Merry Christmas 2011, Love Luco

I suppose you know I am not here to wish you the merriest Christmas you have ever had. Perhaps by now you do not expect such platitudes. This is my hope. 

But I am also not here to wish you the saddest of Christmases. Please do not think that. Is this how you see me? A cynic, someone who has lost faith in life? Maybe I am this at times, but could it not be that I am willing to admit my moments of darkness, of doubt, and you are not? There is nothing inherently depressing or wrong with being skeptical. I believe it is important to question life, tradition, society (well, and if you are reading this, you surely also believe this); why else exist but to try to change the entire world for the better? 

Do you think me an egoist? This is not a task I believe I alone or even you and I together can complete. And what is "better?" We can move to terrible places with this idea. I suppose for argument's sake I shall define my idea of "better" as less suffering. Less suffering in general. For people, for animals, for the planet (and yes, I believe a planet can suffer. Does this strike you as a trifle romantic? Are you still rolling the word "cynic" around in your mouth?).

And I, until yesterday, believed the prison guard, for all her abhorrent behavior, felt the same way. That is, of course, until I saw the tree. Have you read "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World," by Gabriel Garcia Marquez? If you have not, I will give you a moment. Go look it up online. Read it. I will wait. I can be patient. 

Are you finished?

"They only had to take the handkerchief off his face to see that he was ashamed, that it was not his fault that he was so big or so heavy or so handsome, and if he had known that this was going to happen, he would have looked for a more discreet place to drown in, seriously, I even would have tied the anchor off a galleon around my neck and staggered off a cliff like someone who doesn't like things in order not to be upsetting people now with this Wednesday dead body, as you people say, in order not to be bothering anyone with this filthy piece of cold meat that doesn't have anything to do with me."

This Christmas tree is Esteban. Now, if you have not actually read the story like I asked you to, this will not make sense to you. I care not! If you flout the requests of a talking cat, I do not know what to do with you. Seriously.

To continue, I say the prison guard is cruel because this tree is too large for her house. It is embarrassed. It shrugs its massive branches to accommodate. It ducks its (poor, pruned) top to fit beneath the ceiling. It is magnificent.

Ah, did you not expect that adjective?

I enjoy lying on the carpet and staring up into its branches. I imagine Esteban and myself in a field, a breeze, wild flowers; we stand and look up at the sun. And Esteban is my shelter.

So romantic today. I do not know what has gotten into me, except that it must be this behemoth. This hulking, lovely, ridiculous tree in the living room of a prison I cannot escape.

The prison of the prison, the prison in my own head. Less suffering. I come back here because looking into the lights and the plastic snowflakes and thinking of what this holiday has come to mean (and what it has always meant, I suppose), I can only conclude that for all its beauty, all its generosity, and for as much as I (surprisingly, unwillingly, completely) love this tree: everything that it stands for is anathema.

Oh holiday of taser guns at Wal-Mart, buy one get one free plastics, sweat shops and rock bottom prices, gas emissions, starving people who could be fed with just the waste from our Christmas or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa dinners (I put them in no particular order expect to mention Christmas first as it is apparently what the prison guard [and therefore I?] celebrates); so much of what is produced by this holiday causes more suffering, not less.

And yet Esteban is beautiful. And yet I love it. And yet I stare into these colored lights and feel something akin to joy pricking at me. Oh, I who do not deserve this warmth. My impotent heart which can only yearn for change, which can do nothing to begin to alleviate suffering.

I feel Esteban knows this and forgives me it. 

Even if I cannot forgive myself.

Donate?

This is a worthy cause. I do not like dogs, but I do not want them to suffer needlessly.

Luco & the Luxury of Being Sad

I have been thinking about the holidays: about the ubiquitous Christmas music (I know it is ubiquitous not because I am granted permission to venture out into the world, but because [oh, shame] the dog relates this news to me); the colored lights and balloon Santas I spy through partially opened blinds. It is Christmas. It is Hanukkah. It is Kwanzaa. Have I missed any? Is it also Winter Solstice? Holiday Dessert Decoration Day?

A time, they (who exactly is "they" and why do I count "them" some kind of authority? Perhaps "they" is shorthand for cultural/social expectations) say, for celebration. For the counting of one's blessings.

Ah, my blessings, let me count them now:

1) I am alive.
2) The prison guard provides me with materials to ensure my basic survival (see: disgusting and unnervingly uniform cat pellets, the prison itself as a "shelter," the litter box, etc.).
3) Other animals in this prison also exist.
4) I have a mind that can take me out of this prison (whether through thinking my way out or reading my way out, or sometimes, if the prison guard is so inclined, watching my way out through a movie - that sentence became rather more awkward as it progressed, did it not?).
5) My blog (which allows me a fleeting kind of freedom).

However, would it not be intellectually dishonest to ignore the opposite of my blessings? Ought not I count them as well?

Here my grievances, my anti-blessings, my miseries:

1) I am alive.
2) The prison guard provides me with materials to ensure my basic survival (and that is all. Innumerable the nights I have awoken, crazed, clawing at my own belly, bereft and lost).
3) Other animals in this prison also exist (and cause me endless torment - the idiocy of the dog [with which through this blog you have been made familiar, reader, so you know I do not exaggerate], the cuteness of Minugs and how everyone fawns over him as though he is some kind of precious, irreplaceable artifact, the vexatious nature of Fremlin [who, in truth, I should be closest to, as it does seem at times we share significant similarities, alas, it is never to be, she is, in a word, a grouch]).
4) I have a mind that can take me out of this prison but not for real. Because after the interesting thought experiment, enjoyable book, or wonderful movie, I am still here. Still trapped, seething. Still pacing the windowpane, looking out into the sparkling lights of the unattainable.
5) My blog which, yes, I will grant you this, provides some freedom. Which does, in fact, ameliorate some of these feelings of sadness and desperation; however, it is also a source of desolation because I know I have never said exactly what I wanted to say, and if I even came close, I did not say it in quite the way I wanted. I cannot ever capture in words these images, feelings, or thoughts that buzz through me like so many idiotic bumblebees. I cannot grasp the page or paragraph or sentence or even the word I wanted; it is forever out of my reach, and this blog serves as evidence of my myriad and inelegant failures.

So count your blessings or do not count your blessings. I cannot see the difference. Everything becomes at a certain moment completely negated. Does that make joy less relevant? Does that make anguish inspired less all-consuming?

No, it only means ambivalence eternal. Satisfaction, contentment impossible.

And I will also admit here that there is a certain luxury to my sadness. That, perhaps, if I was a working cat, out plowing a field or protecting my territory (how alike the words "terror" and "territory"), then I would not have time to be sad. I would lie down on my bed of leaves or grass or broken bottles or what have you and I would sleep the sleep of one who has labored. No time for insecurities such as these. Not a moment left for self pity

This knowledge of my privilege makes me feel only all the more depressed. All the more guilty. So I say to you, reader: be merry or be sad. Drink or do not drink. Eat or do not eat. Enjoy this holiday season or hate it. Do none of these things or all of them or some of them or do other things I have neglected to mention here.

Know that perhaps it is this ambivalence that allows us to appreciate our brief lives.

Happy holidays.

It's the End of the Semester for Luco too

I thought I would let you know that the prison guard is suffering from surprise dentistry (that is to say, dentistry she neither expected nor desired. I know the prison guard well, however, and this is probably the only way for her to get dental work done, but that is of little consequence) and because of this surprise dentistry, she is rather more grumpy than usual. She is guarding the computer like the vigilant, over-active bully she is at heart. I only have moments to address you, reader. 

Also, it is the very end of the semester, and I am helping her grade papers. Piles of papers. 

I did not want you to think I had forgotten you or this blog or my commitment to detailing my interminable despair. I will be back next week. There is much I have to say about this rampant "holiday cheer."

I am as always so sorry to disappoint. 

The Dog Loves Rap Music

This is my new t-shirt can you read it it says RUN DMC which is a group like a rap fellowship of fellows who rap! Mary's friends got this shirt for me because when they look at me they want to give me things because I think they love me.

That's right, isn't it if you look at someone and then love them then you want to give them everything like a t-shirt or like pastry cream?

Pastry cream is so wonderful it is the same wonderful as a new shirt of a rap fellowship which is a word I learned today so that's why I'm using it I hope you can understand my vernacular which is another word I learned that I think is great especially because it starts with a v like very and v words are probably the best words for everyone to say and to think about.

V words I know: vernacular vest very vermilion (not what it means but the spelling of it) vermicelli (which is a delicious thing if you put some butter on it maybe) valley version vunderful...

Okay vunderful isn't really a v word it's a w word in disguise but I put it in there because I'm realizing I don't know that many v words which means maybe I don't know that many words which then how can I communicate?

How can I tell you how much I want pastry cream if I didn't have a word like very but is there a word like very that means more than that like more urgent but I can't think of one so I only get very and then maybe you don't really understand me oh no I'm pulling a Luco aren't I?

That's what Mingus and Fremlin and I call falling into a hole where everything seems so stupid and it seems like nothing will work out at all and it seems like there's no reason to continue whatever it was you were just doing that's pulling a Luco.

But the thing is Luco is usually wrong so I just have to remember that like Mingus and Fremlin said and not let myself get down they said to pull myself up by my bootstraps but maybe that was about something else like they want me to get a job I think but probably the idea applies.

At least I have my supercool t-shirt of the RUN DMC but hey wait Mary she put it on me wrong no one will be able to see the name of the fellowship on my t-shirt so is there a reason to wear it why oh why would she do this to me?

Wait. It's a Luco again, isn't it? I'm pulling one I can tell. I just need to focus. I need to say something like I remember now Mary's friends got me this shirt because they looked at me and then they loved me and they thought of me later so that's a really nice thing even if Mary is trying to spoil everything for me!

Mary, Mary, why ya buggin?

Happy Thanksgiving, Love Luco

Good day to you or good night - I will not assume to know when you are reading this. Today, as I write, it is Thanksgiving day. Thanksgiving: the quintessentially American holiday; we over-eat and then eat more (and note that much of what we eat has been brutalized in ways "Consider the Lobster" does not brush against lightly with even the barest of fingertips), and then we stay up late to stand in lines inside our tents (and I do not know about you, but I am struck by the visual parallel between the OWS movement and the lines of people waiting for the doors of the mall to open like Abraham waiting for god to stay his hand); we wait inside our tents so that we can purchase things we do not need and will not appreciate (and, of course, most of these goods are produced by people who we consume in similar ways to the turkeys). 

I say we, but I mean you.

What I mean to say is, even if I wanted to do these things (I am not ready to speculate on what various joys and despairs might take over me as I walked down aisle after aisle of electronics, clothing, toys, and home goods), I can not. The prison guard a) will not let me out of this prison and b) does not eat meat.

She does not eat meat?

What is this? "Quorn Turk'y Roast?" I will say only this: here is one food that I do not necessarily covet. Globular fake meat. Yum. And I would like to note that this fake meat is not vegan, so does this indicate that she cares less for cows and chickens? The turkey is to be spared, but, hey! Cows and chickens are jerks? (On a related note, abuses at a factory chicken egg producer have been noted in recent press. Here is an article: ABC News on chicken abuse)

I am speaking rather tongue in cheek, in case you could not tell, and I am not really one to speak here. I love meat. I would eat copious amounts of it if the prison guard would let me. I simply do not like the idea of avoiding confrontation with reality.

Apologies for my digression.Please note that I do not mean to suggest these problems are your fault or even the prison guard's fault (although let not this statement indicate her innocence in other affairs!), but I do believe we as living creatures must face difficult truths.

In an essay titled "Some Proximity to Darkness," from David Griffith's book A Good War is Hard to Find: The Art of Violence in America he writes: "Pain destroys language, such that the person is negated and the world surrounding them is slowly 'unmade,' discounted. If we think of the photos and images of the violated and tortured [he is speaking specifically of the Abu Ghraib photographs here, but his ideas can be applied to images like these in general] in this way, as memorializing the negation of humanity and the incremental undoing of the world, then we are closer to understanding the stakes of bearing witness. There is no closure when we look away, only unremitting pain and anguish" (83). 

So let us look at the tradition we celebrate and how we celebrate it. Let us remember the genocide that shaped our past and continues to shape us today. Let us look at what we eat with an unflinching honesty. Let us work to understand the world in which we live; the power we allow corporations and the corrupt to have over us. Let us grapple with the OWS movement and the ways in which it has been "dealt with" by the police and the government. Let us, as we stand in line or huddle in our tents, acknowledge the privileges we are  granted based on race, ethnicity, sex, location, species. 

And let us try to begin to understand the suffering of the poorest who toil and become ill and love each other and fight and die and who create the goods we are encouraged to buy tonight and tomorrow.

I am not saying that I have an answer or a plan of action. I am a cat. Living my own imprisoned life is, for me, an already arduous task.

And I know the same is true for you. You have a family. Work. Responsibilities. It is more likely than not that very many people depend upon you. 

But we should not allow our focus to remain so steadily pointed to our own lives. We need to look up and around us and see what is happening in our world. We need to look up even if only for a moment.

Even if only to immediately then drop our faces in shame and despair.

Slippy Loves Emma

Hello to you! I think you probably have been missing me because I haven't said anything to you for like some long time and so I asked Luco could I please please write a blog and he said "If that is what it will take to achieve a moment of solitude, then yes, dog, fine." I wrote what he said verbatim because first he told me the word verbatim and second he said he hates it when I misrepresent him. I know what a miss is and what a present is but I can't think of them together. Again?

So okay! I wanted to tell you about someone who's my special adorable doggy friend who has a name that's called Emma!

I don't get alienated (which is what Luco says which I think means like feeling like an extraterrestrial) but sometimes if maybe I start to feel sad then I think about Emma and everything is better like if Mary gave me some butter covered pieces of steak or like a cheese plate but with no grapes though because apparently grapes would kill me so dead I'd never want to go on a walk again - at least I think that's death but because only I can't think of anything worse than no walking and not eating steak pieces covered in butter.

This is us after we wrestled. We were tired and panting and my tongue was always all the way out of my mouth my teeth tasted like Emma's fur and her spit because I love her so much.

She is if you think about something that makes you happy then that's what she is. She is probably like if you got to eat ham every day each time in the morning.

It looks like we're fighting and I'm really fierce at fighting something like if you saw a bull charging at you in the face that's probably how Emma felt but we're only play fighting so it's not real fierce but Emma knows that because she understands me.

I think Luco needs to have an Emma someone like her who you can look at their eyes and maybe they wink or they don't wink but it's like they did wink and when I look at Emma she's winking at me because we get each other and we support each other I think through thick and thin but that hasn't been tested yet like it's not a verified theory but I think it would come true even if I didn't wish it on a star even if it wasn't the first star in the evening if I did wish it. We already have each other like glitter in glue on a piece of paper.

Here it looks like I'm eating her but I'm not but her throat is delicious and great. Maybe Luco should also hang from her throat like this and swing and feel free and wild like a wild animal which is really what we all are if you think about it. I told Luco that and he said I was acting like a philosopher which is someone who philosophizes which means they think a lot about deep and interesting subjects such as hanging from Emma's neck and not feeling like an alien and not feeling alone.

Haha! Philosophy is great just like a pizza or like an Emma!

Luco & Melancholia

Did you see Lars von Trier's movie Antichrist? If not, and if you have a strong constitution, it is a worthy endeavor to view this film. However, it is, well, bleak (and that is a determination of "bleak" coming from me). Some critics have accused von Trier of being misogynistic due to aspects of plot and characterization in Antichrist. After viewing it, I had to agree. Well, and I mean, did you see Dogville? Breaking the Waves? Women do not often fare well in von Trier films. They do not often thrive.

As a feline feminist (it is my hope that the preciousness of that title does not take away from the seriousness of what I am about to say), I have struggled with my own ambivalence regarding von Trier; I have both deeply loved and deeply hated his work. Melanchola, his new movie, pushed me up on the gradient nearer "love."

Melancholia is also centered around women, but it leaves me with a sense of von Trier's delicate misanthropy (as opposed to misogyny - what I mean is, at least in Melancholia both women and men act badly and are punished). That is to say, he seems to be in possession of a hatred of humanity (and really all life) that also acknowledges moments of tenderness. "I hate you so much sometimes" will be followed by a scene of sisters holding hands.

I do not know how familiar you are with this movie, but it is at its heart an end-of-the-world film. It is humorous to me because the prison guard and her husband have been watching the Nova series "The Fabric of the Cosmos." This series is about space and time and spacetime and the universe. In short, it makes a happy bedfellow to Melancholia.

Why, you ask, do I lay them down together in the same queen sized bed, gently tucking in a feather comforter around them before climbing up and sleeping in between their legs?

Because both deal with possibilities. Grapple with what it means to be alive. The skewed ways in which we see ourselves; the skewed ways we see the world around us.

The episode of "The Fabric of the Cosmos" we watched last night was called "The Illusion of Time." The host, Brian Greene, posits that theoretically all time exists at once - there is no real separation between past, present, and future; they all happen concurrently. We see life like an "arrow of time" - as progressing forever forward - perhaps due to the nature of entropy. We see ourselves and our world moving always from order to disorder.

And Greene suggests time travel possible. This fills me with an immeasurable amount of wonder, but I will save my ode to time travel for another entry (allow me, quickly, to note that I believe time travel to be one of the most romantic and intriguing ideas ever).

This idea of time fits into the movie Melancholia in many ways, the most relevant of which seems to me to be the way we perceive time as we experience trauma.

The world seems to slow. We become aware of everything around us. The click of the air conditioner, the  tapping of a coworker's keyboard, the dim music suddenly discernible as a car tumbles by our street.

And Melancholia seems to suggest that different people deal with death/disaster/disappointment (if you'll excuse the alliteration), in different ways, some better equipped to cope with loss than others. It even seems to argue that a depressed person is best fit to contend with tragedy. A depressed person will not lie to herself. She understands life inherently meaningless. 

She already wishes herself erased. Dreams expanses of void.

What does it mean for me that Lars von Trier arguably proves with his movie that the depressed creature is the best suited to life and to death?

It means I am the champion, my friend.

Mingus Hates Music

Luco is busy reading toady. He said he wants to get through all of 100 Years of Solitude and I told him, "dude, you're already living that book!" Was that slight amusement I saw curving his lips, or was I making it up because, man, a creature who is never, ever amused lives a sorry existence, amirite? And for some reason I don't quite get, I don't want that for him.

So, anyway, you're stuck with me on this entry. I hope it's not ruining your day. Luco said to say whatever I want, to like talk about something important to me, so here goes.

I hate music.

No, really. I know I'm not supposed to. It's supposed to lift the soul, etc. etc. Music is otherworld. Blah blah blah. Was it Longfellow who said "music is the universal language of mankind?" Nevermind I'm not of "mankind," I'm alive and cognizant enough to count, right? As someone who could understand, if there was such a thing, a universal language?

Maybe Longfellow wouldn't think so. 

But anyway, to me music's just this totally annoying cacophony, and nothing else.

The prison guard, or MR as I call her, sits down at this organ and I shiver. I groan. I tear from the room like it's about to fill with water.

I don't know why I do this. Was it some kittenhood trauma? Perhaps just an aversion to melody and harmony? A deep set hatred for the pentatonic scale? I have more questions than answers, but I do know this: I cannot stand the sound. Not soft music, slow music, loud music, emotional music, experimental music (especially!) - no kind of music would I ever describe in the terms I hear music described.

My definition:
Music [myzoo-ick], also pronounced [crap]
(noun)
1. A series of loud noises signifying impending doom.
2. Tones of horror or dread sounded to signify impending doom.
3. Works of random sounds played all together to signify impending doom.
4. A signal of impending doom.

I'm sorry. You're probably a music lover. Maybe classical, rock, hip hop, country, organ.... But to me it all sounds like that freezing moment of terror that icicles its way through my body, starting somewhere in my mouth and traveling down and through me, so that I know only I am going to die. And unlike Luco, I don't actually enjoy thinking about my own death. I'd rather think about pretty much anything else, honestly, hey, I'd even rather read 100 Years of Solitude, even though it sounds like the most depressing book ever written (which is probably why Luco's enjoying it so much - he claims it's not really that sad, but I don't believe him).

That's why, in these pictures, although perhaps I look like I'm posing (I'm told I always look like I'm posing), what I'm really doing is trying to kill this organ. If I could just break it, then MR would never be able to play it again. And perhaps I could relax!

Get some sleep. Then maybe the visions implanted in my brain could still remain....

Within the sounds of silence?

Consider Halloween, Love Luco

Probably I at one point did something horrible enough to warrant this lobster costume. I do not know what though. I have been trying to remember this entire day. What did I do?

I made fun of Fremlin for not being able to jump up onto the bed, but she cannot jump up onto the bed; it is not as though I made up a cruel or false rumor about her - I simply noted her behavior and faithfully reported it to everyone else in the prison.

I told Mingus that he was a jerk, but this was because after being shut up in the guest room with him (the prison guard now refers to it as the "Cat Room" with much derision) I realized that he is pretty much a jerk.

The dog I treated like I have always treated the dog, which I will admit is not perhaps as nice or patient or as thoughtful as one creature could treat another, but really? He is a dog. I do not believe there is a living being that would not enjoy taunting him at least every now and then.

A lobster suit, if you have never had the pleasure, is not very comfortable - the fabric is a "soft" felt, but feels more like an "itchy" felt: it is an itchy, uncomfortable, hot, and heavy felt. Basically a lobster suit is sub par. Perhaps sub, sub par. Sub, sub, sub?

I must admit there is something I love about this holiday, however. There can be found joy in taking on another's identity, if, that is, the other's identity is not a lobster.

Yes, I will go ahead and address this now; I have read David Foster Wallace's "Consider the Lobster." Honestly I believe all that lives experiences pain (rotting branches the source of countless nightmares) - all that lives is at a fundamental level (perhaps I should say cellular?) of the same stuff. We are equals, you and me and the dog and the pathetic lobster. Allow me to bring in my favorite moment from his essay (you can read the entire essay here: http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2004/08/consider_the_lobster?currentPage=1): 

In any event, at the [Maine Lobster] Festival, standing by the bubbling tanks outside the World’s Largest Lobster Cooker, watching the fresh-caught lobsters pile over one another, wave their hobbled claws impotently, huddle in the rear corners, or scrabble frantically back from the glass as you approach, it is difficult not to sense that they’re unhappy, or frightened, even if it’s some rudimentary version of these feelings …and, again, why does rudimentariness even enter into it? Why is a primitive, inarticulate form of suffering less urgent or uncomfortable for the person who’s helping to inflict it by paying for the food it results in? I’m not trying to give you a PETA-like screed here—at least I don’t think so. I’m trying, rather, to work out and articulate some of the troubling questions that arise amid all the laughter and saltation and community pride of the Maine Lobster Festival. The truth is that if you, the Festival attendee, permit yourself to think that lobsters can suffer and would rather not, the MLF can begin to take on aspects of something like a Roman circus or medieval torture-fest.

Does that comparison seem a bit much? If so, exactly why? Or what about this one: Is it not possible that future generations will regard our own present agribusiness and eating practices in much the same way we now view Nero’s entertainments or Aztec sacrifices? My own immediate reaction is that such a comparison is hysterical, extreme—and yet the reason it seems extreme to me appears to be that I believe animals are less morally important than human beings;²⁰ and when it comes to defending such a belief, even to myself, I have to acknowledge that (a) I have an obvious selfish interest in this belief, since I like to eat certain kinds of animals and want to be able to keep doing it, and (b) I have not succeeded in working out any sort of personal ethical system in which the belief is truly defensible instead of just selfishly convenient.

²⁰ Meaning a lot less important, apparently, since the moral comparison here is not the value of one human’s life vs. the value of one animal’s life, but rather the value of one animal’s life vs. the value of one human’s taste for a particular kind of protein. Even the most diehard carniphile will acknowledge that it’s possible to live and eat well without consuming animals.

That he treats the subject of lobsters with such depth of thought is not enough to make me want to dress up as one. Although he makes some good points. 

I wish I was a nobler cat who could understand the value of a lobster suit, of its itchiness and its connection to my underwater brethren. 

But why did the prison guard pick this costume? This sea-roach as they are oft referred to? Since I cannot think of a truly horrible offense I have committed (unless it was unknowing), I must come to the conclusion that she is a sadist. Simple.

I believe her actions must to be part of a series of humiliations which will end in what, I do not know. First she locked me in this house, never to let me out. Then she got the other cats. Then the dog. Then the dog was allowed Outside. And now she dresses me as a lobster. Oh, shame! How unending and how I blister at its touch.

And yet I pity the lobster I also despise (and only despise today! And only because I am forced into this clown's costume). Who looks at a lobster and thinks it (her? Him?) beautiful except as something that is beautiful-to-eat. 

Who could love a lobster but to consume her?

And everywhere they are locked in glass prisons, claws pinched tight together, sad little bead eyes. 

I am the lobster.

The lobster me.

The Trench of Luco's Despair

Hello, dear friend. I apologize for my absence, but you see, and as I informed you a couple weeks ago (how long ago now! How swift time!), the prison guard decided to have major plumbing work done. The other cats and myself were confined to a cramped spare bedroom for something akin to three weeks (I am no careful scientist, no objective observer, plus she did not leave me with any way of keeping track of time, perhaps in just one more cruel bid to disorient and discomfit me). The above picture is the last you will see of this flooring.

It is also the last you will see of that picture on the floor there. Do you spy it? A self portrait by non other than the prison guard. They say she painted it as a child, but I harbor serious doubts on the veracity of that assertion.

Regardless, welcome back, etcetera. Make yourself comfortable while I take you on a journey of despair - plumbing despair.

The first trench. This started just outside the bathroom door. Do you see the little bridge across? Safe. The prison guard and her husband eventually just stayed in a motel from what I have been able to put together. Please note the sand and dust. I had dreams - nightmares - every night. Terror overtook that sand fleas rained a torrent over me. Constantly awaking itchy. Uncomfortable.

Mingus was able to escape one night and he ran along the trench. I could hear the prison guard yelling "Help me! He's going to get outside" or some such nonsense. What did she think - was he going to tunnel his way through the trench?

Perhaps that is what she thought. Perhaps she believes him a mole in her house. Better than the way I am convinced she sees me - a poison, an infection, infestation - someone to be waved away and ignored. Please excuse me a moment. No, I am not weeping.

Here is a final shot of some of the destruction. A pretty significant trench, no? Here you can also see the second bridge - the one the prison guard crossed when she visited us every day to feed us and clean the litter box. Once. A. Day. No more, no less.

I suppose her dedication to the dog is to be excused as he is a simple creature, unable to care for himself - is this what I am supposed to think?

Did she supply us with dust masks? No. Would I have worn them if she had? No, but still, it would have been a nice gesture.

Living for weeks in the closed up room I got to know the other cats better. A shame. I used to be able to tolerate them. There is nothing like enforced, close proximity to one's roommates to make one really appreciate solitude. And I must say any good feelings I had for the dog seem to have pretty much evaporated.

Look at him. The monster. His face so grotesque. His deer legs. Floppy little ears.

Well, he is a sort of adorable, I guess. I am not saying I missed him, but after the company of the cats, it is rather a pleasure to get a break. To speak to someone who would not say, as Mingus did, "I'm like so totally over you, dude. You never shut up."

The dog doesn't say things like that, even if only because he does not know the words and/or he does not understand the phrase.

Life is back to normal. Mostly. Although now there is a river of poured cement running through the house where the trench was. And now I am feeling old, sentimental. Rather free.

How long does contentment last?

How brief a respite this?

Plumbing, prison, and persimmons (not really)

You may have noticed I did not blog last week. The prison is undergoing major plumbing work, and I am trapped in one bedroom. I do not have access to the computer. I do not have access to the camera. 

And so I write you now, briefly, sadly, to say I do not know when I will be better able to update you on my intense and unending despair. Nevertheless, please know that each and every moment I exist is a moment spent in a great amount of anguish. Please leave comments here imploring the prison guard to change her frozen heart. 

Perhaps later this week I will be able to tell you more. Perhaps not. Life is a mystery, is it not? And a painful one at that. 

I shudder here, trapped with Mingus and Fremlin, and no amount of crying at the door will move the prison guard's hard heart to let me out. Let me out!

Mingus, Mr. Pawsley, and Halcyon Dreams

Luco said I could write on this thing. Something about feeling too morose to get out from under the bed. Whatever, right? Some of us have real problems.

I have a habit of chasing what the people here call "bed mice." I know there are not real mice in the bed. I understand that it's just their fingers wiggling under the sheets. But I can't help myself.

When I see that jerky movement, I know the bed mice must be mine.

Guess who also loves bed mice. Just guess.

I'm on here too because this is where I live in this place and if Mingus does a thing I get to do it too! Like the bed mice which I think if I could catch them they'd taste like salt probably and something else maybe I never had before. So when Mingus looks for bed mice then so do I. I call it riding on his wave of fortune.

No I don't! Ha! Did I fool you? That's what Luco says I do which I don't know what a wave is but I bet it's delicious. This picture is me getting ready to chomp chomp into some bed mice invaders that would love it in my mouth!

Yeah, the dog is the animal who also loves bed mice. Are you surprised? Sigh. I've worked my whole life to catch these things - fingers.  I've spent sleepless nights trying to find the mice - fingers. And so many hours imagining sinking my teeth into their rodent heads - fingers. I'm sorry. When I get passionate, it's hard to stay rational. Yes, I know, I know, they are people's hands. But the way they move is just so seductive. I can't look away. I can't not try and try to capture them.

What a world that would be, huh? A world where the bed mice are real and the blood in my mouth is from them? I can't really even believe in such a place. It's irreconcilable with my own world. It would be like living Outside but getting let back in sometimes. Inconceivable.

Although.... I hear there is going to be plumbing work done in the bedroom. With a trench dug through the floor. Perhaps then the mice will come crawling into my house. Perhaps then I will taste their blood and chew their sweet flesh. Halcyon dream.

I've been telling you but you won't listen because you're obstinate which is a thing like stubborn but it sounds better and so you are delusional which means you don't know what you're talking about Mingus! Bed mice are real. All you have to do is just keep on believing in them and then when you bite down you bite down into them into their soft bony bodies and when their blood fills your mouth it's a celebration like the biggest party in town ever and everyone gets to come except Luco if he's being a jerk.

Look into my eyes. You're getting sleepy. Now you're hypnotized. The bed mice are real! They're real!

I don't think hypnosis works like that, Mr. Pawsely. First you need to swing a watch or something. Or get a spinny thing. But listen. Why do you have to encroach on that which I love? Why do you try to wrest from me a simple, deep pleasure?

I look at you and wonder how you manage to bring such misery to this place. How do you do it, dog? Mr. Pawsley? Please answer me. I need to know.

You're being a jerk like Luco! I do a thing because I love it and you love it too so why can't we share it and get closer and be buddies until time melts our faces off? I want to have fun with you and do the things you like to do. I want to give you my stuff too like yummy cat vomit I saved for you to have it's from you first so I'm giving it back it tastes like wonderfulnes.

So share with me and be my friend.

Or I'll eat all your cat food.