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!

Don't Listen to Slippy, aka Slope, "Yope" Isn't a Word

 

You are worried about the issues well Slippy that's me that's Slope I have the tissues for your issues if you want to let me hug you and lick your face I will love you and take care of you with my chicken noodle soup and things of that nature that are warm and soothing and make you feel so much.

Some people say that I'm not the one here for you that I shouldn't and therefore you shouldn't be voting on me they have a campaign I hate it it's called stupid NOPE ON SLOPE.

This is the stupid campaign picture if you look at it it probably hurts your head and makes your eyes tear with the sorrow of the unfairnesses in the world that crush our wholeheartedly loving souls that reach and reach for some kind of meaning and connection the kind I know is there shimmering there inside you like a pot of boiling water cooking delicious noodles for soon to be eating by me!

How could anyone not be voting for me I don't see it I just don't get it.

I dream of a world of bacon and of happiness where we embrace and when we do embrace it's each others essential natures we touch and hold and brush with our lips it's you I want to know and it's you.

I will work as hard as a Sloper to do my best to make this a better world by giving you the things you want like an ATM of candy and slippers made out of cheese for me to be eating.

If you vote for me I'll come over to your house and mow your lawn with my mouth by eating all of your meats and especially the pizza.

A vote for Slope is a vote for loving kindness and patience and all kinds of salted meats and also potato chips and vacations for everyone and health insurance and really long walks on the beach or otherwise and my heart and my heart and my heart and my heart.

Voting for me will also grow your world to a place with no boundaries like a limitless sea on the moon spiraling anti-gravity and free dinners on Tuesday nights for kids.

Vote YOPE on Slope which yope is a word it means yes and yes and yes and yes and vote yes to me and love me let me love you my heart is big and growing bigger I need you to let me know you so that I can have all that you are inside me.

If you can't read my poster it says I will eat bacon which is a true fact it has a picture of the POPE because POPE rhymes with SLOPE not for some religious reasons I don't even know what he's been believing and it says on my poster FREE tickets to Yourope which is I assure you a place you can go that you'll want to go to have fun there and Aaron helped me make my poster because he loves me and if he loves me just think you know you'll love me too I'm a little black dog and I'm tall too and skinny and I lick your face and I'll snuggle between your legs in the night and I'll give you everything that I have to share except maybe I'll keep some of the food if I get not that much of it but otherwise I'll be generous I promise.

Vote YOPE on SLOPE if you love.

Guest Blog: Banjo really, really likes Magic Shell Ice Cream Topping

Hello! I'm a dog that's a visitor by the name of Banjo and I visit to see Mr. Pawsley Slipperson who has gotten his advanced degrees already like a PhD which he had a 2.0 - not a very good GPA - but still a dog with a PhD he inspires me!

And Scarecrow Lucy Lu who is so bold and confident wages war on every stupid thing that tries to wrest from her stuff like her house and her food bowl. I'm impressed, yanno, and hope to be like her some day even if she doesn't have a PhD like Slippy does but if she did I bet if she applied herself she'd get a good GPA like at least a 3.0 or a 4.0!

For my life what I like to do is say hi to dogs and touch noses and be a really nice guy with puppies and older dogs too. I want all the dogs to break from their shells like their shells were made of that delicious Magic Shell which I can only have the nonchocolate flavors like cupcake and  Dr. Pepper and Cherry because chocolate makes dogs die I think from bursting inside from all the too good tastes of intensity and extreme satisfaction.

I also like small trees!

Sometimes Slippy and Lucy ask me if I'm lonely living alone unless I'm on my way to see them and then I barf in the car and I tell them the same thing which is this thing that I'll tell you too, okay?

Maybe sometimes I'm lonely, but I feel this sibilation filling my belly and it makes me know know know know know know there's something going on inside me something maybe holy? Like I've got a corner of the universe here in my gut and it stirs me, moves me, effervesces me to sleep when I fall asleep each night in the darkened room of my greatest jubilance. Which is to say if I recall what I was saying before I got something inside me joyful like Orange Crush Magic Shell. It fizzes!

And it burns and makes me move faster and faster through the back door to the porch and back inside and through the back door to the porch and back inside and through the back door because life to me is a jumbled whirlwind of desire: yes please pet me I want that rawhide it's lunch time I need you closer to me where are my people look a butterfly to eat and here I am now sudden with Slip and Luce and we together make something even more shining than me alone but that doesn't make me alone and my solitary whirring any less intense.

When we're together it's like getting all the flavors of the Magic Shell even the chocolate ones and eating it doesn't kill us instead it bursts our hearts in distinct fragments of organ and tissue but smelling sweet like caramel soft tasting in our mouths rowing us closer to the center of the sun rocket propulsion and I'm there and I'm there and so are they it's great to be holding hands with them because look how wonderful life can be!

It can be so wonderful.

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.