My family is away on vacation this week. I’ll join them in a few days. Just me and the cats and the turtle tortoise right now.

My wife and my youngest daughter have had the feeling that Mr. Evil (Lio) is haunting us. I suppose it’s because it’s been hard for us to let go of him. We were more attached to him than we thought. Than I thought, anyway.

They’ve heard him making the funny meow he made, or moving his dish around downstairs like he used to do.

Last night, alone in bed in the empty house, I heard it. The dish.

Maybe it was the tortoise. Maybe we have mice.

Still, I yelled for Lio to come upstairs where I could see him. He didn’t come, though.

He never did come when you called. So it could have been him.

Left to my own devices, I’d be crazy as a shithouse rat inside of a week.

I have been engaging in research these past weeks. It involves the application of the scientific method – that is, deep thought coupled with stroking one’s chin, while wearing glasses and a lab coat – to everyday life, and the improvement of the conditions thereof.

Also, I have been working on identifying specific things to change, and developing hypotheses about how best to bring about this change, and then testing the hypotheses, rather than, as previously, wishing for a lottery win, or for certain people to be struck by lightning.

I will provide an example. Problem: Subject feels, and looks, like hell. Solution: lose ten pounds, for starters. People generally look better when they lose ten pounds, unless they are already too skinny, which is not the case here. And when they look better, they feel better, as a rule.

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Our kitten died last night. He was in the street in front of our house when I got home. Now I understand what people mean when they say they didn’t believe their eyes. I could not believe what I saw, that it was him and that he was dead. I carried him into the backyard and set him down carefully by the apple tree. Then I went inside and told Alpha, then I told Gamma. Then I changed my clothes, and we went outside and put him into a shoebox. Gamma held a flashlight while I dug a hole. She put a note into the box with him, and we buried him.

Gamma is the saddest. She gave him both his names, Mr. Evil and his real name, Lio. They were close pals and she took care of him and defended him when he was naughty, and he liked to sleep on her bed. We’ll all miss him.

I need your voice. And your language.

Here is the thing: I am working on this composition? It is an ensemble piece, with a tuba and a double bass at the center, surrounded by a xylophone, glockenspiel, harp, cello and perhaps something else. It is based on this post.

I would also like to incorporate voices, as follows: I would like to play, as part of the piece, a loop consisting of a number of voices reading a text I have written. The voices may be distorted or otherwise altered. I would like to have readers of a variety of ages and genders. Although the text is in English, I would also like to have it read in other languages, so if you are in the mood to do this, and could translate it and read it in a language other than English, that would be excellent. Since this weblog has a very international readership, I thought I would ask here first.

Here are a few details:

• I cannot pay anything, at least not at this point. This is an amateur production. I also have no plans to use this commercially.

• Recording quality is not a high priority. Background noise is even okay, especially if it’s bar noise. Computer microphone, cell phone, etc is okay.
• MP3 would be easiest for me.
• As mentioned, the more languages, and dialects of English, and types of speakers, the better.
• I will need you to give me permission to use your voice in the loop for this composition. I suppose permission in the email sending me the MP3 file would be sufficient.
• The sooner the better.

Besides several varieties of English, I think regulars here also include speakers of Turkish, Danish, French, German, Czech, and Dutch, and I think without looking too far we could find other languages as well. If you are interested in participating, please let me know. A good email to use would be metamorphosist at gmail.com

The text in question is included in the extended entry part of this post. Thank you in advance.

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Scene I
Set: A kitchen
Hypothetical Man: Out of the garbage, pal.
Hypothetical Cat: Nom nom nom.
Hypothetical Man: [Walks out of kitchen]
Hypothetical Cat: [Follows man out of kitchen]
Hypothetical Man: [Returns to kitchen, closes door, shutting out cat]
Hypothetical Man: Hr hr hr.

Scene II
Set: In a house somewhere.
Hypothetical Man: Touch me more.
Hypothetical Woman: Huh?
Hypothetical Man: In general. I dunno. I just want to be touched more, you know?
Hypothetical Woman: You can’t just ask for it like that.
Hypothetical Man: I just did.
Hypothetical Woman: Well, not if you want to be touched.
Hypothetical Man: What do I have to do, then?
Hypothetical Woman: You have to purr.
Hypothetical Man: ??
Hypothetical Woman: It works for the cats.
Hypothetical Man: Purr.
Hypothetical Woman: [Strokes hypothetical man's fur.]
Hypothetical Man: Prr-prr-prr.

Scene III
Setting: Same house, another room.
Hypothetical Man: Prr-prr-prr.
Hypothetical Woman: [Trying to get something done. Strokes hypothetical man's fur as they walk through the room]
Hypothetical Man: Prr-prr-prrrr.
Hypothetical Woman: [Walks out of room]
Hypothetical Man: [Follows her out of room] Prr.
Hypothetical Woman: [Returns to room, closes door, leaving hypothetical man in stairwell]
Hypothetical Man: [blink]

A newspaper we read reported that an Austrian attorney vacationing in Florida was bitten while sharkfeeding, and died. However, a member of my nuclear family is now studying law, so that’s not funny. Neither are anthropologist jokes, by the way, for the same reason, so please: anthropologists: no funny accidents!

OTOH, Gamma and I were looking at a map that accompanied the article. It was a a simple world map, showing where sharks commonly ate people. The United States was red on the map, as was Australia and so on. I explained to Gamma that land sharks were a big problem in the United States, and Australia, and told her about the old SNL skit. She laughed politely.

Changing diapers and cleaning vomit raised my gross-out threshhold. I am usually the person in charge of cleaning cat vomit and piss, and litter boxes are my daily chore.
I don’t mind litter boxes. Sometimes I am a little boy hunting for easter eggs again; sometimes I am on a desert planet mining for spice, or sand worms.
But this morning, boy.
We’ve been wondering, the past few days, where the lunch boxes all went.
They were right here before Gamma went on vacation (she got a week off from school to ski).
Now where’d they go?
I was putting her lunches in tupperware boxes this week.
Then, this morning in her room, warning her she would miss her bus: I spotted one on her bookshelf.
WTF? It was still full – apparently she’d forgotten it there and never took it to school.
But full of what, after at least a week and a half?
It looked, from the outside, as if it could be full of rabbit, or a white guinea pig.
I did a little dance, and sang a little song.
Gamma said I should take a picture of it so she could have a look when she got home.
She got a fine laugh out of the whole thing.
Here’s a picture (click the thumbnail, and a larger image will appear, as if by magic):