There are things I want to write that have nothing to do with my dead cat, or me, or my daddy issues, or the other bullshit I can't even articulate but I know is in my way, but I can't seem to get through the stuff that is in my way -
I'm not sure I know the difference between what is in my way and the thing I am actually looking for. It all blends together until I'm looking at a photo of a landfill trying to pick out the refrigerator, the locket, the baby doll. And I don't know which is what.
So I stayed home drinking cold coffee and eating microwaved leftovers. Eating instead of producing. Consuming instead of creating. Barbecue sauce mustache in the epsom salt bath.
I don't know how people go crazy anymore, since everything is allowed. Pay your rent and you can do whatever you like inside your rented space.
As long as it doesn't do any damage. But how can I tell what's going to be damaging? What do I know about home repairs?
My brother left for Illinois last week and has not said much since. I was surprised to be upset by his leaving. I didn't get to see him off, the timing didn't work out and I stubbornly refused to alter my evening plans to go meet him at the bus station again to say another awkward goodbye. He was leaving because the rent was due on the room he rented over a bar downtown, and he didn't have the money because his boss had mysteriously disappeared again. His boss, a 26 year old chubby guy with no fence around his yard and no screen door, so on a nice day the front door would just be standing open revealing a black gap like a missing tooth - that boss, had mysteriously disappeared again, leaving Alan with no income, no prospects. Alan said he refused to go back to the homeless shelter. I thought but did not say that his stand was a bit late. Where was the refusal when it was time to look for a job that might be more reliable than what an unkempt 26 year old with no discernible professional skills can offer? Or when the money did come in, how much was saved? These questions would not help, so I did not ask. I told him to have fun in Illinois. I did not tell him I thought he was leaving in a hissy fit. That also would not help.
My dead cat. That cat was pretty much my favorite creature. He was fluffy and petulant, apprehensive and gleeful by turns. I related to him, even when he sometimes took a dark turn and bit me as hard as he could. Especially then. Usually he was not like that, though. He rolled on his back on the deck in the sun, twisting his face up to the sunshine and basking in the warmth of the almost-spring. Then the neighbor's dog killed him and my friend took his body and had it cremated and I picked up the ashes at the funeral home, in a wooden box with his name and the birth and death years, just five years, carved into the box. And I put the box first into a bin with winter running clothes because I could not look at it, then after a few days I put the box on a bookshelf in the bedroom, next to a bamboo plant, where I would look at it sometimes without thinking before remembering what it was, what it signified. I am not sure it's a good idea to have the box in the house, whether I can see it or not. I am not sure I am the type of person who should have a pet, or who should ever get another pet.
I still have a cat. I have my dead cat's brother, who I got to be a companion to the cat who died. It's as awkward as it sounds. It's like adopting your husband's child who you don't really have a bond with, and then your husband dies and the child has no one but you. So ostensibly it's your child. Ostensibly it's my cat. And I love him, reflexively. When he went missing I despaired. I cried a lot. He came back and I was overjoyed. I cried a lot more. Then his brother died and I lost my mind.
Not to compare cats to children or husbands, which I would know very little about anyway. It's just the closest words I had. Feel free to exchange the references with something more appropriate, like cats and cats.
I wonder if there is a cigarette in this house.
There is.
I'm not sure I know the difference between what is in my way and the thing I am actually looking for. It all blends together until I'm looking at a photo of a landfill trying to pick out the refrigerator, the locket, the baby doll. And I don't know which is what.
So I stayed home drinking cold coffee and eating microwaved leftovers. Eating instead of producing. Consuming instead of creating. Barbecue sauce mustache in the epsom salt bath.
I don't know how people go crazy anymore, since everything is allowed. Pay your rent and you can do whatever you like inside your rented space.
As long as it doesn't do any damage. But how can I tell what's going to be damaging? What do I know about home repairs?
My brother left for Illinois last week and has not said much since. I was surprised to be upset by his leaving. I didn't get to see him off, the timing didn't work out and I stubbornly refused to alter my evening plans to go meet him at the bus station again to say another awkward goodbye. He was leaving because the rent was due on the room he rented over a bar downtown, and he didn't have the money because his boss had mysteriously disappeared again. His boss, a 26 year old chubby guy with no fence around his yard and no screen door, so on a nice day the front door would just be standing open revealing a black gap like a missing tooth - that boss, had mysteriously disappeared again, leaving Alan with no income, no prospects. Alan said he refused to go back to the homeless shelter. I thought but did not say that his stand was a bit late. Where was the refusal when it was time to look for a job that might be more reliable than what an unkempt 26 year old with no discernible professional skills can offer? Or when the money did come in, how much was saved? These questions would not help, so I did not ask. I told him to have fun in Illinois. I did not tell him I thought he was leaving in a hissy fit. That also would not help.
My dead cat. That cat was pretty much my favorite creature. He was fluffy and petulant, apprehensive and gleeful by turns. I related to him, even when he sometimes took a dark turn and bit me as hard as he could. Especially then. Usually he was not like that, though. He rolled on his back on the deck in the sun, twisting his face up to the sunshine and basking in the warmth of the almost-spring. Then the neighbor's dog killed him and my friend took his body and had it cremated and I picked up the ashes at the funeral home, in a wooden box with his name and the birth and death years, just five years, carved into the box. And I put the box first into a bin with winter running clothes because I could not look at it, then after a few days I put the box on a bookshelf in the bedroom, next to a bamboo plant, where I would look at it sometimes without thinking before remembering what it was, what it signified. I am not sure it's a good idea to have the box in the house, whether I can see it or not. I am not sure I am the type of person who should have a pet, or who should ever get another pet.
I still have a cat. I have my dead cat's brother, who I got to be a companion to the cat who died. It's as awkward as it sounds. It's like adopting your husband's child who you don't really have a bond with, and then your husband dies and the child has no one but you. So ostensibly it's your child. Ostensibly it's my cat. And I love him, reflexively. When he went missing I despaired. I cried a lot. He came back and I was overjoyed. I cried a lot more. Then his brother died and I lost my mind.
Not to compare cats to children or husbands, which I would know very little about anyway. It's just the closest words I had. Feel free to exchange the references with something more appropriate, like cats and cats.
I wonder if there is a cigarette in this house.
There is.
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