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July 3rd, 2006
12:14 pm - That's not what those are for!
Big Cat (Willy) and Little Cat (Sophie) have been getting along better in the last few days. They play together and chase one another around until Big Cat gets bored, at which point Little Cat resorts to attacking my feet and wrestling with a spare mitten. (So... cute...) She also hides inside an empty tissue box. (So... very ...cute...) This morning, though, something very strange happened.
I was playing with Little Cat, and put her down on the chair where Big Cat was napping. She started wiggling her little self, nosing around in his fur, and kind of biting at him. Big Cat put up with that, which I thought was very encouraging, until Big Cat and I both realized at the same time that Little Cat was nosing around in Big Cat's belly fur because she was looking for a nipple. Big Cat was all "The HELL?!?" and started kicking Little Cat in the face, to which she reacted with a confused "Mom? The HELL?!? What are you doing?" Or the feline equivalent, which is flattened ears.
After some pouncing and neck biting from both of them, Big Cat stomped off to the hallway to sit with his back to me and look resentful, and Little Cat sat mewling and wiggling on the chair until I helped her down, at which point she went and pounced on Big Cat, who wasn't too interested in playing with her.
Was Sophie's behavior a matter of habit? Do kittens at that age (7-8 weeks) just naturally try to nurse if they happen to be on the belly side of an adult cat? Or was there something else to it? Does this show some sort of nutritional need on her part, or was the act strictly behavioral? This was the first time I've seen her try to get milk from a dry well, so to speak, but it could have happened previously, while I was at work.
FWIW, Big Cat didn't hurt Little Cat at all. His reaction was mostly, "Get off, get off!" They play-bite one another frequently, but no one gets hurt. Little Cat also has taken to pouncing on my bare feet without using her claws (yay!), which I take as a sign that she's learning limits to rough play.
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12:31 pm - Lonely no more?
Social Isolation Growing in U.S., Study Says
I read a blurb about this in the current Time, and I'd be interested in reading the paper on the study.
This is a topic that really fascinates me, and has since I was a child. The whole concept of non-geographical communities entered my consciousness when I was 6 or 7 and I found out that there were other Brownies all over the world. The idea of being connected to that many people you'd never met and never would meet amazed me. As I grew older, and attended an elementary school other than the one most of the kids in my neighborhood attended, I became more aware of the role more traditional communities (churches, neighborhoods, schools, ethnic groups, etc.) play in people's lives. The internet, of course, almost made my brain explode. We could create endless communities, countless networks of people, all over the world, but would those communities really bring us closer together? Would people who grew up bonding with electronic media miss the old-fashioned person-to-person communities, or would electronic communities suffice? Would the ability to create communities that cross all geographic boundaries make us more or less tolerant of one another? Would we create new sets of rules, or keep trying to follow the old ones? And would anybody really be happier?
Chat rooms, e-mail, and instant messaging have been a boon to the shy, the infirm, and the geographically or socially isolated, but do those electronic communications really fill the void left by lack of personal interaction?
Growing up in the middle of ever-changing suburban sprawl, I also became interested in the sense of identity that is linked to a sense of place. Why does it matter of my block is in Lincoln Square or Bowmanville? Why does is matter of another block is in Old Town or Lincoln Park? Why do neighborhood associations still matter if we can all move so easily from one area to another? Are suburban "bedroom communities" really communities at all if people only keep a house and a permanent addess there but leave daily for work and play? Or are those just the most sensible evolution of geographic communities, because they are built around modern transportation technology? (Okay, built around cars.)
This whole thing makes me think of Kurt Vonnegut's Slapstick ("Lonely No More!"), and Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age, both of which deal with the creation of artificially-created communities, and both of which were published in the 1990's, well before this study was done. Sociologists and novelists (and me) aren't the only people to have noticed these trends; I've read commentary on this shift in social interaction in several sources recently. If everyone's noticed this switch, and so many people are acknowledging that a need exists, does that mean that some sort of change is iminent? Or have people only noticed this issue because the shift back toward more traditional interaction has already begun to occur?
And how will I get any work done today if I spend this much time playing around with LJ?
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