"O Freunde, nicht diese Tone! Sondern lasht uns angenehmere anstimmen und freudenvollere" (O friends, not these sounds! But let us strike up more pleasant sounds and more joyful!)!
Nerri (my kitty) cocks his ears left and right in disapproval and shakes his head. No, does the leader of the Nebari feline resistance think the composer of revolutionary enlightenment so foul? Can he not see the commonality in their purposes? Do not the ideals of Rousseau and even Jefferson meet with your own? Or is it that cats just don't like the brash voices of a human choir? [Methinks it be the latter]
My new kitty, named for the brave, revolutionary Nebari leader of "Farscape," has done little but cower behind my couch since I took him in two weeks ago. Therefore, I suppose he is named more for his grey fur than his steely courage. However, the name was inspired as I drove him home from the vet's office, thinking of his feral, alley-cat past and how similar his condition was to the run-away Nebari siblings on my favorite TV show. Originally, I had planned to name him Schrodinger, more for the cat on "Stargate, SG1" than for the physicist, but the idea of naming my cat after a scientist who hypothesized an experiment that would determine the life or death of kitty-kind bothered me somewhat. So, a name-sake was born.
It amazes me how much of my emotional being has gone into this slight, little animal. The first few night, I awoke in terrified starts at every bang and bump the kitty happened to cause. I had horrible nightmares, to which my previous blog will attest. When I took him out of the safe, enclosed confines of my bathroom after a couple of night, he took to hiding behind my couch, where he presently still resides for most of the time. When he does come out, usually in when I sleep, he has a habit of rattling the aluminum on my electric baseboard heaters, which is the probable source of most of the bangs that wake me up in cold sweats.
I was concerned that I would not be able to handle the responsibility of once again being a cat owner, that I would neglect the cat in fits of depression or resume examples of cruelty that typified me long ago. I had doubts, but my truest friend had confidence in me, and trusted me with the husbandry of a life. This trust has given me such confidence in myself to succeed in the simplest of things where before I had failed so miserably, and to such destruction, and baseness, and disgust. Though I can't seem to take care of myself in the most basic ways, depending on others for my mere financial survival, I seem to be able to care for this fearful ball of sweetness behind my couch. When I cannot bear to look at my stove or wash a dish in my sink, I seem to be able to stagger out in my medicated haze to wipe a soapy towel around this cat's dish and rinse it out and fill it with some food that he will only venture out to eat when I am asleep. While I have formerly gone for weeks, consistently missing the day when the trash-truck comes by, I seem to be able now to sift out clumps of clay and feces and take it out to my curbside.
I think it is more than the mere simple responsibility placed on me by the presence of this life in my apartment. It is the trust that my friend has placed in me, who fully knows my violent past and my incapacity to comprehend the seemingly out-of-body experiences that made up that past. It is the eight years of self-hatred and self-imposed punishment in which I have indulged, which in some small way have now been surpassed. It is the leaving-behind of some small part of well-deserved guilt, such well-deserved guilt.
I no longer deceive myself that this is some first step in a larger plan of self-absolution, for I now know that my best years were still those wherein I failed so miserably and in the end lost so much, lost her, lost her love, because her love can never be replaced, much less surpassed, and I fucked that up completely. Absolution can only come from her, and she will never, should never, give it.
Adieu,
Jacob
Nerri (my kitty) cocks his ears left and right in disapproval and shakes his head. No, does the leader of the Nebari feline resistance think the composer of revolutionary enlightenment so foul? Can he not see the commonality in their purposes? Do not the ideals of Rousseau and even Jefferson meet with your own? Or is it that cats just don't like the brash voices of a human choir? [Methinks it be the latter]
My new kitty, named for the brave, revolutionary Nebari leader of "Farscape," has done little but cower behind my couch since I took him in two weeks ago. Therefore, I suppose he is named more for his grey fur than his steely courage. However, the name was inspired as I drove him home from the vet's office, thinking of his feral, alley-cat past and how similar his condition was to the run-away Nebari siblings on my favorite TV show. Originally, I had planned to name him Schrodinger, more for the cat on "Stargate, SG1" than for the physicist, but the idea of naming my cat after a scientist who hypothesized an experiment that would determine the life or death of kitty-kind bothered me somewhat. So, a name-sake was born.
It amazes me how much of my emotional being has gone into this slight, little animal. The first few night, I awoke in terrified starts at every bang and bump the kitty happened to cause. I had horrible nightmares, to which my previous blog will attest. When I took him out of the safe, enclosed confines of my bathroom after a couple of night, he took to hiding behind my couch, where he presently still resides for most of the time. When he does come out, usually in when I sleep, he has a habit of rattling the aluminum on my electric baseboard heaters, which is the probable source of most of the bangs that wake me up in cold sweats.
I was concerned that I would not be able to handle the responsibility of once again being a cat owner, that I would neglect the cat in fits of depression or resume examples of cruelty that typified me long ago. I had doubts, but my truest friend had confidence in me, and trusted me with the husbandry of a life. This trust has given me such confidence in myself to succeed in the simplest of things where before I had failed so miserably, and to such destruction, and baseness, and disgust. Though I can't seem to take care of myself in the most basic ways, depending on others for my mere financial survival, I seem to be able to care for this fearful ball of sweetness behind my couch. When I cannot bear to look at my stove or wash a dish in my sink, I seem to be able to stagger out in my medicated haze to wipe a soapy towel around this cat's dish and rinse it out and fill it with some food that he will only venture out to eat when I am asleep. While I have formerly gone for weeks, consistently missing the day when the trash-truck comes by, I seem to be able now to sift out clumps of clay and feces and take it out to my curbside.
I think it is more than the mere simple responsibility placed on me by the presence of this life in my apartment. It is the trust that my friend has placed in me, who fully knows my violent past and my incapacity to comprehend the seemingly out-of-body experiences that made up that past. It is the eight years of self-hatred and self-imposed punishment in which I have indulged, which in some small way have now been surpassed. It is the leaving-behind of some small part of well-deserved guilt, such well-deserved guilt.
I no longer deceive myself that this is some first step in a larger plan of self-absolution, for I now know that my best years were still those wherein I failed so miserably and in the end lost so much, lost her, lost her love, because her love can never be replaced, much less surpassed, and I fucked that up completely. Absolution can only come from her, and she will never, should never, give it.
Adieu,
Jacob