Animals...

..... 'The Golden Compass' is playing on HBO right now...... they're all quietly mumbling away about Demons daemons, and whatnot while I try to finish some work here in the blogroom..... it's an interesting distraction here on this windy, rain-flecked, overcast day...... demons daemons are not your usual daily fare..... well, at least not around here........

... evidently all of the characters have little animals that embody their souls.... and they follow them around wherever they go...... fireflies, puppies, kittens, monkeys, birds, etc..... Daniel Craig's "daemon" appears to be a snow leopard.....

.. I've always admired snow leopards..... majestic, mysterious beasts that they are..... almost sensuous in the way that they walk and stalk...... Daniel Craig?.... not so much....... besides, people keep telling me that I look like him, and that just freaks me out....... he's buff, sure.... but when I look in the mirror, I certainly don't want to see myself as quite that Craigy craggy..... then again, it ain't the age, right?..... it's the mileage...... so, yeah.... we have the same color of hair, I'll concede that......

.... while working here - with that movie on in the other room - I couldn't help but notice the life-size plastic Gila monster sitting atop my computer monitor gazing down at me........ I have a few, actually...... Jose, up there.... and Phil, over there on the shelf...... gifts all, funnily enough, from The Missus........

.... I made the mistake once of telling her - way, way back in the mists of time - about an Indian guy I was in The Corps with who once told me that he had went to a sweat out in Utah and saw my "spirit animals" in a vision....... he and I were good friends, and evidently he thought of me after having found his OWN "spirit animals", and felt the need to tell me all about it once he returned to our base in Alaska......

.... I thought it was interesting at the time, you know?...... wandering the mountains in winter, getting naked, throwing some sage on the fire, whacking yourself a few times with some eagle feathers, climbing inside a homemade sauna, a little chanting, and then letting yourself get dehydrated enough to start having hallucinations?.... hell, that's practically a blogmeet........ throw in some peyote, and I'd imagine it would be an absolutely GRAND time...... but anyway, yeah...... "spirit animals"......

..... I have two, evidently........

..... any guesses?..... apart from the Gila monster, obviously.....