Happy New Year & Happy Birthday to the Blog, Love Luco

After re-reading my blog from last year at this time, I can say I am glad that I failed in that endeavor. It seems my wish from last year was one of denial; a gesture to ignore all that is difficult, all that is painful, all that tears at me. How ignoble. Easy.

Why was it my desire to forget, ignore? "I'm hereby holding myself accountable for my gloominess," I said. "For each time I've looked at that glass and called it half empty. In 2011, I'm going to do things differently. I'm going to stop worrying all the time..."

I disgust myself.

What kind of animal am I if my goal is thus? If it is to look away, hide my face behind my paws? Maybe it has been this year of blogging, maybe it has been the prison guard's ruthlessness, perhaps I can attribute it to Esteban, but this year no such wish tugs on my heart like so many feeder fish.

This year I cannot pretend the Great Pacific Garbage Patch does not exist. I cannot pretend the wars this country is engaged in are justifiable. That the platitudes espoused by politicians hold within them any kind of meaning. That the media is a lens through which we can clearly see the world we all inhabit.

I will not look away.

Because what kind of a life is one spent reshuffling reality into something more palatable? What do I gain by smiling at Mingus, Mr. Pawlsey, Fremlin as though we are free and happy creatures.

Which is not to say I believe joy has no place in my life. It is merely that happiness is not inherently better than sadness. When I am as mindful of this world as I can be, any joy I experience is all the sweeter. Here a moment of humanity (catity? There should be an synonym for felines) is altruistic in the most fundamental sense. 

The dog told me of a woman outside the prison guard's post office. She had a sign the prison guard did not deign to read. And she had a baby. After rethinking her actions and leaving the post office, the prison guard tried to give this woman some money. Charity. But the cops had arrived and chased her and the infant away. Oh, Boca Raton, oh, South Florida, oh our lives which entangle us and tear at us and the despair that could swallow me at these thoughts.

But to fully fall into that despair is something not within my genetic code. Yes, I am despondent, and I believe we all should be at some level, but to allow oneself to sink, to never begin kicking one's feet, to never try to burst through the surface of the water, gasping, choking on plastic - that is true failure. It is a failure of imagination, of empathy, and of character. We must struggle with the truth and then we must act. Even if in our lives our actions to reduce suffering seem minuscule. Even if the five dollars the prison guard wanted to give that woman and her baby would have only bought the woman a cup of coffee; these actions are worthwhile. They are what will make us worthy of this world and our privileged place within it.

I cannot speak for you of course, dearest reader, but I feel a fracture in my heart and I know I am not the same feline who began this blog. I cannot be.

I will not be.

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.