This morning was a fine demonstration of why I love having them. To understand what I mean, I have a small dog, and a decently-sized cat. The cat last night ate some of the dog's food, and we had to intervene to stop that. (AKA, use a squirt bottle.) The dog has a sweet tooth for cat food, and every time, we have to intervene to stop that. (AKA, use a squirt bottle.) The dog stole one of the cat's previously-favorite toys and made it his own. The cat is not immune to doing the same thing. They frequently steal each other's favorite spots to sit, as well.

And today, the funniest of them all was shown: jealousy. When my dad petted the cat, the dog went absolutely nuts. But the cat isn't exactly above that same attitude; if another animal (the dog included) is receiving too much attention, he will rush in and try to get some himself, intensely jealous of the other animal.

It sometimes seems to me like they're almost siblings. (It sort-of fits, even: both were originally the pets of my younger sister, who is currently away at college, thus, both have the same "mother", and we're looking after them as grandparents and aunts.) Heck, there's even a bit of a big-brother, little-brother relationship based on their size. The big brother cat intimidates the little-brother dog, so much so, that it can be hilarious watching how much the dog avoids the cat.

...But when the dog is oblivious to the presence OF the cat (e.g. he's really, really excited), especially if he gains momentum in his movement, the tables turn and the cat is visibly nervous of the dog, even running away. Which reminds me of how--while I always was afraid of my brother--he could occasionally be scared of me when I got really angry.

Animal experts may equate this behavior that I've described differently, but I am of the opinion that animals are a lot like humans. (Well, technically, I'm of the opinion that humans are just animals like any other, but some people take offense to that wording thinking I'm cynically implying barbarism when I'm actually optimistically stating that animals can feel basically everything we can feel; we just don't recognize it.) Thus, even if it may not be technically true, I like the idea.

I should clarify that my day has effectively just begun, thanks yet again to my habit of waking up late after having stayed up also-late. However, I have already had rather a number of things that I consider to be blog-worthy material. I woke up today feeling rather sore in my legs, so it hurts...but it's a good hurt, because it was from my recent workout.

I also remember that one of the things I dreamed about was meeting someone who has effectively become a bit of an idol for me, Jocelyn Samara, the creator of the webcomic Rain. It was partially through reading that webcomic start to latest update (it is currently on hiatus because the author is dealing with cancer; if you can help, please do! It's more than a worthy cause) that I was able to discover my trans status. 

(I had been introduced to the culture some number of months before, which awakened lingering feelings that had been buried under layers upon layers of cultural enforcement from my upbringing, and yet, the more I began to explore, the more I found that identifying as male was unsatisfactory for me. With proddings and encouragement, I went deeper and deeper. I saw in my dreams a picture of a female person, and I wondered who it was...and eventually, I realized, "that's me...just me, as a girl." And that image slowly began replacing the image of myself as a guy in my mind, of my mental picture of myself. It culminated when I was in a car crash, and though at the time I was too much in shock to know what I was thinking, a few weeks later, I was able to remember my thought, and it was, "Oh, God. Please don't let me die before I've had the chance to discover my true self." And that was the moment I knew.)

The dream more or less went with me observing her interacting with people, and being all awesome about it. I heard her voice and it sounded nice to my ears, and there I was thinking, "she's so awesome." She was right there, in front of me, human, and yet seeming to be much more than that. I could probably go into more fangirlish descriptors of the dream I had, but I think it conveys the point. It probably isn't much like what she'd actually be like meeting in real life, but all the same, I was glad to have had the dream.

I've also been practically stalked by my (read: my sister's) cat, who seems to instinctively know the perfect timing. When I'll leave my room, when I'm about to finish my breakfast, what direction I'm going to walk through the house, and he'll be there, waiting for me, under my foot, rubbing it and lovingly asking for attention. (How could anyone ever say no?)

Additionally, I've done some HotR work. I really should describe that game to people in more detail in a future blog update, but I have a slight errand to run in there first. (The short version, it's like a Twilight of flash games: nothing special about it, and yet once you get into it, it's immensely addiction, having quite the fanbase as a result yet also a fair amount of haters. Neither side is unjustified, since the game is filled to the brim with flaws yet somehow if you can tolerate it long enough it becomes so immensely thrilling that you can't help but keep going.)

I'm experiencing some minor technical difficulties with the blog.
To be expected, I guess, when I'm just getting started.

Anyway, on non-site-related issues, my original title for this blog entry before techy-stuff happened was "I'm a beauty queen", because I slept through half the day, today. And I'm proud of it! Other noticeable things from today are the temperature. It's cold. I've also had a lot of cute interaction with one of my (by which, I mean, my sister's) cats, who like normal once let out has an uncanny ability to know precisely when I am available for him to be pet by me. And even when not, of him doing cute stuff anyway, such as his love of boxes.

Stand by for me maybe doing more. (Don't count on it, though.) My day's just beginning; I've done my morning routine and logged into Heroes of the Realm; that's about it for today so far.