The Mystery of the Crusty Cat Chin

It's never good when the vet says, 'I’ve never seen that before'. I took Baby Cat back to the doctor after just over a week of using some scrub on his chin to try to eradicate these large black, greasy scales that were forming. It was originally diagnosed as 'cat chin acne'. Google it. It’s a peach.

The wash was doing nothing and the fur on his chin started to fall out in crusty, itchy clumps and he was scratching a lot. He eats and drinks out of glass dishes (plastic is a bacteria farm) that get washed after each meal, and his kitty bed gets fresh linens daily! Well, I brought him back to the vet yesterday, and she was perplexed. She did a skin scraping to check for mites (which came up negative) and is running a ringworm culture, though the symptoms don't mimic ringworm, nor do they mimic food allergy symptoms. When viewing the fur under the microscope she was puzzled to find the protein chains looking like a rare dog condition where all the fur falls out. Not fatal, but all the hair just falls out. Forever. Great. Yesterday, when I left she was calling some Texas national dermatological lab to 'pick their brains on what it might be'. She even took pics of his chin.

She most likely suspects a severe staph infection, so he is on strong antibiotics and has a topical antibacterial/antifungal gel for his chin. Hopefully that will work, and that’s that. If it doesn’t work, we'll need to do a skin biopsy and send it to that special lab.

Otherwise, he is healthy, happy and fine, and seems minimally bothered by it.

This Very Moment

The weather has cooled, the holidays are upon us and I have a concert coming up. I am pretending not to be stressed. My singing never stresses me out. All the gazillion gigs I’ve done and I hardly ever get nervous. It was fun to play with my bandmates: we acted as a team. Classical singing does stress me out. I am trying to figure out a way that it will feel more like ‘normal’ performance to me- or what I perceive as normal performance- which is not me standing up there feeling naked, attempting to capture an unattainable perfect something, all while feeling very judged (by whom, pray tell?)- and that is what I associate with classical singing. I have no idea where I got that idea. It is simply an un-useful, outdated, un-helpful mindset and I will find a path that will take me toward changing that perception. Changing an un-useful thing into what I think I will Punk Perspective. Ok, so I never sang with a punk band, but I have played punk bars, and my band very much had the attitude that we could give a rat’s ass what anyone thought of our music. If they liked it, hated it, even listened to it, or paid attention while we played didn’t matter much. We played for ourselves, for the music, and we did not ‘entertain’. I stood there and sang. It was often a fabulous feeling.

So, I have been practicing my ass off lately. I’ve been learning tons of new music and prepping for this informal concert, which in my head I’ve turned into some kinda big ole deal. I feel out of balance, so tonite after my run (ok, I practiced a little!), then I fixed a pot of tea, made a big pot of my fabulous homemade chicken noodle soup, watched a little TV, did some yoga, and sat and breathed. I always get little insights, little messages, when I practice yoga. It occurred to me as a morphed from one asana to the next, from one luxuriousness movement to the next, from one inhalation to the next wave of exhalation that there is no reason to ever go to the maximum of anything. I know this. I’ve heard it, said it, and have been diligent in practicing the concept in music and life. My practice habits have become impeccable: little bite-sized bits that are strung together by frequent breaks. Not doing too much at once, not ever getting close to frustration. Gently feeding, gently tending, weeding, and watering. But tonite, during my gentle yoga practice, there was something very tangible about the concept. Something sprouted from a seed that had been planted, something knowing and experiential: a different level of understanding. Make it easy, make it pleasurable. Let go of doing it well. Discard the compulsion to go all the way, twist all the way, and stretch forward all the way. Release the urge to max out every movement. I could definitely go further: Resist the urge to max out every moment. None of that is useful.

I’m reading Brad Warner’s Hardcore Zen right now, too (and finally watched The Legend of Bagger Vance for the first time last night), and just came upon a serendipitous passage about doing only what is required in the moment. Big stuff: Do what is required of this very moment.

Having said all that, some of the seeds of these insights spring from my work with a very wonderful and fabulous voice and Feldenkrais teacher, who just rocks my world! Yay!

Let us find clean and cheerful friends*

The energy we surround ourselves with is the energy we become. We are whirling incarnate spirits. We are powerful and we are delicate. What we say, what we think, what we drink, what we eat, and what we take in, we become. Who we surround ourselves with is how we mange the flow of energy in our lives.

There are people in my life who see me a certain way, and who, I suspect, are uncomfortable with who I really am. I do not fit into a role or a box that is clearly defined, and if there are people in my life who need to see me confined and pigeonholed, I cannot have that constriction in my life.

I am blooming like a Texas rose in the Spring, and if you can’t handle it, you’ll have to step aside.

*Robert Fripp