Tag Archives: day-to-day

The Oscar for Best Kitty

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As anti-Woke comedian Jerry Seinfeld would say, “What is the deal with Oscar?” Since I think a few people might be interested, I decided to fill you in.

I used to have a cat named Magik. When Magik was a kitten, there was a mishap, and he didn’t get fed for two days. Magik, as a result, was food insecure. He ate each meal like he was preparing for a famine. Since Oscar was starving when Nicole rescued him, I was concerned that he was going to overeat and be a roly-poly like Magik was.

Luckily, he has different ideas. He used to try to steal the food out of my hand, no matter the cuisine. Now he has no interest in human food, except for meat sticks, and even then, he spits out the teriyaki. Original flavor only. That, the wet food, and a little bit of dry food are the only things he eats now, which is a huge relief. If he started getting chubby, I was going to have to start saying no.

Oscar has grown. Again, when Nicole found him, he was starving. The vet couldn’t give me an estimate of his age because of the damage. But he’s all repaired, and now he’s starting to become a cat. I mean, I knew he was a cat this whole time, but he had the build of a ferret and an unnaturally long tale. Now he’s starting to fill out, and his coat’s growing in.  

His favorite perch is my shoulders. Despite having claw marks (through clothes) all over my back and arms from him making himself comfortable, I really love having him there. Of course, that means I have to stand until he gets bored. Also, he’ll hop up on the bathroom counter while I’m getting ready for a shower, and his eyes will start to focus on my deltoid muscle, and I have to intervene before I pass out from the blood loss. He bit my shoulder as he settled in, but he suddenly stopped, as cats are wont to do.

I still haven’t told management I have a cat.

Even though there’s a heat wave (otherwise known as An Average Summer in DC) right now, I’ve been opening the window so he can experience the outdoors. I’m pretty concerned that he’s going to get bored. I have a very small studio, and he’s already explored every corner. He becomes a fuzz-saw when I put him into his harness, and when it’s on, his legs don’t work. So no walks.

He is constantly begging me to play, and I try to keep up with him, but that kid’s got a lot of energy. I have to tell him, Dad is very old, and his elbow has been giving him problems. His favorite toy is the long, skinny ribbon someone left in the hallway (Exhibit A). As you can see from Exhibit B, it’s the most stylish toy any cat has.

I still miss Newcastle. I’ll remember how happy he was exploring the backyard, and it doesn’t make me sad, for the most part. Sometimes a memory will drag me to tears, though. It’s not because Oscar isn’t a good cat. Oscar is a great, well-behaved cat. But he can’t replace Newcastle.

I love having the little guy around. He’s a great lap cat, and he’s always so excited to see me when I get home. He’s a talker, but at his high pitch, it sounds more like singing. He tends to stick close to me, even if he’s mad about something. His favorite place to play is on my bed, so he’s starting to shred my comforter. He hasn’t settled into routines, so he’s unpredictable, and that is exciting.

I could go on for pages, just rest assured that Oscar is getting spoiled, and so is his dad.

Life in Plastic is Fantastic

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Fort Totten is a border neighborhood with Maryland, and from 1 June until 29 June, all four of the Maryland Metro stops are closed. People are getting shuttled in, but the same number of people are riding. Why do all the cars feel more crowded than usual?

We’re all exhausted. We’re all in drab colors, as if our souls had been drained. On one side are the manual laborers. On the other side are federal workers, along with non-federal office workers. There are even tourists. There’s seats, but I’d have to sit next to someone, so I stand.

For a moment, the mob of students with their backpacks and white-guy afros parts and I get a glimpse of someone I can only call Barbie. The blonde sat down, her back straight, her legs demurely crossed. Her sundress went all the way to the floor, and it appeared blinding pink, but was really white with small red flowers. She looked pleased with herself.

The train pulled into Judiciary Square, and she jumped out and cat-walked out of the station and out of my life, taking the color with her.

That felt like magic.

Card-Carrying Birthday Boy

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I am extraordinarily lucky to have my job. One reason is that they give you a birthday gift every year (an electronic gift card). For some reason, they keep screwing up mine. This year, I waited all week for my birthday gift, and it didn’t arrive. Typically, it would get there on your birthday, or if it’s on a weekend, on the Friday before. I thought that maybe they would email it on my actual birthday. They didn’t. I reached out to HR, who didn’t answer my email until I wrote them again, and they sent me to someone else, who sent me to someone else.

Remember how I wrote that blog post about how it’s great to have my name? They sent my present to the other Jeremiah in the office. That didn’t annoy me so much because I get his email and Teams message all the time. I’ve even gotten into arguments about my own identity. (“You sent this to the wrong Jeremiah.” “But you’re Jeremiah.”) But when you receive a gift card that says “Happy Birthday!” and it’s not your birthday, shouldn’t you say something to somebody? In all this time, he’s either never received an email intended for me, or he just ignores them. Right now, I think it might be the latter.

But I got my gift card. Now I need to buy something that’s not an action figure or art supplies.

He Was a Good Friend of Mine

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I listen to YouTube videos while I work. It helps me focus. About half of my job is waiting for PDFs to download, so I can successfully hear whatever I have on without screwing anything up. I listen to a great many subjects, including true crime and pop culture.

My favorite from the latter is the Professor of Rock, who’s this middle-aged dude in a bowling shirt and a trilby hat, spending twenty minutes educating you on the history of just one song (although he sometimes does an album, sometimes a band). He focuses on the sixties through the nineties and grouses about music these days. If you’re lucky, he’ll tell a touching story about his dad, a rock music fanatic who introduced him to the subject.

Each show begins with the mystery, as the thumbnail and title only drop hints about the subject matter du jour. I mention this because I clicked on a video because the thumbnail said that the singer was inspired by a kid’s cartoon. The title said, “Band swept the world with the most memorable first line in rock history.” I love this show because every song, every album, every band is the greatest of all time. It’s good for the mood.

You may have guessed what today’s song was. I had no clue, even as he set up the mystery, then cut to the clip that was going to reveal the answer. The image now has this sepia tone to it that all photos from the seventies and eighties have. We now see a skinny, shirtless man with flowing, dark brown hair and ox-bow mustache, and he was screaming. Do you know what he was screaming? He was screaming the most memorable first line in rock. He was screaming, “Jeremiah was a bullfrog!”

“Joy to the World,” by Three Dog Night was the bane of my existence. It’s the first thing that comes to mind when most people hear my name. And half of them have to tell me. There were the bullies who taunted me with it, the teachers who were just bein’ goofy, and my customer service clients at every non-office job I’ve worked. So far, no one at my current job has asked me about this song, but something tells me Work Dad is waiting for the right moment.

The thing is, I love my name. My parents told me once that they were going to call me Robert, then changed their mind. Can you imagine me as a Robert? I’d be manscaping.

But I think it’s cool that I’m Jeremiah. It suits me. The problem was, it was something I had to endure as a child. I tried changing my name to Jerry (how was that any better?), but I went back to Jeremiah in high school, though occasionally I went by Jerm (to be honest, I didn’t really love it).

In college, a lovely young woman shouted at me, “Dude! You should have been named Eugene!” I agreed and adopted Eugene as a nom de guerre. Obviously, I didn’t change my name, but it became a character in a series of short and long stories, as well as a complete novel. When I was waiting tables, I changed the name on my tag to Eugene, for reasons I’m about to get into.  

I worked weekends on Fridays and Saturdays, known as the Black Friday (and Saturday) of late-night family restaurants. Until the last customer left, we were dealing with drunken monkeys on acid. We had one woman who stuffed feminine hygiene products in her ears, nose, and mouth and ran around, shouting, “I’m Tampon Lady!”

That and 85 percent of the tables had one spokesman who said, “You’re a bullfrog! You know that song?” Or, “Jeremiah was a bullfrog! You know that song?” Or. “Did you know you were a bullfrog? You know that song?” And so on. It got to the point where I just started telling them I didn’t know what they were talking about, and eventually they’d sing. That almost made it worth it. They only ever knew the first line.

Every once in a while, the Professor of Rock sits down with a member or two of the band and has a chat. The guy who wrote the song and the line that hung around my neck like an albatross met with the professor today. Prior to “Joy to the World,” Three Dog Night was making adult contemporary music, but after, they were rock superstars. The first line comes from an obscure cartoon frog who might have been an alcoholic. I don’t know if Jeremiah was the name of the frog, or if they just chose it because it has a great rhythm to it.

At the end of the episode, the Prof lists all the major artists who have done covers, as well as the most memorable TV and movie appearances. I don’t remember any of the ones from “Joy to the World,” though they left out the time Scully sang it to an injured Mulder, which I thought was a shame.

Pop-culture-wise, I don’t see or hear my name a lot. There was a short-lived TV show called Jeremiah, starring Theo from The Cosby Show. In Batman World, the founder of the insane asylum the Joker keeps escaping from is Jeremiah Arkham. He was also coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs. Other than that, you rarely hear my name despite it being unique and pretty good.

I’ve only known a small handful of people in my life named Jeremiah. Most of them go by different names (like JT, as one example). It’s so rare that, whenever I hear “Jeremiah,” they’re most likely talking to me. I got whiplash when at the Laundromat, a three-year-old kid named Jeremiah went on a rampage, and I kept hearing, “Jeremiah, stop it! Jeremiah, sit down!” Same when the couple behind me at the Panera Bread were having a loud conversation about someone named Jeremiah who was not me.

Jeremiah Murphy is a surprisingly popular name. Until it went down recently, jeremiahmurphy.com belonged to a black gospel singer, and jeremiahmurphy.net belonged to an unfunny comedian. Someone on Facebook named Jeremiah Murphy sent me a friend request, and a quick look revealed he was collecting Jeremiah Murphies. He had eight so far. In Indiana, I started getting collection calls for some douchebag named Jeremiah P. Murphy. The reason they kept calling is because, what were the odds of two people named Jeremiah Murphy in the state of Indiana? They were right. There weren’t two Jeremiah Murphies in Indiana. There were three.

I like being Jeremiah. It suits me. It’s got a great rhythm. If I had a different name, I’d use it in a piece of fiction. It would have made a great celebrity name if I had lived my life differently. It’s my name, and it’s perfect.

Just …

I am not a fucking bullfrog, okay? Jesus Christ!

God’s Not Dead 5: God Strikes Back

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When I was a little bitty kid, around ten, I think, I spirited my younger sisters into my room. I had something important to tell them, and it was going to blow their tiny little minds: Santa Claus wasn’t real. I had evidence. If PowerPoint existed back then, I would have had slides. My youngest sibling fled the room, crying, and the middle sibling was not convinced. Christmas morning, Santa wrote me a long letter in my dad’s handwriting urging me not to lose faith. That Advent, my skepticism started early.

I’m going just going to say it: I’m an atheist, meaning I don’t believe in god. That’s all it means. We are all different. Some atheists believe in fairies. Buddhism is an atheist religion, and there’s even an afterlife. I read Viking runes. Some of us are naturalists, i.e. we don’t believe in anything that can’t be tested with the Scientific Method. (I’m one of them.)

You may be wondering what caused me to disbelieve in God. To those in the know, this would be called my “deconstruction story,” except I don’t have one. I don’t think I ever believed in God, even as I was born and baptized a Roman Catholic. I’m middle-aged, so the motives of my child self are baffling to me, the ones I remember. However, based on the wreckage of cars I left behind, as well as of theft, bullying, court appearances, and my father’s broken legs, it was clear that I was not concerned about hell.

Between the ages of eight and fourteen, I grabbed the reins and took control over my life. Yeah, I was still a bad kid, but I was better. My grades improved. I developed mentoring relationships with most of my teachers. I got along with adults better than people my own age, and I had a great thing going on with the parish priest and his deacon.

When you’re a Catholic, you have a list of sacraments that you should at least make an attempt to complete. Ask your Irish or Italian friends. Your first sacrament is baptism, which you don’t have any say in. You also don’t have any say in your second sacrament either, because you’re in the second grade. You want it, though, because it’s the reason you have a suit.

Confirmation, they tell us, is optional. Around the end of middle school, you’re asked to confirm the commitment you made when you got your first communion. Seven is too young to choose your path, but thirteen makes you a grown-up. Confirmation is a ceremony to mark your entrance into adulthood and make the decision whether or not to stay Catholic.

By that point, I had been questioning the church, and I was seriously considering not kneeling before the bishop, where he’d be slapping me. This wouldn’t have been out of rebellion, or fear of the slap, but rather respect for the people who did believe. (My best friend in high school, Tony, would receive communion, an earned sacrament, despite that he was not a Catholic. I was appalled, even back then.) However, one look around revealed that Confirmation was not optional at all.

I was an altar boy for many years, through my doubts, because I got along so well with the clergy. I will never forget the look on my dad’s face when he saw Father’s arm around my shoulders. New Mexico had known about the pedophile priest scandal long before the rest of the world because this was where they shipped them. You’ll be relieved to know that nothing happened. He was one of the good ones.

The deacon was a friend of my mother’s, and he took a special interest in me while I flung one atheist 101ism after another at him. By that point, I was starting to realize I didn’t belong in that Sunday school class anymore, so I told him I didn’t believe in God. I think I was brave enough to say this out loud then because I wasn’t worried about losing everything by rejecting the church because I had new friends, and they weren’t Catholic, or even Christian. The next day, my mother pulled the car over to deliver an impassioned, eloquent, furious speech about why I was wrong, and God was real.

Even though I didn’t believe I’d be going to hell, I lived in fear of it. If I was wrong, and Jesus was real, then there was no way I was going to heaven. Yeah, I was nicer to people at that point in my life, but you didn’t have to dig very far for the bad. Most people were like this, I imagined. Maybe that dad over there hit his kids. Maybe that young woman had an abortion. Going to heaven was the kind of thing you needed extra credit for. I went to confession, and I prayed and prayed, and I could only fake it and hope nobody noticed.

Late in high school, we were excused from class so we could go to some kind of evangelical recruitment show in the gym. (I’m not sure how that happened with the separation of church and state.) I wanted so badly to believe, to be one of them, that I broke down in the middle of the gym, bawling, begging Jesus to take me. He never did.

In college, I studied the bible, only a couple of credits shy of a Religion minor. However, the more I read the Hebrew bible and the historical documents surrounding them, the more I saw the holy book as a collection of myths. Likewise, when I went through the Greek bible, I found a lot to be skeptical of. I won’t go into detail about this because I didn’t write this to start a fight.

I tried to believe in God another way. I remember Mom assuring me that Genesis says it took six days to create Earth and man, but why couldn’t a day be millions of years? I flirted with the Baha’i faith when I had to decide between all religions being wrong, or every religion being right. When the idea of praying to God to find my keys seemed kind of petty, I considered Aquinas’s Unmoved Mover.

I couldn’t even believe in luck. Nowadays, I do, but not as an external force, rather as the delicate, snowflake of coincidences coming together to create a perfect moment. Life is full of them. My history would get picked apart online if it were a movie.

For example, during the Great Blackout of ’03, I was trying to figure out how to get to New Jersey, and I bumped into my friend and former coworker, Mark. I had no idea how I was getting home, but Mark had a plan. And sure enough, I made it by bedtime. If I had not stopped in a bar for forty-five minutes and drank the last cold beers in Manhattan, I would not have been in that exact spot when Mark showed up.

I have been a very lucky man.

As I got older, I started looking again for something I could believe. I embraced the religion of my ex-wife. Keep in mind, she’s the one who bought a raccoon skull on eBay to put on the altar she drilled into the wall of our (her) condo. She fed it bowls of wine. The raccoon was her animal spirit.

I tried having an animal spirit. As I was walking down the steps out of a leather shop early in our marriage, I felt a pair of giant, invisible talons grab me by the shoulders. Since then, my animal spirit has been the owl, and that’s why I have an owl shrine next to my Newcastle shrine.

I tried to believe in her gods. And yet, even though I learned fairy lore, even though I became a Morrigan fan boy, even though I taught myself how to read runes, even though I used everything I learned and wrote a series of Urban Fantasy novels about it, even though I went to mass at the UU church, even though I looked in awe toward the really weird people she was hanging out with, I couldn’t just believe.

After I moved out, I came to realize that I wasn’t agnostic, I am an atheist. I’m not an atheist because the church hurt me or I realized it’s easier to sin if I didn’t believe in hell. I’m not an atheist because I hate God. I don’t blame him for the death of Newcastle. I don’t blame him for all of the horrible natural or otherwise disasters that destroy the lives of millions. I don’t even blame him for the reprehensible actions of many of his followers. I can’t blame him for any of this because he doesn’t exist to me.

I’m sure some of you knew this already. I haven’t concealed my skepticism, so I figured some people have assumed. I haven’t believed in God all my life, and it took until now to say anything directly. Apologists have a lot of shitty things to say about us, and in poll after poll, we’re the least trusted religious subgroup. Pastors tell their congregations that we’re coming to take their religion away.

It doesn’t help that the spokesman for atheists in the mainstream was Christopher Hitchens, a bottomless asshole. Who wants to be associated with him?

Coming out as atheist has changed nothing about me. I’m a guy who loves cats and used to like comics and respects his job and has a creative outlet. At this point in my life, most of my identity is tied up in my creative outlet. If you’ve never had a chance to speak with an atheist before, let me answer some common questions.

Are we just animals? Yes. To simplify it, evolution happens when an organism adapts over many generations to fit their environment. Occasionally, you’ll find an organism that adapts its environment to them. Some of them developed consciousness and imagination, and the consciousness and imagination evolved into art, religion, and culture. Our personalities evolve from a combination of instincts and environment, like any other animal, but as humans we have drama. I don’t know where that evolved from.

Do I believe in eternal life? Yes, but not how you think. Over the course of my life, I’ve encountered thousands of people, and I’ve affected them in some way, for good or for bad. These people, in turn, have an effect on someone else. And so on. Though the memory of me will fade, I will live on. That’s my eternal life.

What do I think happens when I die? Nothing. The lights go out, and everybody will have to move on with their lives. To explain why I think this is a good thing, I’m going to talk about Star Wars. Star Wars is a series of eleven movies, two made-for-TV movies, a holiday special, two Saturday Morning cartoons, as well as a lot of animated series for every age, and a number of TV shows. There’s some books, but only nerds read those. Once upon a time, Star Wars was two amazing and one fine (I guess) movies. And they were brilliant, even the okay one. They changed Western culture. Nowadays, when there’s an announcement for a Star Wars movie or TV show, see if America cares. The Empire Strikes Back, arguably the best out of all the movies, is less than 5 percent of current Star Wars content.

There was a time when six hours of Star Wars was all we had, and we loved every little detail of it. That’s how I feel about my life. My story will be over within a few decades, and that’s great because what a story it was. My life had drama! It had pathos! It had twists, it had turns! I met some amazing people and went on some great adventures. How can a day be special if it’s one in an eternity?

And that brings me to your next question: Where do I find purpose? Inside me. I know what I want to do with my life, and I do it. Writing is my purpose, drawing is my purpose, except when Oscar deposits himself on my sketchbook or keyboard. Keeping him fed, clean, and happy is my purpose, just like it was for Newcastle or any cat I’ve lived with.

Finally: Where does my morality come from? I have empathy, and I don’t want to do something that hurts another person. (I mean, I do, but it’s never my intention.) I would never have sex with someone who was not my wife at the time because that would hurt her. However, when we agreed to be polyamorous household, I had sex with someone who was not my wife, and no one was hurt. I’m more concerned with ethics than morals because there are no moral absolutes.

Those were the first questions that occurred to me, but if you have more, feel free to message me in good faith. I’ll answer to the best of my abilities. I know most of you don’t agree with me, and that’s fine. I’m not here to convert you. I just want you to understand where I’m coming from.

I’m asking that you respect my lack of belief. Don’t try to convert me, don’t try to debate me. As I hope I’ve expressed in this essay, I’ve made every effort to be a believer, and no amount of your logic or appeals to my humanity are going to suddenly make everything click. No matter how clever you think you are, I can guarantee I’ve already heard it.

My life is not empty. I have a cat who will fight me for a cinnamon roll. I have my art, I have my writing. I’m not the most social person, but I regularly chat with people who mean the world to me. It took me a long time to realize this, but the life I’m living now is more than a dress rehearsal. This world is my only home, so I’m going to try to take care of it and enjoy what it has to offer.

Meet Oscar

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Let’s get this out of the way: the name Potato was not working for me. It’s the way it feels when I say it, I can’t get more specific than that. I’d never really said it aloud—when I talk to him, I call him buddy—so I tried it out on Nicole’s boyfriend when we took him to the vet. I didn’t like it. I tried it out on the vet, but I didn’t like it. I wasn’t going to change his name until I decided whether or not I was going to keep him. So now his name’s Oscar.

My original plan would have been to name him Shenanigan, but the more time I spent thinking about it, the less I liked it. Plus, there’s no really good nicknames. Nicole came over with a plan to ruin his life forever (she and I gave him a bath), and while we were stalling, she searched through biblical names and the most popular cat names of the world. I was deciding between Samson and Barnabas, but when she said Oscar, it was right. He looks like an Oscar. Plus, he was a trash cat, so he feels an affinity for Oscar the Grouch.

I never reported back with Tuesday’s vet visit, where we learned some interesting things. First, he is definitely a he. Second, he’s in great health, with his heart, lungs, and teeth strong, and he tested negative for heartworms and feline leukemia and HIV. Third, his fur was healthy as well, and he had no fleas or ticks. Fourth, he was incredibly patient for the vet. Unfortunately, his coat and his socialization means that he was most likely thrown out a few weeks ago. He’s so freaking charming. How could someone do that?

I was doing a lot of thinking about purpose. My purpose is to write and draw. It’s also to take care of someone. I took care of Magik, Andrew, and Newcastle (and, to a certain extent, Kate) while I was married. I took care of Henry and Newcastle (and to a certain extent, Nicole), the first five years I lived in DC. I took care of Newcastle when we had our own place. Without Newcastle, I had no one. Suddenly, I have to feed someone in the morning. I have to massage someone. I have to clean someone’s skanky litter box. I have to get someone’s claws off of my ottoman. And I really like it.

I just don’t want to disrespect Newcastle, for whom I have organized a shrine and procured a duplicate. I’ve noticed lately that his loss doesn’t hurt as much, and I feel like I’ve betrayed him. He was such a rock through my tumultuous late-twenties, thirties, and forties that I want to feel like I used to feel for the rest of my life. And I whatever I did, I was not getting a replacement cat.

And yet.

I needed a cat. Since high school and Kokoa, aka the Grim Reaper for all birds and lizards that dared enter his territory, I just feel close to cats. Can you be a crazy cat person if you only have one cat, but he’s your entire life?

Oscar is awful cute. He’s sweet and good-natured and extremely social. Part of the reason I’d been balking at getting another one is because: What were the odds that I’d find a cat like that? What were the odds I’d find a cat who looks at me like Newcastle did? He’s the right cat for me. But he came at the wrong time.

I’m still on mourning for my best friend, and honestly, I was hoping to save my money for a vacation. But odds are, when it is the right time, I’ll only find the wrong cat. Over the past four days, Oscar has proven himself. He follows me around my tiny apartment, but he won’t go into the bathroom if I’m in there. I afford him the same courtesy. He likes to lay on me, which has been seriously digging into my art time. He just wants to be near me. That’s when I remembered that I shouldn’t live without this.

So he’s my problem now.

But I am not ready for him to call me Dad.

On the Subject of Potato

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I’ve had Potato for one full day now, and this is how it’s going.

First, he punctured my finger when he fought me for my meatball sub. He successfully got some meatball. Second, he took a wet, fragrant dump on my bathroom rug right in front of the litter box. Third, he tossed his cookies twice this morning, once on the hardwood floor because he’s a considerate gentleman, and once on my bed while I was sitting on it because he’s a cat. Fourth, I really like having him around.

Potato is awfully cute. He doesn’t meow, he just squeaks really quietly. He knows what the cat food tins are because he loses his mind when I pull one out. I think he’s bored. At the moment, though, he doesn’t seem to want to play. Since last night, he’s been hiding under the bed, and he didn’t come near breakfast.

And here’s where it gets tough. Potato is less than a year old, so the fact that he’s acting like Newcastle did when he started into his late teens has me concerned. The bliss of yesterday has become anxiety, and I’m performing life checks on this kitten. I can’t lose another cat. I’ll never recover.

Potato was from the streets, and Nicole found him licking a Reese’s wrapper. Who knows what kind of garbage he was eating? He surely couldn’t have been sleeping well either. Plus, he got a decent chunk of my meatball. His stomach is probably upset. He’s probably exhausted.

This morning, he came out, said hello to me, fought me for my cinnamon roll, ate a lot of his own food, then went back under the bed. A couple of hours later, he came back out and draped himself over my knee for a while.

So there’s nothing to be worried about. Only I am. Newcastle spent most of the six weeks we spent together in this apartment hiding under the bed. I knew time was running about long before the vet gave me his last diagnosis. I was living in a constant state of stress, wondering when it was time to call the doctor. I’ve only known Potato for forty-two hours, and I’m not ready for him to go.

On one hand, Potato has brought life to my apartment again. Petting an animal feels so good. Taking care of someone is life-affirming.

On the other hand, I don’t want to replace Newcastle with a newer model. And I don’t mean because Potato looks exactly like Newk when he was that age. He was my best friend. I’m not ready to move on. I don’t want a rebound cat.

On the third hand, constant stress is returning as Potato is sleeping off his hard life. I don’t want another cat under my protection to die. I can’t handle it. I know that he’s fine, but I’m worrying.

We’re taking him to the vet this evening, so we can see if there’s anything to worry about. I’m expecting a clean bill of health. I’m hoping to have a decision by then.

I know a lot of my friends are rooting for me to keep Potato. It looked like a slam dunk. This little guy charmed me, and I am really enjoying hanging out with him. It seems to be a great fit. But I’m scared. I did not enjoy deciding several times a day for six weeks whether or not to arrange Newcastle’s death with the vet. PTSD can develop when you endure a slow trauma, and I think I have it. Potato may not be the best thing for me right now.

On the other hand, Potato may be the best thing for me.

Decisions, decisions.

Meet Potato

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Meet Potato. Potato is his placeholder name. It’s short for Hot Potato. We’re not even sure if he is a he, but I’m going to keep calling him a him until the vet tells me otherwise.

Last night, Nicole and her boyfriend happened upon a young cat licking a Reese’s wrapper, and they thought it looked skinny and really hungry. They fed him, but they didn’t want to mix him with Henry because what if he had worms? Or leukemia? Or HIV? So they brought him to me until we can find him foster care and perhaps a home. He’s already made himself at home.

He’s a real sweetheart, but he’s skin and bones. He’s eating, but after the initial feast last night, be doesn’t have a lot of interest in food. He slept peacefully on my bed all night.

He’s good company, and it’s been a while since I’ve been able to pet a cat.

He also likes to read what I’m writing about him.

I don’t know if I can live with a cat who’s not Newcastle. He looks like Newcastle did at his age (I’m going to say from nine-twelve months), but I’m trying not to let that affect me. I’ve enjoyed hosting Potato, though, and as long as he’s well-behaved, he’s welcome to stay.

Cats and Dolls

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Meet Fauxcastle:

I got some cash for Christmas, and I ordered a custom stuffed animal of Newcastle. I knew he didn’t have long (but to be fair, I was kind of hoping to get a little longer), and I wanted to have something to remember him by. I sent them eight pictures, and two months later, it arrived. I put it in my closet as soon as I unboxed it because I still had the real one. After Newcastle died, I left it there because whenever I had to get something from the shelf it occupied, I could see its tail, which was one of Newcastle’s defining features, and I’d be hit with grief.

It’s a shockingly good likeness, though they didn’t get his fur color right. (You can’t tell from the pictures, but Newcastle’s fur wasn’t black, but rather the color of black coffee.) It’s a little bigger than the real thing, but somehow the people at Cuddle Clones nailed that signature Newcastle expression (“Huh?”), which you can see as it puzzles over the queen mother. It’s got a pouch for his ashes, but I think I’m going to leave those on the shrine. This isn’t Newcastle.

Today is a month without my best friend, and I’m still in pain. I broke down in tears at my desk Thursday (don’t worry, that’s the first time I’ve ever done that), and I see and hear him through the apartment. I still have to remind myself when I come home that he’s not there, and I get nervous about holding the door open so he doesn’t get out.

But when I was trying to find my 2022 tax return, I saw that fake tail and decided to give it a try and see if I could handle it. And I can. It’s right next to my desk, on top of a podium, which is on top of a chest of drawers, and there’s no way I can’t see it. I was worried that I would confuse it with Newcastle out of the corner of my eye, like I did with a pillow this morning, but nope.

Some of you might think this is morbid or creepy or obsessive, but I’m finding it comforting. I will not be petting it or feeding it or anything unhinged—it’s just there, filling up an empty space.

If it does move, though, I will kill it with fire.

Shrine of the Times

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When the vet left my apartment, taking Newcastle with her, she left behind three things: his collar, his paw print, and a lock of his fur. Nicole was with me through the whole ordeal, and when she left, I looked at the three items on my kitchen counter and kept myself from sobbing uncontrollably by putting them on the top shelf of the kitchen cabinet I only used to store his canned food. They have been there since. I knew I’d get to them eventually.

About a week later, I cleared out his food and water bowls and hid them in the cabinet on top of the refrigerator. Nicole didn’t take the canned food because I might decide to get another one someday, so I went into the cabinet to get it, and I saw a small piece of his collar poking out of the top shelf, and I realized I wasn’t ready.

A week later, the box I’d bought to display his hair was delivered, but I still wasn’t ready.

Last Saturday, I picked up his remains from the vet, and I’ve been experimenting in places to put him. Here’s a corner that is currently full of capsized Doctor Who action figures (that he knocked over), but that’s in a corner, tucked away from everything. Things tend to fall off of my desk, so that’s out. My dresser is covered in weird tchotchkes I haven’t sorted out. There’s a small metal shelf by the door, which would make a great location, but I use it to store art supplies when I work on my comic. I finally found the right spot.

Yesterday, I decided I would take his stuff out today. And I did. It was hard—it was really hard, but the spot I picked is perfect. It’s almost as high as the dresser, so it overlooks the whole apartment (which should tell you how big my apartment is). It’s a small chest of drawers that displays my owl collection (Newcastle always reminded me of an owl), and it’s close to my bed. No, I’m not going to cuddle with the box of ashes, but I will see it every time I turn off my lamp.

Here it is, my shrine to my best buddy.

Here’s Newcastle himself, in his coffin.

His paw print, which is nice to have, but it doesn’t make me emotional.

Here’s his fur. He was so matted in the end, but I couldn’t bear to shave him because I didn’t want him to die bald. The vet took this out of his tail, which was still fluffy.

Finally, his collar. This is the part I have a hard time looking at. It was mostly covered by his luxurious mane, but that lumberjack plaid was his signature look, and he’s had the tag forever.

He was such a big part of my life that I want him in a prominent place in my home. Typing this in bed, all I have to do is turn my head a little, and I can see some souvenirs from my friend. It hurts, and I’m okay with that.

We traveled to other countries together. He was with me through an entire marriage. He held on long enough for me to get used to living alone for the first time in my life. He was my friend.

I miss him so much.