and, now there's cougars EVERYWHERE....

part of the reason i'm not calling this in is that i *know* i have an irrational fear of predatory cats. like, i know there's not really a cougar lurking in the bushes across the street - even though, if there was a cougar around here, it would be a good place to check. i know it's the wind, combined with my eyes playing tricks on me (and my eyesight not being very good, when discussing distances). what looks like a cougar is probably just an oddly shaped branch. i realize this.

i have a number of irrational fears like that. usually i can work it out. this undiagnosed schizophrenia is a double-edged sword when the individual has a worldview rooted in empiricism. it pulls on you. it's nagging. but there's usually a way to *test* it, and then you know. the problem with the predatory cats fear is that if you're legitimately concerned that there's a cougar lurking in the bushes then going over to investigate isn't the best approach to dealing with it because if there *is* a cougar in there - however unlikely - then you become lunch. as i can't test this, i can't neutralize it.

i'm pretty sure it ultimately stems from studying them when i was a kid. and, this is actually something i've been dealing with since i was about eight. i have very clear memories of seeing a tiger in my neighbourhood when i was a kid, and avoiding a specific area because i was certain of it. i guess the trend over the last little while has been with dinosaurs; it's not uncommon to meet kids that can classify every type of jurassic diapsid - and i was admittedly pretty good at that myself. but i had a thing with cats, specifically. i could tell you the difference between a jaguarundi and an ocelot, tell you what their ranges were, whether they were endangered or not, etc. so, when i say i saw a bengal tiger near the pool, i meant a bengal tiger - because i knew.

but, of course, it was probably always the result of an overactive imagination. it's probably a better idea to get your kids classifying dinosaurs than predatory cats, because they're going to understand that the chances of coming face to face with an albertosaurus are pretty remote. predatory cats, however, still exist.

there's really only one that we're likely to come face-to-face with here in canada. hence, the fear of cougars.

i was a total nervous wreck when i was hitchhiking through bc, convinced i was going to be mauled. it's my most vivid memory of the trip, which i'm getting to in the musical chronology. and that might have something to do with this, right now.

but it's just a lot easier to work it out in my head than it is to actually shake it.