly by wearing makeup, pants, wigs, leather shoes, headdresses, hats and using cell phones. We are an individualistic culture where we define ourselves for ourselves.

The request I would like to ask my readers is just to spend a couple seconds and think about how you define your own gender identity. Is it sufficient that you are a man, or is it important to you that you are also a father? What kind of privileges do you enjoy that you can directly connect to your gender? Maybe contextualize a problem that you may not have known was gender related, like women getting interrupted. I think it’s good to start thinking of these things and talk about them, even if it makes you uncomfortable.

And now for something COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!

Sally the SiliCat: A Story of Incompatibility

This is Sally the SiliCat

She is a silica cat-onion living about 2000 km inside the earth in a neighborhood called Harzburgite. Sally lives in a vast sea of other ions. Their bodies are larger than hers. They are all powerfully charged and sometimes unbalanced. They are members of the Ferric, Cupric, MagnesoMeN and Alkali gangs. Sally does not feel welcome in any of these gangs. She occasionally tries touching a bigger ion with her paw but it never lasts long.
   Things have been like this for as long as Sally can remember. She is distantly aware that silica cat-onions like her make up lass than 45% of the population. Silica cat-onions are kept separate from each other by the bigger ions so they cannot talk to each other. But today is different. The air in the chamber is warm and Sally can feel her vibrational energy increasing. The Ferric and MagnesoMeN have redoubled their efforts in bonding together. Much to Sally’s surprise, she starts to float. None of the gangs reach to keep her in Harzburgite and she is filled with terror of losing her home. At the same time, she observes that floating does not bring her any harm. So for now, she floats. Sally floats for a long time. She floats high above her home and for the first time in her little silica life she is brimming with hope. She brownianly moves around the soup she now inhabits. Coming into focus she sees another cat-onion just like her!“Hello!” she yells.“Hello.” He replies. Their paws touch and instantly they know that they are bonded for life. He tells her his name is Carlos and he is from the land of Lherzolite.
 Sally and Carlos spend many years with just the two of them. Gradually, the soup fills with more cat-onions. Eventually, Sally connects with Opal and Amythist on her other two paws. Carlos, Opal and Amythist also connect with other cat-onions on all of their paws.
 Happily, all of the cat-onions call this utopia “Quartz.” The End 

And a song, just for funsies.