Guest Writer: The Cat

This city is going to make me fat. I know I'm only 6 pounds, but I’m still a girl. At any rate, it's gone. It's all gone. The stairs are gone. Even all the rooms are gone. But I'm a glass half full kind of cat, plus I sleep upwards of 18 hours a day, so I can do without the rooms. And the stairs. And the bay windows. And the couch. And the cable box that was always warm. I digress.

Here is what I know.

I am in a place called New York. T has wanted to come here for a long time. She romanticized the idea if you ask me, a term I only recently became familiar with, because she loves a movie called Breakfast at Tiffany's. I would love something other than kibble for breakfast, so I watch this movie eagerly. There is never any breakfast, but there is a cat, so I like it. Even though if you've read the book, Holly isn't actually able to find the cat at the end, which is a pretty crucial detail. I am a very literary cat. 

New York is noisy, like the woman downstairs who hits the broom on the ceiling whenever I run around. And the noises outside the door. People are always hurrying. And stomping. And slamming. They also watch TV, take baths, open letters, cough, get paged from someone out on the street, and walk from one side of the room to the other. And I can hear it all. So Broom Lady is just going to have to deal with me and my 6 pounds.

There is a cat across the hall. A tom cat. He's bigger than me and his owners let him walk in the hallways. Sometimes when our door is open he will come in. I don't like him being so forward, and I hiss, even though he intrigues me and I’ve never had a boyfriend (unless you count the father of that litter of kittens I bore when I was living in the streets of Cleveland…but that was hardly a relationship). The neighbor cat does have the name of a really good Counting Crows song, so maybe there is hope for him yet. I am a very musical cat.

Speaking of music, T left her guitar behind, and I miss it. It reminded me of Holly, who also sings and plays. The broom lady would have a hissy fit (an expression I believe only cats can use) but I want the guitar back. T plays the Counting Crows. If I could write a song for their band, well, it would have to be mopey, and it would go like this:

It's darker here when no one is home.

The food is exactly the same.

We are higher off the ground.

The box on the wall hisses but is very warm.

We sleep in the same space now.

Some of my toys are missing.

Oh, and no one knows this, but you can actually climb up underneath the loveseat and hide inside it. No one can get you out. 

And I haven't had a single hairball incident since the move. I am a very classy cat.