Alfie on Boston

Why do we keep doing this?

It's 11:13 on a Tuesday night and I can't get comfortable on this couch (although it's plush and I'm soft) because I keep hearing the question - why do we keep doing this?

Maybe you're wondering what I mean. Maybe you know.

Maybe looking at me you see how I wrestle - attempting and failing, attempting and failing, attempting and failing yet again to make sense of things.

In Boston three people die, many are injured, and for what? We ask ourselves why do we keep doing this and then change our Facebook profile picture in solidarity.

We change our Instagram profile picture in solidarity.

Our Tumblr picture in solidarity.

You catch my drift?

And what does it do?

Still these people are dead, still we have the question ringing through our heads why do we keep doing this why do we keep doing this except some of us try to fight the sting of it by asking why do they keep doing this as though there ever was a they, as though we were ever anything but us.

Us, not even you humans, us, life. Us, breathing.

Us, the pulsing and the expanding and the rocked with anguish for that which is beloved. Water, air, food, drink, love, hope, touch, abstraction abstraction abstraction, and then the face you dream, eyes filling with emotion - there, that is all of us - there, that, your most loved, that is all of us.

When we are met with tragedy and we react with anything less than empathy we become the villains. When we don't allow ourselves to know reality; the hard, inescapable fact that people die like this each day. From pipe bombs and from unmanned drones and from landmines and friendly fire and poison and lack of nutrition and lack of care and when we see these deaths, and instead of seeing other living creatures, we see numbers, then we have truly numbed ourselves to what it means to be alive.

Numbers, numb - it seems to me no small coincidence the words so neatly twin.

When we say ____ number dead we move from identification, from us to dehumanization - I need a better word - automation-ization of the living - and then the crack crack cracking of bones and the spraying of blood take on a pixelated blur that allows us comfort.

Oh, it was them, those machine-interlopers, not mine-made-of-my-flesh-my-heart, so let them die!

Which is not what I am seeing when I see everyone with their Facebook profile pictures showing solidarity with the fallen, but it is what I hear with the frenzy of hate-talk.

Imagine suffering.

Imagine a suffering so intense all you can think of is spreading it.

This is how so many of us feel. Every day. To deny this is to lie and also to make ourselves less safe. Instead, we must face the inherent inequities of our world, and more than that, we must do something about it. We can't just sit at our computer, watching Jenna Marbles (who I love, btw, even though she has never yet mentioned Wuthering Heights), and ask ourselves wonderingly why do they keep doing this.

Why do we keep doing this. Every moment unreflected is a contribution to the magnitude of suffering the world over - and you know this, you know this. This is why you don't want to know how hotdogs are made.

It is why I change the channel when a Human Society commercial comes on.

And yes, it's easier to not face it, but only easier in that moment we turn away.

Every single moment after that we are damning ourselves, our world, our children's world, and any beautiful, beloved thing you can think of. We damn them with our love of convenience. With our good intentions.

Why do we keep doing this?

Because we believe there to be a they.

Slippy is a Murderer!!!!!

Hello you know me my name is Slippy Slipper my full name is actually really long if you want me to I'll tell you it it has all my titles that I earned from schooling and such it is: Jefferson Cornelius "Slippy"Pawsley AA PA BA PhD Esq.

My PhD is what I'm most proud of and it's what helped me think of my very sneaky thoughts which I'll tell you in just a minute hold on and let me establish some context!

This is MR the prison guard the one who keeps us here and who sometimes sometimes sometimes gives me things like chicken meatballs and other stuff like rice and cheese and things which I eat when I put them into my mouth and chomp down on them slowly and quickly the both because then I can slowly taste them quickly all over my tastebuds!

But lately she's been getting on my nerves because she says no no no to chicken meatball and she won't ask her sister Anna to come over and make me a Slippy Cake which is a thing only her sister Anna knows how to make and but she won't do it because she got meaner and more mean and meaner more than that.

Sometimes I look at her and I'm angry and I'm hungry too. And it's her fault for all these feelings I have inside me like the buzz buzzing of flies around a rotten fruit in the backyard. I could've eaten that fruit if my legs took me faster where my nose wants to go! Stupid MR. Stupid flies. Stupid legs.

But then I had my sneaky idea which shows you how smart I am and you'll see when you look at all my diplomas which prove it! 

Dr. Slippy!

Dr. Pawsley! No one calls me that but they do sometimes. My smart idea here it comes.

Maybe MR. Maybe she's tasting good too?

So being my smartest meant knowing to approach her carefully. I licked her wrist to see how she tasted and to calm her down gently with my soft doggy demeanor.

It worked.

Once she was calm I worked on hypnotizing her which is a thing I learned when I was getting my PA which is a good thing to have if you're a dog who wants to make that money!

Then she got thoroughly hypnotized and I knew my trap was foolproof and it was set and soon it would be like MR was Alice tumbling down a rabbit hole except that rabbit hole would really be down my throat into my belly when I munched on her as a snack that would probably be tasting a lot like a chicken pot pie I think.

That's what I thought to myself anyway as I readied the attack.

She couldn't really fight back because of my good hypnosis work and so I got her on her face thinking yes yes this is it Slippy and it was it when it was it which was great for me because that's what I wanted anyway a nice evening snack!

Then I pelted her with dog pain raining from the dog sky of dog justice and prowess and she cowered and cried but I showed no mercy because I hadn't had anything to eat since dinner which was at least seventeen thousand years ago!

Really. My stomach was taking on its own personality making my paws slam down again and again it was like I had become a monster I had no control and my stomach it just growled and growled I was fierce.

I was a force of nature.

I was getting hungrier and hungrier.

Then it was all over and she was dead. Time for my feast! I thought to myself. I also thought to myself this: mwah ha ha which is I think how you make a villain laughing sound and if it's not please imagine however it's supposed to be spelled like that's how I spelled it because that is what my laughter sounded like it was full of malice and really evil and mean because that's just how I roll.

I'm a hardcore dog. From the streets of Miami. Survived a hit and run and so you think I'm going to let a tummy rumble bring me down? No. Dr. Pawsley plays for keeps, okay? And so be frightened of me!!

Although I do wonder if my propensity for violence speaks any of the love I lost as a puppy the years I spent trailing humans hoping one would pull me up into her arms and cradle me home.

Maybe it speaks of a heart too ravenous to accept any but the most intense of love - that which is all consuming - literally - and so I have to use hyphens to show you how very very very serious I am and now I am now now now feeling contrite and everything for really truly eating MR to death because my social commentary can be as deep as Luco's.

But I have to tell you one more thing of importance that I think you'll like hearing if maybe right now I've brought you to tears with this missive of emotionality and pizza yearning.

April Fools'.

Mingus Believes in Love and Freedom

I feel like I'm trapped in a cage, even though I'm (finally!) Outside, tucked back behind the air conditioner where no one, especially not Luco - no will find me.

Well, I guess MR with her camera found me, but then she's always been somewhat of a pest, so I'm used to it.

I'm not sure. I don't really know how I feel, actually, after reading Luco's blog post.

What? Did he think I wouldn't see it? Does he think I don't read his blog? I've got to read his blog, even if just to know when he's going to be cranky (I kinda read more to see when he's not going to be cranky, as that state of affairs is far rarer).

And what do I find? This, like, love letter. To me.

He's not kidding - we've been living together for eight years. I mean, if anyone in my life has ever known me, it's him.

So I'm confused.

And then there's these court cases about Prop 8 and DOMA and I feel like my brain has become loose in my skull when I realize that you people, you humans, you're still not sure whether you want to grant all-every of you rights? What?

This is a topic of debate?

Granted I'm a cat. Okay? Fine. You can say what you will about the intellectual prowess of your feline brethren, but it doesn't take much (any?) reasoning power to see that denying anybody the rights to commit to the person they love is backwards, self-righteous, cruel, stupid, absurd.

I understand some people are locked behind their own assumptions of what other people's love lives should look like, but so what? Then don't look, silly, or ask yourself this: what gives me authority over other people?

This question feels like it wiggles out of my control when I think about it too deeply. What gives me authority? Nothing.

Again, yeah, I'm a cat, but still, I'm a thinking, reasoning, feeling creature, just like you, and who am I or who are you to believe we have some kind of insight into how other people should run their lives? It's ludicrous, especially when it comes from people who say otherwise they want the government out out out out out of their lives and god's love in in in in in in the heart of humanity.

But they'll take government control, please, when the government is on their side, taking freedom from people they believe ought to be shackled for not conforming to expectations.
. 

Literally, probably, shackled and led away by rolling red and blue lights. And what is this idiocy about gay parents being unfit? Parents who love and care for their children are good parents, regardless of their sexuality. If kids have anything to do with anyone's sex life (except conception, I guess), then something is seriously wrong - so if homophobic people are concerned about gay parents and kids, I find that rather alarming.

Also alarming to me is that some parents teach their kids to hate. Why in a world so fraught, so wracked by violence, would anyone ever want to teach a child to continue this tradition? It makes the world less safe for that child in a fundamental way.

Why destroy beauty? Why ever, ever do anything to diminish complexity?

All of this just makes me want to stay back here, back behind the air conditioner, until the whole world wakes up sane one day. Maybe. When we can regard each other as something closer to equals.

I'm not suggesting, really, not honestly, that you'll ever look a cat in the face and say "sister," but still. Sister or brother or family or whatever. I use sister because it was my default to say brother and I'm trying I'm trying I'm trying to fight against these kinds of assumptions we all have about who and what we value. And why.

Because assumptions and expectations take away from our lives. They diminish us by narrowing our worlds into easy-to-understand-cartoons. The thing is, life is nothing if not complicated, and so why should we ever strive to make it easy to understand? Depleting complexity depletes beauty. Makes life less lived, less real.

I am nothing if not confounded by Luco, that old bully. Loving me? And the ways I love him?

But anyway, it makes sense, you know, that children want to understand the world. That they want categories of people: the good guys, the bad guys (the good gals, the bad gals) - but we do us and them a disservice when we fall into this way of thinking (so comfortable) when we know better. I mean, honestly, I know kids who know better - who see that this binary kind of thinking can only be dishonest.

I am only me because you are you. This world is possible because you are. Because I am. Because together we reach and we strain and we work at understanding and compassion.

We have to start working harder.

Start working to convince those lost that ideology is not real. Your thoughts, beliefs, feelings - these things are as ephemeral as the dust on your book shelf. Roll it between two fingers, fine, but then blow it off. Look into the sky. Tell someone you love what you see in the clouds. What shapes dragon forth. What melodies you hear in the wind.

You and I and everyone, we are ephemeral as well, we are evanescent, but less so than our beliefs, thank gravity, because your hand on my paw sends neurons firing.

And Luco's eyes following me light my senses.

We mistake belief for fact and then kill for it. We maim and terrify, mutilate and murder. How can any idea pursued to this end be seen as logical? If you start at contempt and end at hate and aggression, how can you ever convince yourself you're spreading "god's love?" What kind of god would condone treating each other the way we do?

Oh, sad, slippery slope. I'm reminded of how we treat the poor and the needy, the homeless and downtrodden, the bereft and vulnerable - the people most deserving of our care seem never to receive it.

Why did I get up today? What is this butterflying in my stupid, sad heart? Oh, Luco, of course I love you.

Of course I do. And I've always believed in love and in freedom. In compassion and understanding as a means of bridging gaps. 

Jump from your heart to mine. Stay still and dream as I do. Know you are as much me as I am myself, as I know I am as you as you are. So, therefore, how could we ever separate? How not love? 

And, therefore, the homophobic poison themselves as much as they do anyone else when they march, strident, against the future. Against freedom and against love.

Because they suffer, confused about reality, they spread suffering. They confuse belief for Truth and so falter. It is our work to show them the truths - the pluralities. The many ways in which lives can be made full and rich. 

And so we must fight the impulse to poison them back. We must instead embrace them as we embrace each other. We are them are us are they are all.

  And so we must love.

(Click on the link above and watch the video from the Anti-Defamation League - it's really, really great.)

Luco wishes you a belated happy Valentine's Day

  

I know it is post Valentine's Day. Post-February the 14th. I have missed it! That time of  hearts, cheap candy, and cries of love. Devotion.

And I know I let the day slide by. I did not look any of the animals in this house in the eye - say to them dearest, my heart is in your paw or something else as bland. Instead I slept. Slept and dreampt and then awoke to find Mingus in bed with me.

Mingus, uninvited. Mingus, my cellmate these past eight years.

Strange how quickly and how very slowly eight years have washed over us. A moment ago, here he was mewling in the night: today I am an old feline, bent, stooped. And he hardly any green left.

He is half my size and twice my heart.

And if I were the type to fall and fall in love, it would be into him that I would tumble.

See you his spotted paws? His vulpine ears?

And when he dreams he moves his body, inching closer or further away from me. His whiskers tremble with slightest sigh.

I did not ask him to be my Valentine. I have never asked anyone to my Valentine be.

And if I did, what would he say? Would he scoff, tossing golden fur in disdain? I imagine every bone in my body disintegrating at the sound.

Maybe I would say - my heart

                                          is a kind of poison            tonight

it is overfull

                                  and  you     an antidote

His laughter would be so resounding as to wake every sleeping bird, every nestling thing starting up, reaching for mother, craning neck to hide - small, small - and I a ghost, then, disappeared, then.

Perhaps he would be angry at my audacity. Angry that after eight years, eight years, I am now sidling up to him, searching his eyes for warmth. He might have loved me once and forgotten. He might have loved me once and grown to hate me. He might have loved me once, before I became who I have become.

And who am I? That which encompasses everything and which is itself nothing - that which is of the air - that which cannot be named and yet we name - the same as you and as you and as you and as you.

And happy Valentine's Day to us all, yes? To us all searching and not finding, or searching and then finding and then losing, or searching, and having searched, grown tired - to all of us buried beneath the rubble of ridiculous expectations. To the tyranny of desire. To knowing better and not caring. To never knowing better and not wanting to learn.

To all of us awake in the middle of the night, startled by Mingus' laughter which permeates our dreams.

And yet he lies here, with me, and I lie silent, lying to myself, playing word games in my stupid head, imagining my tongue on his ear. My body covering his.

And doing nothing. Nothing.

Happy belated Valentine's Day. I could not bring myself to post this before. I could not bring myself to face these feelings.

And facing them has taught me this.

Luco is to craven as Mingus is to kiss.

Family Portrait

Some of you have been asking the prison guard how many of us prisoners there are and how we are all related (none by blood, I can this tell you truly), and so I thought I would do you the (dis)service of making our "family" clearly known.

My name is, as you may have already surmised, Luco - Luco de la Cabeza Grande is my full name, although my head is mostly average (perhaps smallish would be more accurate) sized now; when I was a kitten, it was so like a balloon as to tip me forward on my paws.

The prison guard suggested I list "likes" and "dislikes" and other such nonsense on here, so here we go, reader, on a journey asinine and superfluous.

Birthday: February 2001
Birthstone: Amethyst
Astrological sign: I am not even going to look this up. My astrological sign would be a bookshelf next to a comfortable couch and my astrological traits would be as follows: prone to melancholy and scholarly endeavors. Rarely satisfied with life outside of literature. On a constant quest for self and societal advancement, but only in the most passive manner imaginable.
Likes: Tuna water, books, the Outside, open windows, books, quiet afternoons, spots of sunshine, books.
Dislikes: Dogs, other cats, loud noises, ignorance, and more so than ignorance I think willful ignorance, intellectual dishonesty, long walks on the beach.
Relation to the prison guard: MR had a stray cat (my mother) she cared for and was planning on "fixing," but before she could do so, said stray had me and four brothers and sisters. MR kept me. I do not know what happened to my kin. I assume they are all dead.

And now I will move on to the other members of the house. I have transcribed their answers to the best of my ability, but in some cases (see: Slippy) I am simply at a loss as to the true meaning of their utterances (I have chosen to use punctuation as I am the transcriber, but please note, some of the below animals [see: Slippy] do not believe in punctuation. I, however, feel it improves reader comprehension).

Name: Slippy, Slipperson, Slope, Slopey, Yopey, Slipper, Slip, and any of the other things you say to me that you say in a nice voice that might also be my name like good lookin', cutie pie, baby boo, and other stuff also maybe the words like ham if you say it the right way which means it would soon be in my mouth.
Birthday: I don't know which on one of the days I was born on, but maybe probably it was a Saturday, which is a great day because then MR is home all the time and she hangs out with me and with her boyfriend and they take us Outside on long walks in the sun and everything feels great - like it's great to be alive, you know? So my birthday was probably on the best day because it was so lucky for me to get born.
Birthstone: Ham
Astrological sign: I check my fortunes every day by reading the Internet when if Luco lets me (please excuse the authorial intrusion, but no, friends, he does not do this) and I always pick the best fortunes to be mine, which I think the ones that have the best fortune every of the time is the astrological sign of the Dragon of Darkness, which is my astrological sign, which means I am very tough and dangerous, but I have a sweet side too. Also, my other astrological sign is Pepperoni Pizza.
Likes: You, ham, you Luco, food, My Scarecrow Lucy, corn muffins, MR's boyfriend, butter, the other animals, ice cream, MR, every of the food, sleeping, calzones, going Outside, rice, squirrels, cookies, MR's sister Anna, Chicken Meatball, bread, peanut butter, bones, chicken, ham, ham, ham, and ham.
Dislikes: None of the above! I love all of it and every of you! Every all of the things are what I love and I can eat all of everything too if I put it in my mouth really quickly!
Relation to the prison guard: Two years ago around this time MR saw me at a place called the Animal Aid where they are really nice and aid animals and she saw me being sweet and wonderful like how I do all the times, and then so she took me home to be living here with her.

Name: Lucifer Elizabeth Poops, Lucy, the Scarecrow, Miss Lucy
Birthday: I prefer not to remember my birthday, thanks. I'm one of those "lucky" dogs rescued from a puppy mill... So, for me anyways, birthdays are more painful than not. I'm happy to celebrate every other day, you know? But not that.
Birthstone: Since I've chosen to not know my birthday, I have no idea what my birthstone would be, but I choose the heliotrope, i.e. bloodstone, because it sounds the most terrifying, and we all know that in order to survive, we have to be terrifying to our enemies (like the mailman/maulman, amirite?).
Astrological sign: The bloodstone puts me in March, but I don't like all this wishy-washy stuff about emotions and the water for Pisces, so if you don't mind, I'm going to take a cue from Slippy (of all creatures!) and Luco and just make up my own. My astrological sign is the Fire-Chainsaw. No one is going to mess with the Fire-Chainsaw. Do you think the UPS guy is going to try to break in and serially kill everyone in the house of a dog with the astrological sign of Fire-Chainsaw? No, no way. He's, like, going to be running away from this prison as fast as those stupid brown shoes of his can take him. Fire-Chainsaw.
Likes: MR's boyfriend, Hiding, food, MR, Slope, patrollin', studying to be a police officer, reading up on conspiracy theories, any kind of food (especially if it's on the ground outside - and it's been there for a few days to ripen), going for long walks, connecting the dots, surveillance of all kinds, sleeping with one eye open, getting pets, barking, hiding.
Dislikes: Stupid people walking down the sidewalk who I don't know and who could at any moment throw grenades at the house and kill all of us inside, loud noises, anyone knocking on the door- ever, doorbells, people trying to get into my house which I personally own with all my teeth, lack of food, lack of walking, people talking outside my windows at night and so I want to kill them, anyone ever that I don't really know at all, all the things I want to eat and can't.
Relation to the prison guard: Something like six years ago, I can't keep track of dates any more, MR's boyfriend picked me up from Tri County and we've been together ever since. I've lived here, in this prison, for just about a year now. I love having a big back yard to chase and try to kill squirrels in - it's really quite lovely.

Name: Dr. Meena Claw, Fremlin, Dr. Claw, Old Lady, Meena Meena, Freemie, Da Grouch
Birthday: I can't be expected to remember when I was born. They call me Old Lady because I am old. 16, which is something far older than what it means to be 16 as a human, I can tell you that for certain.
Birthstone: I don't care.
Astrological Sign: Well, this I do know, because I once had my astrological charts done, back when I remembered my birthday. I believe I am, yes, I'm a Capricorn with a Libra rising, which if you know anything about astrology shows you I'm a very even tempered, fair kind of creature. I mean, I know that astrology is a pseudoscience, but you should've seen my chart (I wish I had kept it, but I lost it in one of the many moves I've been through in my long life) - it was so accurate as to be rather creepy.
Likes: Not being alone, tuna water, cat food, drinking from the toilet bowl, knowing more about life than Luco, creeping outside - really low and slow? -- and then coming back in before anyone realizes I've been out, watching lizards, large patches of sunshine on the terrazzo, sleeping on MR's pillow, getting pets, going wild at 3:00am, precision, contemplation, pillows.
Dislikes: Closed doors, being alone all of the time, closed doors, loud noises, strangers, closed doors, lack of cat-pets, getting picked up, being ignored.
Relation to the prison guard: Did I mention I'm like 16 years old? As far as I know, there has only ever been this prison I'm living in now, and only ever this prison guard to feed and to pet me. I dimly remember, as I stated earlier, moving again and again in my life, but the past is to me as a shadow. I can't touch it, it doesn't seem real. All life is ephemeral - devoid of characteristics outside of our perception - and therefore this life I live now is, to me anyway, the life I've always lived. I've always-already known MR. I've always-already slept close to her head, purring into her hair.

Name: Charlie Mingus, Mingus, Mingy Mongy, Mopey, the Goose, Gooper, the Mayor of Scruffy Town, Mingy, Mingusy, Mingleson
Birthday: Maybe September?, 2003
Birthstone: If we're gong with September, then I choose the sapphire.
Astrological sign: Either Virgo or Libra. But, wow, how boring, right? I like how Luco, Slipper, and Lucy all got to choose their signs, so I'm making one up too. My astrological sign is Jazz Music, like my name, but it's an ironic paradox because I really rather hate music. Seriously, as soon as MR starts playing the piano I'm out of the room like a brisk ocean breeze. Anyway, and so Jazz Music represents my essential nature, which is passionate, curious, mysterious, free, and wild - also sometimes atonal.
Likes: bathing, keeping myself and my surroundings clean, going Outside, stalking birds, sleeping with MR when stupid Dr. Claw isn't taking up the entire pillow, Roland Barthes (for what he has to say about literary theory - really interesting stuff, his), Chicken Meatball, sleeping, escaping.
Dislikes: Loud noises, music, strangers, people coming to the door, closed doors, the other animals, dirt, grit, grime, dust.
Relation to the prison guard: MR rescued me from Tri County (hey, Lucy! We have something in common after all) back in 2004. We've moved eight times since then, so I kind of like it that she has a prison now, even if I sometimes feel over-safe, that is to say, trapped; it's better than all that moving.

Name: Alfie, Alfonso Tupelo, Alferson, Schmalfie, Alfonso, Tubby Tubs
Birthday: My origin story goes thusly: a happy young couple purchased me from a Siberian Cat breeder as a gift to themselves for their engagement. After a few years they had children and had to move closer to their parents who were deathly allergic to cats, so the couple found a home for me. That home was with MR's mother, who kept me and loved me until she couldn't anymore, and then I moved in with MR. So my birthday is I don't know when. Maybe I have papers somewhere?
Birthstone: A black diamond (I don't actually know what my birthstone is, but I think it would be something as unique and incredible as a black diamond, don't you? Let's just use it as an apt analogy, okay?).
Astrological sign: Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights. Because shut up.
Likes: Cat food, other food, meat, going Outside, reading, Wuthering Heights, sleeping, pillows, blankets, laps, all people, every person, children, people coming over, getting pets, looking in the mirror to behold my own beauty, being beautiful, style, being stylish, love, hope, anticipation, gifts, beauty, poetry, my cool attitude.
Dislikes: Um, bad hair days?
Relation to the prison guard: See my origin story above - don't make me type it out again, please, as my paws have become painfully sore. I need to go get a manicure now.

Four cats, two dogs, one prison: another way to name hell.

The Many Alfies of the Internet

The Internet is, maybe you know this already, a weirdo kind of place. Maybe I'm a weirdo-ish kind of cat, but the Internet, it appeals to me. To my sense of myself as rather very much larger than life. And, I mean, don't we all feel this way sometimes? That we must be bigger than this moment, than our own ability to comprehend the everyday. That we transcend the mundane.

It's not just me, right? Anyway.

So I found this Web site, PhotoFunia.com (well, a FB friend of MR's, Colleen M. Dougher [read her excellent blog about South Florida art) made her aware of it, and she told me about it, and I got Luco off the computer long enough to mess around with it a bit), and basically I love it. I can live new lives, represent myself to others as I see myself in my brain and in my heart and in my superb dreams.

And listen. No, I've not been imbibing wine. I haven't. I'm just... Relaxed. And energized. Excited. The below series of photos and what they manage to communicate about my innermost makes me happier than the last time I read Wuthering Heights (just finished it up last night). Call me Heathcliff, friends. We can all drink to that.

Not that I'm drinking.

What was that? I felt a tentacle of ice wind its way down my throat. Was that a note of derision in your voice? Of disbelief.

Prevaricater I am not, and I will tell you this: yes, I enjoy a fine Merlot, and no, the movie Sideways didn't make me fall head over heels over head for Pinot - it's just rather too dusty for my palate. Which, please, do not interpret as juvenile. For one I love other French wines. I love champagne. It's just the Pinot does nothing for me.

Anyway. So you see, I've told you this: I've tried wine, love it, sure, but this isn't a drunken confession of asinine mind-wandering. No. I've been driven to distraction lately by my need to feel as though I more fully fill the air around me. To feel as though I'm being taken seriously by my prison-mates and my admirers.

MR's father, well, he moved out, and he was my only amigo in this desolate place.

Listen. Don't judge me. When you've been alone as long as I have, when you've been dragged from one house to the next and then threatened with abandonment again (sort of as soon as you're settled in a place) due to "bad behavior" or some such nonsense (I fail to see the cause for irritation at my gato agua, if you will, when it's spritzed gently around the house), and then you meet a man who you feel really, finally gets you. And he's gone? Well.

There was only some Pinot left on the counter and you know I hate that Pinot, so no no no, I didn't have much more than a sip, a swallow, I wouldn't say I've been drinking.

There was another soul I loved dearly, and I can barely speak her name. MR's mother. We were also parted due to circumstances beyond either of our control.

And now I rot here, in this prison of pests who do not appreciate great literature! Or at least who do not appreciate Wuthering Heights, which if they don't appreciate that, the very idea that they even know how to read is suspect!

Oh, I could weep.

What was I talking about?

Yes, yes, I found this Web site, MR found this Web site, I mean, Colleen M. Dougher found this Web site and I love it. Let me give you some examples of the many and wonderful lives I lead in my glorious imagination. Come, be free with me in a world devoid of regulations and parameters. Together we'll become more than we ever could've conceived of before.

We'll be truly free.

Here is the picture I began with. Handsome, right? Doesn't hurt to be beautiful when embarking on myriad new evolutions of the self!

I think this one is inspirational. Add it at the end of a poem. The poem would be elegant and never over-wrought. Imagistic. Something like:

Slow, I lift my head

it smells in here of cat nip

but it won't be found

Imagine what that man is thinking: My god! The sheer power of aesthetics! Here, a cat, finally, who has become a kind of tinder inside my bones. The warmth of his beauty will keep me through the winter.

Fame! Imagine what amazing actions I've taken to get on the cover of the Annandale Advocate. Maybe I saved a child from a burning building. Perhaps I kept a world power from declaring nuclear war. Or I invented a cure for each disease.

Perhaps I climbed a ladder. Saved a mewling kitten from a too-tall tree.

And here! What an interesting movie these kitties are watching. Why, it's me, Alfie, as Heathcliff in my directorial debut remaking Wuthering Heights to be more accessible to a modern audience. Ah, they're thinking, this is the best screen adaptation we've ever seen. Give that cat an Oscar.

Like I said, I've not been drinking, really, but if I had been, this would be the wine, friends. Chateau d'Alfonso, 2013, a refined vino if ever there one was.

And with all the vampire craze of recent days, I thought why not get in on that. So I did. And who more debonair than me? More lovely and more seductive than Alfonso Tupelo.

Yeah, I can't think of anyone either. I love how the Internet lets me transform. How it helps me communicate my true, multiple selves.

How amazing, this age we live in. That I can experiment with such abundance.

Even if it's really mostly isolating because I'll never have the courage or the ability to act out these identities IRL. Even if I can't actually even open the front door and exit this prison. Even if, in the end, I'm a poor, sad player, performing my lines, and badly, to an audience of nil.

Even if, even if, you don't love me anymore.

Even if I make bad Don Henley references for no apparent reason. Gah. Excuse me. I'm going to find that terrible Pinot and go back to bed.

Out, out, brief candle!