I look to the fact that now I am the proud, somewhat lackadaisackal owner of a Siamese cat. She is utterly infatuated with me, and refuses to withdraw her claws. I do my best to spoil her, as city "friends" are wont to do with their charges -- she has catnip infused balls, the little mouse-at-the-end-of-the-rubber-string-tied-to-a-stick toy (which occupies five minutes every day), a cruel-looking wire brush she adores to the point of sexual frisson, Taste of the Wild (kibble and soft food), an ever-clean shithouse -- but I am hopeless. She cannot bear to let me go every morning, but I find myself emotionally rather indifferent to her. She's more like a dog on me than a cat.
Times were once different. In Richmond, California, on the corner of 38th and Roosevelt, there stood a tiny, canary-yellow bungalow. Behind that bungalow lay a square of patio. In the corner of that patio, the one between the sliding glass door of the kitchen and the back garage door, I huddled frantic and panicked, screaming and in pain, all of three years old. I was the prey of rapacious Bat-Cat, a fiend from hell with blue eyes, grey nose and paws and tail, and a raging jealousy of the attention lavished upon me by my mother. Bat-Cat, who would regularly steal food from my father's plate and hang upside down on the screen outside while my dad fried chicken. Bat-Cat, who once gave my mother a black eye she was too embarrassed to say wasn't given by my father.
You would think Bat-Cat would have secured me as highly phobic of felines. Rather, I've had cordial and warm-hearted relationships with all the cats and dogs in my life, save for one or two meth-addict-owned Pomeranians. To the point where, I am now the semi-reluctant ward of my own Siamese cat, an emotionally needy, abusive twat who can count Bat-Cat as her proud forbear.
Tell me again how this world is supposed to make sense.
