Cast of Characters

At long last, I need one too. I could really go on and on about these people, but I’ll try to be succinct. So here we go.

• Marleenken: Me! The token bi chick! I’m the firstborn of my clan, an intellectual (not so much academic), and a self-proclaimed dude-chick.
• Husband: He is obviously, the man I married. He’s simply called Husband, or Hubby on occasion, because I couldn’t think of something clever to rename him. His parents did a pretty good job. As far as his relation to me, we’re happily married, and this year we’ve been together for a fourth of my life. He’s kind of like my left leg, and I suppose I could have called him that, but I do try to be a little respectful.
• Der Wolfanwalt: A very close friend and cohort of mine. Met him at the same college I met my husband.
• Lexx or Lexxy: Another close friend from college. He’s currently being a poopface and living it up overseas, so I don’t get to talk to him too often. We used to call him the human cartoon, but now he’s too old, so he’s just a goofy-looking dirty-minded twentysomething. My kind of people. The name is a nickname he picked up when he shaved his head: Lexx Luthor.
• Persephone: Lexx’s adorable Korean girlfriend.
• Blue: Yet another close friend from college and maid of honor at my wedding. She cut her hair super short when I shaved my head around Easter of our freshman year. I taught her how to drink, then I taught her how to smoke, and she has since perfected both skills far beyond my ability. We all call her Blue because she dyed her hair blue. At the point in time that we all met, there was another student that had the same first name, and the blue hair just suited Blue so well the name stuck even after the color had long since washed out. She with her specially redyed hair was the “something blue” at my wedding. She’s good at disappearing at will, so her part in this blog may be slight, but she’s important to me.
• Montie: My favorite work buddy in the entire world. He’s had me falling over laughing more times than I can count. He’s also a favorite drinking buddy. I’ve gotten completely hammered with him more times than I can remember. In short, he’s a fucking character. Tough guy exterior, but soulful when you least expect it. During the years we’ve worked and played together, he became something like a brother to me. He and the next guy here, share their own category. I could have put them together, but they deserve their own bullets.
• Darrell: My favorite hillbilly. Enough said.
• Lewis or Lew: My boss, but our relationship is much more complex than just that. In short, he’s a gruff old man who knows everything. He taught me how to work, how to lead and how to get respect. I admire him as I admire my father.
• Teegan: I talk about meeting her here, but since then, we’ve become friends. She’s the artistic, firebird-driving, fellow dude-chick. You just don’t find too many dude-chicks out there.
• Jillian or Jill: I met her at the same time I met Teegan. She’s the youngest of all of us, but she’s a trip.
• Black Stallion: I’ve been calling him “my idiot younger brother” or “my partner in crime” or “my twenty one year old brother,” and its just getting old. So he is henceforth Black Stallion, or some fairly obvious derivative (BS, Stallion.) Now I didn’t just come up with this one, it came out of his youthful head many years ago. He frequently went through stages when we were kids whereupon he would refuse to answer to anything but “Black Stallion.” I, being the eldest, tried to explain to him the fool he was making of himself, but to no avail. So now, years later, he gets his wish. (BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!)
• Hissori or Spoot: Previously called “my little brother” or more often, “my kid brother,” he’s the youngest of the three of us, and the only one still living at home. He’s also the most intelligent, and very mature for his age. We spend a lot of time together just chilling. He will henceforth be called by his chosen screenname, or possibly out of habit, my real life nickname for him.
• the prophet: Dennis Leary. (I’m going to stop linking to U-Tube every time I mention him now.)
• Sachiel: The eldest and indisputably most insane of my cats. He lives outside due to excessively bad behavior. For instance, he will fake illnesses or injury to get attention, indiscriminately hiss, bite, or scratch anything should the mood strike him (and he is very moody,) he pretends he doesn’t know the meaning of the word “no,” etc, etc, etc. This cat is so bad (and so smart) he knows that when I say “little shit” I am referring to him and he’s in trouble.
• Gabriel: A prince among cats! Gabe is the best feline friend a human could ever want. Sometimes he gets a little clingy, but he’s sweet, patient, perceptive and more than happy to be part of the family. Aside from the miniblinds, and occasionally the shower curtain, I can’t complain about him destroying things as clawed cats are wont to do. Well, I can complain about the shower curtain (he plays with it,) but the miniblinds just aren’t meant to be walked through multiple times a day, so despite his best efforts to be careful, he inadvertently breaks himself a little cat window in one corner of every miniblinded window.
• Miss Tart: Her name was just Tart, but she has earned the honorary title in her maturity. Actually, it started as a joke from me to her that she took seriously. I would call her Miss Tart when I thought she was being particularly pretentious, and perhaps in return for my mockery, she now refuses to answer to anything but her full name. She is, to her credit, a very dignified and very polite cat. She is also a very small cat. However, I challenge anyone to make her do anything she doesn’t want to do.
• Miho: I have mentioned around the blog that Miho is the “whiney girlfriend” personality type of cats, and that is my official position. She was tolerable until she climbed out the bathroom window and got herself knocked up. Throughout the duration of her pregnancy, birthing, nursing, white trash motherhood, subsequent spaying– until her expulsion from the house, she was as intolerable as nails on a chalkboard. Both her human and feline roommates were profoundly relieved when at last she was kicked out. I kid you not, Tart and Gabe did not seem to miss her and were visibly more at ease when she was finally permanently outside.
• Tabris: Tabris is a wildcat, no bones about it. He is not domesticated, we did not adopt him, and we do not in any way claim or own him. He is his own cat. I don’t know where he came from, really, he just showed up on our back porch in the beginning of summer a half-starved grey kitten. He was obviously starving, but so afraid of people, he would run away if he thought you were so much as looking at him. So my husband and I pretended to ignore him so he could eat. Over time, we’ve become friends and he definitely likes having his head scratched, but its not wholly uncommon for him to be gone for a few days at at time. He’s a smallish cat, but he’ll fight anything. And judging by his body language when he comes home all freshly cut up, he usually wins.
• Winona: My very nice chef’s knife, of which I am very proud.