Archive | Cat Lady Matters
Moon Marching, Clocks Stopped
Today is the Chinese New Year and the beginning of a new moon cycle. I have not talked or written much in a week. Life is difficult in a way that is not aided by narration. It is difficult in a stop the clocks way, though that is not my story to tell. I have been in Massachusetts, and Gracie has been, too. Bringing her with me has proved ill-advised though she behaved beautifully in her carrier. She’s such a polite kitty. Sometimes I speak about her archly but the truth is I never feel alone so long as she is by my side; she is the truest of companions.
That said, my overfamiliar only loves me, which makes catsitting her problematic. She does not like when others visit when I am not home. She does not like staying in others’ homes when they are there, especially when I am not.
I brought her with me to Massachusetts as an experiment of sorts. Could I leave her with my goddaughters and their father in the Greater Boston Area while their mom and I journeyed further into New England for our annual mid-winter adventure? As it happens, it was a failed experiment. Circumstances drastically shifted, and I stayed with the girls while their parents braved the New England blizzard to face a different kind of storm. A bluer one. Continue Reading →
Banana Pancakes and Change
One of the advantages of not being young anymore is knowing that change is not only inevitable but okay. Good times are followed by bad times, which are followed by good times again–especially once you grow out of clinging to leaky rafts. Being a change-hating Crapicorn, I’m still trying to grow out of that tendency. I’m not doing a great job, but I’m trying.
I keep flashing on a breakfast scene of about a decade ago. I was dating a guy from my hometown even though I’d been living in Brooklyn for more than 10 years. He was a big-nosed, big-shouldered, big-dicked musician who’d already fled New York for a sleepy, working-class neighborhood of Boston not far from where we’d grown up. He looked appealingly like a Founding Father and was remarkably steady in bed; he seemed comfortable with his choice to trade creative for cozy. I figured I could try doing the same. Sexy male mommies being my Achilles’ heel, I clamored for his maternal embrace.
Really, he was smart but stuck—-yet another guy held hostage by his fury at his mother.
I was at loose ends, as I am now. I’d just broken up with a woman who was such a liar that I’d come to hate her mouth though I craved what it could do for me, and I thought maybe I could climb into this hometown honey, let’s call him Al, whenever I came back to Massachusetts. I was still trying to figuring out my relationship with my family of origin, so I came home pretty often. Continue Reading →