Consider Halloween, Love Luco

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Who could love a lobster but to consume her?

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

I am the lobster.

The lobster me.

The Trench of Luco's Despair

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How long does contentment last?

How brief a respite this?

Plumbing, prison, and persimmons (not really)

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

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

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

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

Mingus, Mr. Pawsley, and Halcyon Dreams

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

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

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

Guess who also loves bed mice. Just guess.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So share with me and be my friend.

Or I'll eat all your cat food.

Luco 9/11

Oh, pardon me. I know you are probably busy watching the 9/11 circus of despair, but some of us have work to do. Papers to grade. Stories to read. Information to gather and process.

You have caught me in what the other animals in this house might term a mood. As in "try to keep away from Luco, he's in a mood," (whispered by Mingus to the dog as I passed them in the hall).

A mood? Do these animals never suffer a weak moment? Have they never read 8,000 short essays and wanted to throw themselves from a bell tower?

Probably not,  I suppose, otherwise they might be more forgiving.

This is not to imply that I do not enjoy my work. Verily I do, but sometimes one's eyes blur and burn. Sometimes one is overtaken with an exhaustion born of detail and attention.

Are you reading this with the television on in the background? I imagine (the prison guard is a snob who lives sans television) a series of people presenting stories of where they were that day. I imagine tears. Hand wringing. A collective murmur of discontent.

And then the patriotism. Jingoism.  A belligerency culled from grief. They chant we are the greatest nation. We are god's chosen nation.

I cannot believe that.

Have these weeping crowds never read a historical work? Have they forgotten any pertinent dates or names they might have learned so many years ago?

Grading these quizzes, reading these stories, I am reminded of all who are similar to me. I am reminded of the student I was and continue to be. Of the flaring love embedded in my bones - I ache with it, osteoporosic, if you will allow me.

Claiming to be the greatest nation, claiming to be the shining and chosen does not better us. I also believe it cheapens tragedy. We weep because we watch ourselves weeping on the television in an endless loop of that belligerency.

I feel I should not need to say this, but I want to, as the dog says "cover my bases." Of course 9/11 is horrific. Of course it is painful and difficult and important. And the people who died were innocent, participants of legend. I do grieve for those we lost. 

But my hands shake with fury as I write this. Perhaps the greatest tragedy of memorialization?

Insipid writing commemorating the dead.

Dog Sushi

Hello! Luco let me on this time because he said he felt bad for making me cry and he said also that he wanted to document the "travesty" (I don't know what that means but I think it means like maybe a tragedy) that happened to him. But I think that what happened was great so don't just listen to Luco. You know how he is he's a grouch amirite?

It happened the other day when my grandmom came over and she is my grandmom I don't care what you say about species which is a thing that I know (other things I know: I am a canine and Luco is a feline. Mary is a human and so is my grandmom who is also very great - this is some of what I know for sure today).

She came over for dinner and they all bought dinner and they bought something for me too can you guess what they got me (did you read the title of this thing or are you super lazy like some other animals - I mean Fremlin here. That cat is always either sleeping or hiding or sleep-hiding)?

It was sushi! Which I know what that is now! Do you know what sushi tastes like? It tastes like cream cheese and like rice (I never didn't already love rice so much) and seaweed which is a weird green sticky thing. I like sticky things because they stick to your teeth and you can scare Mingus. He calls you Moss Mouth when you do that because it's so funny.

It had also some pink in the middle which is I guess salmon. That's a fish. 

I didn't really like that part.

For instance if I had to choose between salmon and my hamburger toy? I would pick my toy. But that's just one example and anyway the rest of the sushi was perfect like everything delicious. It tasted salty and sweet and it was sticky like I said and also soft in my mouth for chewing.

I love dog sushi. I love my grandmom. I feel so much better now than I did that other day when I wrote this and said I felt bad. Luco feels better too. But I'll let him to you himself. Thanks for listening to the dog. Dog out!

It is true. I felt dismay that I had so affected the dog. Perhaps the Luco of some months ago would not have been drowning in guilt, but change is life, is it not? And so here find evidence of my drastic metamorphosis.

Please do not misconstrue. I would not enjoy spending a day with the dog, it is just that I do not wish to cause him unnecessary pain. Life is already so unnecessarily painful. So. 

I invited him to "write" here because I wanted you to be given primary evidence of this grave injury I have suffered. Yes, the prison guard's mother-in-law came over, and yes, the family had dinner, and yes, they obtained sushi for the dog. Dog sushi.

Did they procure anything for us, as the dog can now say, felines? Please excuse my uneasy laughter - of course they did not. There was no sashimi for Luco (my favorite is tuna). No sushi for Mingus. No maki roll for Fremlin. 

Is it because we do not bark and bite and jump in their faces? I would have thought they'd realize this a gift and thus treasure us all the more, but apparently this is my own naïveté. 

They gave me the dog-slobbered salmon. The salmon refused by the dog, handed to me on a paper towel (where is the wedding china? The cloth napkin?). I tried to refuse to eat it. I averted my eyes as long as possible.

But then the pungent loveliness of the salmon hit me and I could not stop myself. I eat with a ferocity born of my own impotence. 

It was delicious. The best tasting thing I have ever eaten. 

I ache for it now, that taste. That texture. My mouth salivates just thinking of it. What must I do to eat this again? How to obtain this heaven? This salmon? I would give nearly anything.

However, it is of no matter. The dog does not like salmon. He refused it,

so they will never purchase salmon again.

Why Do We Even Ever Do Anything?

Hello! It's been a long time since I got on here and I talked to you so I thought I'd get on this computer and see if it's logged on and it is! So here I am!

Before I was writing this though I was reading Luco's blogs and I can't understand them totally but what I do understand makes me wonder about some things like why doesn't the taste of meat make him happy and why does he feel so sad all the time even though that's what this blog is I guess for but who knows!

Especially the last blog there confused me because who would think we live more than one time that makes no sense because it's silly. I tried to talk to him about it but he was so like arrogant (which is a word that I know means like a bully looking down on you) and still what he said made me feel worse.

Then I thought maybe it's a thing to wonder about how many times we live because we die and I listened to that "Stupid Cat" song (I can do quotation marks because I know what they are) and in that song the guy is talking for the cat and he says "I don't even know I'm gonna die."

So he's making fun of animals?

And we only live one time?

That means I won't always be getting pets? Or getting to eat the delicious grass which tastes like something got poured all over it that tastes good? Or chasing Luco around the house? Or tearing shoes apart (I hate shoes so much! They cover up feet I could lick and I hate that!)?

If I can't get to do everything I ever want to do or even most of it then why should I ever even do one thing? Why wake up?

Stupid Luco is like a cold I got one time and now I feel sick. I shouldn't have let him teach me how to read and write.

Mingus says that living is okay because it means you get to live which I guess I understand but I feel so depressed. I don't want to talk to Luco anymore. He's confusing and sad making. Even this beef jerky thing I'm eating that tastes so good (and that's getting all over the keyboard and I won't let Luco have any) isn't helping.

I don't want to die.

Or hang out with Luco.