you come with me, we won't leave
Tuesday July 17, 2007 11:33am
I will be 29 in four days. I believe that I have mentioned this before. I don't really know if I am qualified to talk about What Has Changed and What I Would Like To be Different and shit. This time last year, I was working a crappy data entry job, preparing to go to New York for the very first time ever, and was really, really sad.
That part hasn't changed much. I hung out with a friend last night and much discussion was had about How I Can Make Things Better. I enjoy being my friend's token fucked-up friend, except when I don't. He did say something about how I need to stop focusing on the outcome of things and just to try and enjoy moments. So that, I guess, is what I would like for my birthday. Also perhaps a relationship that I don't screw up before it even starts. Or possibly even a mindset in which I don't become convinced that I am going to screw things up.
This is a very, very long story that I told someone over email about a cat that I found on my stoop, approximately almost one year ago today. I miss the person who I told it to. it's strange, but it's almost one of those things where I wish I hadn't met him, because the quality of our friendship changed so very much since then and I don't know if it's just time that does it or if it was me or him or if I romanticize things too much but sometimes I just wish time could freeze. I am sick of myself, and I am sick of telling everyone that I am sick of myself, and I am sick of Keeping My Chin Up. At the end of this road I may just catch a glimpse of me. etc etc.
Anyway: The Continuing Saga Of Martin The Cat
PART ONE
IN WHICH our intrepid heroine hangs up the phone with one Redacted
at approximately 2 a.m., with the full intention of going to sleep
Martin the cat was having none of it. Our heroine climbed into bed
exhausted yet adrenalized from conversation, the aftereffects of
alcohol, and the thin sheen of cat fur that was suddenly covering her
every possession. Martin, thinking that his charm was wasted on
someone who was unable or unwilling to give him anything but water,
positioned himself in a curled up kitty position on our heroine's
feet. Our brave nameless heroine squealed to herself, thinking that
she was not sneezing yet and maybe, just maybe if she rearranged some
stuff in her apartment, took him to a vet, and got a litter box she
and Martin could be BFFs forev.
NOT SO FAST, BRAVE INTREPID HEROINE.
PART TWO
IN WHICH Martin the cat tries new tactics and our heroine breaks out in hives
Martin was getting angsty. Only he knew where he came from and what
cute things worked on the people he may or may not have already known.
In frustration, or perhaps an emerging sense of affection, he crawled
all over our heroine, pawing gently at her face and her open palm and
twitching his tail softly in a manner that our heroine had learned
about an hour ago meant that he was enjoying himself. He sat on her
neck. He curled up on her stomach. He crawled on her shoulders. He sat
directly on her windpipe, after which point our heroine crossly
informed him aloud that she kind of needed that area unobstructed in
order to breathe, and then realized that she was having a dialogue
with a cat. Meanwhile, Martin leaped off the bed and explored the
apartment, meowing plaintively with hunger and rustling all the shit
that our heroine should have cleaned up like six months ago and
causing her undue worry that he was going to ingest, like, aspirin.
Our heroine gazed at the clock. It was now 3:30 a.m. And she was
beginning to itch.
Fuck.
.
PART THE THIRD
IN WHICH our fucking exhausted heroine takes Claritin, scrubs herself
clean, and procures photographic evidence that the cat actually
existed and she does not make things up over the phone
Our heroine rinsed her neck carefully, trying to remember the last
time she did not get any sleep during the course of a night and
failing. She decided that maybe if she could play with the cat and
tire it out, she might be able to take a catnap herself for an hour or
so. She pulled out her camera and went to work. At first Martin did
not quite take to the camera, headbutting it and her gently, but some
sense of I Am A Really Fucking Cute Cat eventually oertook him, and
he began sprawling on pillows and gazing at our heroine accordingly.
Thinking maybe now she could finally sleep, she crawled back into bed,
gently shushing poor Martin's mews, which had begun to sound exactly
like the noises the Cheat makes on Homestarrunner.com. A sample
dialogue:
Martin: Mraw
Our Heroine: shhhhhhhhh
Our Martin: Miaw
Heroine: shhhhhhhh.
Martin: Meou?
Our Heroine: SERIOUSLY I HAVE TO GET UP FOR WORK IN THREE HOURS. DO
YOU KNOW WHAT WORK IS? OF COURSE YOU DON'T, YOU'RE A CAT.
Repeat, add the rinsing of eyes because at some point when our heroine
drifted off for five fucking minutes she touched her eye and it began
to swell up. It was now four thirty in the morning.
PART THE FOURTH
IN WHICH all adults our heroine knows are extremely unhelpful.
Somewhere between the hourse of four thirty and five thirty a.m., the
cat finally gave up prowling the apartment and mewling at the
windowsill and mauling our heroine [gently] and curled up beside her
on the bed to sleep. While our poor, long-suffering heroine's alarm
was set for six a.m., she found herself awake for no reason at twenty
minutes to the hour. She resigned herself to her fate and dressed,
Martin weaving himself in and out of her legs and climbing up them
while she was trying to stand the entire time. Martin took a great
interest in watching the brushing of our heroine's teeth, and she
found herself secretly wishing that someone human was that fascinated
by her, but appreciating the feline attention all the same. She picked
up her phone, held her breath, and dialed her aunt, who informed her
that she cannot in fact take a third cat nor can she help take the cat
to the humane society as she has a Very Important Meeting at eight
thirty, and suggested that our heroine leave the cat in the house for
the weekend. Our crestfallen heroine thought that adults have no idea
what they are talking about and thanked her aunt for not thinking she
is teh crazy. She then proceeded to leave messages with every single
person she knows with a car and leaves the apartment to get coffee and
think. On the way, one of her car friends returned her call, and after
a lengthy discussion in which our heroine learned that the Milwaukee
Humane Society is so overcrowded with strays that giving Martin to
them would be tantamount to killing him, our heroine reluctantly
decided to let Martin go. BUT WAIT! Her brother always wanted a pet...
PART THE FIFTH
IN WHICH our heroine speaks to her father, gets laughed at in the
middle of a Starbucks and is denied once again, and she and Martin
sadly part ways.
Starbucks was the only coffeehouse open, and our caffeine-deprived
heroine had very little idea of how she was going to get through the
day otherwise. Mid-coffee queue, her phone rang, and she asked her
father with a piteous note in her voice "...can I bring home a cat?"
at which an older gentleman with reading glasses burst out laughing
and said "that is PRICELESS." Red-faced, she ducked out of line,
explained the story, and asked if Ben could have a cat. Her father
said flatly (and perhaps with a touch of the old hangover?) no. He
then more kindly said he wished he could help but he was at a loss for
ideas. The more our heroine thought about it, there was a chance that
Martin either belonged to someone, had once belonged to someone and
was just trying to get home, or would be helpless and sad in a
completely foreign environment. She thanked her father and continued
to Walgreens, where plan A (that being "feed the cat and let it go")
took shape. She struggled home with three tiny tins of wet cat food
and a 29 cent bowl, intending to continue to leave food on the back
stoop for Martin after the weekend was over. She reached home,
scritched Martin's ears, poured the food into the bowl and tried to
coax him back outside. Martin, for reasons only he knew, was having
none of it, and once he was outside the door and saw the food he shot
back inside and fell upon the empty tin which rested on the floor.
Eventually, our sweaty heroine physically hauled him to the stoop with
the food. She crouched down next to him, trying not to cry, and
whispered "bye, baby" in his ear. She set off for work, not knowing
if or when she would ever see him again but also thinking there was
some sort of cosmic force at hand that brought him to her on her
bithday and thinking if Martin had come this far in his life, he would
go further, with or without her.
--Ntozake Shange
