Alfie is Lonely, Frustrated

Oh, hey there. I like to sleep on a child's piano. Is that strange? I sleep alone, now is it weird? When do we get to weird? Let's just get there, okay? I'm so sick of the derision I imagine roiling in your eyes like potatoes in a pot of boiling water. 

Rage potatoes.

That's where I am today, I guess, metaphorically anyway. Figuratively.

But let's be fancy and make the potatoes the small and varied type - the blue and the red and the finger shaped. Roiling, toiling, what was it I was saying?

Oh yeah, hi. It's summer. Hot. Sticky. Got a haircut (furcut?). The top of this child's piano is cool. It settles my addled heart.

Addled for these reason both: MR, the prison guard, she's found out how I was jumping the fence in the backyard and now I'm confined to its limits: the cat I saw when fence-jumping, now I can only see her when she deigns come to me.

Which isn't as often as I'd wish. I call her Sharon - don't know her real name. She is small and she is feral. Mostly grey with some calico across her face. We roll and we play and MR frets I'll catch something from her.

Ugh, typical bourgeoisie BS. Because the cat is homeless, she must be flea bitten and sick. Because she is feral, she must be crude, rude, a big, bad dude (oh, heavens, where did that rhyme come from? Readers! My malaise is affecting my very language. I didn't realize the situation was so dire!).

I need to get it together. 

There's another reason I sleep thusly, and I'm kind of ashamed to admit it, but here we go.

Yeah, these guys. Bear-Bear and Dribble-Doggy.

Unlike MR they don't judge my Heathcliffesque adoration of Sharon - they don't judge my desire for chicken meatballs - they don't judge my new furcat (haircut?) - they simply allow me to press against their softness and dream of grey and calico.

And, why should I be ashamed! It's Luco and his elitism, MR and her ignorance, the other animals and their beastliness.

No. No it's not. I'll be honest.

It does something to my idea of myself when I'm locked up, trapped, forced to nap like a prisoner in this air-conditioned living room. I want to feel the cool of the morning grass against my belly. The heat rising from asphalt in palpable waves. To drink the blood and the guts of lizards too slow for my claws, too sun-dazed to resist me.

And I want to do these things with Sharon.

We could eat rage potatoes together beneath a gleaming super-moon (Sunday, 6/23/13, folks).

Bear-Bear and Dribble-Doggy get me. They understand me on a fundamental level. They must - otherwise how could they so perfectly anticipate my needs?

They know I need to dream and to dream and to dream.

And to feel less alone.

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.

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!

Happy 4th of July, Love Alfie

It has been too long since we've spoken. I can only imagine how you must have pined for my beautiful face. And it is, isn't it? My face? I'm beautiful - Helen of Troy issue, at least figuratively (the literal in this instance would be ridiculous, friend, don't you dare think me so foolish) - but please, I haven't meant to be vain.

It's just that I try to face facts, reality. And, for really real?

I'm gorgeous. Pulchritudinous. Magnificent.

But I guess that's, as they say, neither here nor there. Except perhaps you're happier to read this because I'm writing it, haha. I wanted to say a thing to you, and Luco was gracious enough to allow me use of his platform (we other cats joke it's his walk-the-platform, as in, read Luco's blog and walk the plank, the plank of despair, you know, into a shark tank of misery, but we don't mean to be cruel. Joking about his blog allows us briefest moments of levity).

So, anyway, here it is: Happy Fourth of July, Internet.

Luco didn't want me to say that. Wouldn't have let me write this blog if he knew. But I care not! I love sparklers and lemonade and tiny little American flags. Fireworks I care not much for, although I do, as a comely creature, enjoy their beauty.

Why would he not want me to wish you this?

He is a grouch, a grinch. He'd go on about atrocities this, and unjust imprisonment that. Major corporate takeover blah blah.

Not that I'm an anti-activist, it's just I believe there is room for critique and for celebration.

Like that time I saved a litter of kittens from doom. They were huddled in a picnic basket, about to tumble down a waterfall, but I swooped through the air (I had donned my flying squirrel pants, but that's a story for another day) and caught the basket in my mouth, swinging them to freedom on the lush riverbank.

How the kittens protested when I proceeded to eat the sandwiches sandwiched next to them in their picnic basket. Their grousing didn't stop me from eating those delicious ham and cheeses and it didn't change the fact that I'd saved their mewling little selves.

A well fed hero, that's what I like to be.

How does that relate to the Fourth of July and patriotism (or perhaps Luco would grumble nationalism, but again, he's a grouch, a grouch, and if he just did something with his looks, he might find his mood improved. Speaking of, have you noticed my hair cut? Fur cut? It is utterly divine in this summer heat to be shaved thus. They call it a Lion Cut because they look into my heart and know my true nature - they know the wildness that prowls my bowels and my eyes, waiting for the chance to streak, firecracker bright, into the night sky).

Honestly, I'm not entirely sure how it relates, except for the matter of subjectivity, which is to say, life is as we understand it to be, and if a creature is unable to ever peer through something like the foreign pupils of empathy, then that creature will never approach understanding, not even to lick it lightly with barest tongue tip, and never taste the desire of another.

We must all strive to pull on the boots of others, to lace them up to our thighs and prance around in them, puss in boots of all-who-live.

Right? Or do you think me mad? I wonder sometimes when I read Wuthering Heights for the fifteenth, fiftieth, five hundredth time. Why do I so identify with this literature? Maybe I'm morbid, captivated by so much death and thwarted passion (as I imagine my passions to be thwarted?).

I can't be sure, but I love these lines which end the novel:

I sought, and soon discovered, the three headstones on the slope next the moor: on middle one grey, and half buried in the heath; Edgar Linton's only harmonized by the turf and moss creeping up its foot; Heathcliff's still bare.

I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth. (251)

"Benign sky." I thrill so at each reading. I find it beautiful.

If I was a poet, I'd rewrite those final paragraphs this way:

three headstones grey half
buried harmonized by moss
creeping still
linger benign sky
watch moths fluttering heath
harebells soft breathing
grass imagine
unquiet slumbers
quiet earth

Ah, but I'm no poet, I mean, I might have been, Iowa said they were very interested in my manuscript, as did Cornell and Syracuse. And I might have attended these MFA programs, but I feel my place is here.

The flame to Luco's wick. Someone has to say to him, "Yes, Luco, it's okay to allow your belly to fill with joy at the sight of those sparklers, and look! A neighbor brought steak over to the vegetarian prison guard -she's left it out on the counter - let us eat it and rejoice, for today is the day to celebrate our freedom and our imprisonment, because who can be free but the already imprisoned?"

And we did eat the steak the well-meaning-neighbor brought over. It was delicious. I wish I had some now, but it's done, we finished it. And oh but when oh when oh when will I ever eat steak again?

True despair is to be left meatless. Without tenderest filet.

Perhaps Luco is right and I celebrate for nothing when that-which-I-celebrate is itself so fleeting, so sudden and but so immense is my joy.

No, it cannot be. My joy is boundless, my capacity for love limitless. And this is why I smile on the Fourth, and this is why I do not hide my eyes forever inside my book. It is irresponsible to see only misery; irresponsible to become drunk on anguish; irresponsible to fail to note that beauty, love, grace, charity, and compassion are bedfellows to desolation, ugliness, injustice, wretchedness, and oppression.

Irresponsible to ignore my elephantine heart.

Introducing, Alfonso Tupelo

Hello. I am, how should I say this? Beautiful, right? Puffy, certainly. Furry. I've been told I'm statuesque. Rubenesque. Romanesque. And when people say these things to me, the words are not, I've been assured, euphemisms for fat.

My name, if you didn't read the title, is Alfonso Tupelo, but usually I go by Alfie, and that's what you can call me, unless you are devoted to formalities, in which case I salute you, dearest lover-of-the-past. I enjoy titles myself. Sir Alfonso, esquire. Duke Tupelo. Mr. Alferson Shmalfie Tupac.

And I enjoy classic fiction. Wuthering Heights is, in my humblest opinion, the best novel ever written. Will you let me be your Heathcliff?

But why am I here, you ask?

I ask myself the selfsame question every morning I wake to a dog sniffing me, snuffling and poking at me, hoping for what? That I burst open, cat-pinata, gore covering the terrazzo and MR huffing and puffing to clean it all up? Bah. Dogs.

People do not say "whoresome dog" or "filthy dog" for no reason. They say these things because dogs are whoresome and filthy and all manner of unpleasant adjectives I won't go into because, frankly? I'm becoming bored of the whole dog-topic. Dogs: intrinsically boring as cat kibble: perfectly delicious.

So why, oh why, oh why am I here?

Let's just say I needed a place to stay. I won't go into specifics. You know how... limiting... specifics can be, don't you?

Although, hm, this is a topic MR complains about. She says she always has to attempt to convince creative writing students that it is in the specific the universal can be seen. She uses as an example hearing about starving kids or needy animals - how that's sad, sure, but we're not, apparently, moved to donate money or however it is we alleviate feelings of guilt until we see said suffering creatures actually suffering. We see their skinny legs and drowning eyes and then rush, run, winter-wind to the cellphone or telephone or fax machine (which is a what now?) and dial into the charitable void.

Specifically then? Because I don't want to rumple MR's feathers. Because it's with those feathers she pours the cat kibble.

I lived on a ship sailing the Atlantic. Their good luck cat, if you've heard of such a thing (or if you haven't). And oh, she was sea worthy, she was - the ship I mean. And we sailed all over this blessed, hellish earth. And I grew fat on rats and mice until one day I pissed off the captain because his delicious tuna sandwich jumped into my mouth and he threw me overboard and I had to swim to shore which is where I found MR, bending over to scoop shells into a net; she saw me and scooped me too and I ate all of the invisible shrimp she hadn't even known were swimming and jumping and turning in the water.

Or I was a gangster and I was a king pin at that; mansions and several million dollars worth of expensive things (like cat kibble, tuna fish, balls of twine, open windows and window openers, lizards). Constantly and with consistency I balled hard. My nemesis, another crime gangster animal named Mr. Porky, tried to take me down because I stole all her kittens' mittens.

I mean, I committed white collar crime. See my beautiful fur? How white and shining my collar is? And also I look too good to be free, is what the cops said to me, just too fine to be walking the streets alone.

Rather a neat parallel (neat as in clean and tidy, not as in cool or nice) to misogyny, I think, although I am not a woman, I am a cat, and I am not a female, I am a male. A better word might be, what? Arrhenphobia? Caligynephobia? Ailurophobia? Why is there no word for fear-of-beautiful-boy-cats?

I worked out a mathematical proof that substantiates my theorem regarding the likelihood of an entire new dimension. Scientists swarmed my house like E.T. They dragged me from my lab, burned all my notebooks; I had to watch my life's work flame into ash.

Or I'm nobility from a distant planet. I hold in my hungry heart the cure for all woe, all suffering; a simple nod from me and all your pain vanishes. The CDC heard about me and came calling. This is my hideout.

I'm sure one of these explanations satisfies you. And I'm certain you know I speak the truth when I say one of these is without a doubt the reason I moved in here. Most certainly.

 Or perhaps it's just I had no other place to go.