So, What Else Is Goin' On

I had my heart broken recently, and a friend asked me if I'd learned anything from the experience, and I said "I learned I can cry WHILE napping".

Seriously, it's a real time saver. Ever look in your daytimer and discover you've double-booked yourself for mourning AND hiding in bed with your head under five pillows? Just try the ol' Weep-n-Sleep. Instead of thinking about all the mistakes you've made in your life until you burst into tears, just conk out and DREAM about them instead. You'll wake refreshed, if moist.

Yes, I got dumped. So I decided to get a cat. Which is a little like trying to kick heroin by drinking a mug of hot cocoa. With one (1) marshmallow.

Here's something NOT to say at the animal shelter: "Excuse me, where are your available kittens? I don't wanna die alone."

Doesn't matter how nonchalantly you say it, they are gonna notice.

I wanted a cat because I am used to cats, and I couldn't have one while I was dating one allergic person and roommating with another. I am not anti-dog, but I am rigidly pro-cat. Dog people will tell you cats are aloof and impersonal, to which I respond, "yeah, well, dogs shit and then eat it." Also they need attention all the damn time, and are unfailingly and unconditionally in love with you. I'm not about to deal with that. I want my pet to be as emotionally detached, rampantly entitled, and secretly needy as I am.

I was explaining this to a friend, and they said, "Not even a pug?" as if that constituted an argument. No, not even a pug. Pugs are dogs. They do not read the Wall Street Journal aloud to you in the morning, or write poetry. They do not eat sunshine or poop music. They, like all dogs, will occasionally take a dump, look at it, and think, "hey, that tasted pretty good the FIRST time I ate it. Do I dare?"

Also, pugs are cute, with their little folds, but what no one tells you about the little folds is that you have to clean them. You have to get up in there with a moist q-tip and ream those suckers out, or stuff grows in there. STUFF. When selecting a pet, you know what you should never have to consider? Smegma. That should just never be a factor, at all. I don't wanna get a dog and then have to circumcise its face.

So I got kittens. I named them Tango and Sushi, but I'm going to start saying the names in reverse order when I tell people about them, because waaaaaay too many people have asked me why I didn't name them Tango and Cash. Here's why: it would be funny for no minutes, and then I would be stuck with a kitten named Cash. And he doesn't LOOK like a Cash:



He looks like a Sushi, or possibly an Admiral Chubbins. My cats tend to get a lot of nicknames; we may get to that point.

I try not to give pets "funny" names, or names that I've drawn from pop culture; I named my last cat Gir, like Invader Zim's sidekick, but I made up for that name by never calling him by it.

Sometimes, though, I hear a referential cat name I wish I'd had the balls to use. One time in Westwood I ran into a ten-year-old kid who was carrying a jet-black kitten; I asked him what its name was and he said "Suge Knight".

I don't know about you, but I buy that kitten calendar. Seminal figures in hip-hop history, as portrayed by adorable kittens? Why hasn't this already been done, by me? How awesome would it be to have a picture of Suge Knight the kitten dangling Vanilla Ice over a hotel balcony? And the caption would be, of course, "Hang In There".

I'm tryin', kitty. I'm tryin'.