Jones died last summer after a long bout with cancer.

Jones was our big yellow tabby with a fucked-up tail. There is really no other way to describe it, he was born with a curly tail like a pig, sort of a furry orange chicken wing, and when he was happy it would gyrate like a beckoning finger. His sister, Spike, was born with only half a tail. Our other cat, Raven, was born with a big kink in his.

When we go to our friends’ houses we always admire their cats and their long, straight tails, touching them over and over because surely they can’t be real! Wow, cats with regular ol’ tails, not the deformed circus freaks we live with.

After almost a year of my daughter asking if we were ready for a new kitten, my parents found themselves with a pregnant cat named Blue. Grampa took it upon himself to call Cindy and tell her she could have any one of the babies that she wanted. Heck, she could even have two.

Cindy spent her spring break at my parents’ house and called me when Blue had her kittens.

“When were they born?” I asked as I drove through Park City, Utah, trying to find Sundance while Dearinger checked the map. Again. I figured my daughter would be eager to discuss the new arrivals so I did my part to keep the conversation going.

Cindy, being a literal child, was quite irritated. “I don’t know the exact time, I don’t follow Blue around all day!”

After some carefully worded questions I was able to ascertain that the kittens were indeed born that day, March 29. Somewhere between midnight and 10am. In the tool shed where Grampa keeps spare car parts. On the shelf next to the alternators. But behind the air compressor. The blue one, not the red one.

“Why do you need to know this, Mom?” Cindy asked.

“I don’t, I was just wondering what day they were born, that’s all.” I was picturing feral kittens running free on my parents four acres, too wild to catch by the time someone noticed them. Thankfully Cindy had been watching Blue’s ever-expanding gut like a hawk and knew, down to a 10-hour time frame, when the kittens were born.

I know how hard it is to tame wild kittens. My brother, John, had one living in his house.

He was the only one of his friends that wasn’t married, so his house is where the guys would go, you know, to get away from the old lady and have fun with no one bitching at them. The place showed the signs of a perpetual party, like a John Hughes movie when the parents went out of town. Beer cans, old pizza boxes, empty bottles of every description on every surface. At some point, someone had left a kitten there.

John left food and water out for it, but that was the extent of their relationship. A few times he tried to catch it but they just ran in laps around his two-bedroom house. When he thought he finally had it cornered it climbed the curtains all the way to the ceiling, out of the reach of John’s long orangutan arms.

So he left it, leaving the wild animal its berth, coexisting peacefully once they reached their unspoken agreement. John will not touch the cat, and the cat will not claw his eyes out.

Unlike my brother, I’m not comfortable living in the house with a feral animal. Every furry beast must be named, washed, and if the mood strikes, I have to be able to paint its toenails or put a ribbon in its hair. Any new kitten must be young, tame, and malleable.

Cindy marked the days on her calendar until Blue’s kittens were exactly six weeks old. She reminded me every day, up until it was time to make the four-hour drive to bring home her new pet.

Steve and I decided not to get another cat, but Cindy’s dad came to the rescue and said that she could keep the new baby at his house, unless it was evil like the black cat I tried to pass off on him, the one that will only poop on furniture who now resides in my back yard, which he befouls daily in an unspeakable manner. After thousands in vet bills, tests, hormone shots, getting clawed up while trying to coax medicine down his throat, and I’m reduced to a hose, a bottle of orange cleaner, and a poop scoop. I thought he might even wander off and go live with a neighbor, but the little shit has been camping outside for years and hasn’t left my yard.

I assure Cindy’s dad that these kitties were not spawned from the bowels of hell, unlike Raven, and should have no problem using a litter box. Cindy has one already picked out, a Blue-look-a-like named Sky. I tell John that the kitty is a girl and won’t feel the need to spray the house down.

On the drive to my parents’ house I start to sweat. What if Sky isn’t a girl after all? It’s so hard to tell on those little creatures. Cindy is already attached to Sky, I hope I don’t have to be a meanie. We got Raven fixed when he was six weeks old and he still liked to pee on anything that did or didn’t move. We don’t want to go through that again.

Pushing Gordo, the Chow/Rottweiller and surrogate father to the kittens out of the way, I went in the tool shed and grabbed Sky. I turned her over and examined her netherregions, wishing for the millionth time that I wasn’t so nearsighted. Hmmm, maybe if I compared this one to the other cats. I picked up Haynes, so named because he is black with a little white triangle underneath that looks like underpants. Kitty business all looks alike to me. I poked around and picked up Shiitake. Are those little testicles or not?

“Don’t tell anyone where I touched you,” I said to Fuzzy as I put him down on the ground, Gordo protectively licking his forehead, making sure I didn’t harm his little friend. Just then my dad walked around the corner and asked if I needed help.

“Yeah, I can’t tell the boys from the girls,” I said, looking for the cat Cindy named Squeaky, the only one left I hadn’t violated.

“Here, I’ll show you how to tell the difference,” he said in his instructing, fatherly voice. He picked up two kittens. I leaned my head in to get a good look. “See? The boys have a pecker and balls. The girl cats don’t.” He put both cats down again.

“Thanks,” I said. “That clears it all up. Sky is a girl though, right?”

“Sky and Squeaky are the only girls,” he answered.

Confident now, but still confused, I went in the house and washed my hands several times and got the cat carrier. Everyone gathered around as we ceremoniously coaxed Sky into her temporary home.

Steve and I looked at the hawks circling around and then at each other. Squeaky was going home with us. Heretofore and forevermore known as Jin.

Jin, our first cat with a normal tail.

May 25, 2005

There is a disposable version of everything nowadays. Face and hand wipes, furniture polish wipes, floor sweepers –dang it we’re all busy and have no time to wash. What surprises me is the complete flip from the 80s.

In the Eighties it was the fad to be environmentally conscious. Everyone was doing it. You were urged to carry your own cloth grocery bags, recycling was hip, you were painfully aware of every scrap that you threw away that would wind up in a landfill, and caring about the Earth was cool.

In fact, all of the celebrities were talking about. I was watching Lifetime today and I had forgotten how preachy the shows were in the 80s. Everything had to have a “message.” On interviews, actor upon actor, would give the same damn speech.

“I think it’s my,” pause here, as actor/actress looks away, searching for just the right word, “responsibility to use my position in the spotlight to make the world a better place.”

They all did it, and if they didn’t use their position as a celebrity to preach to everyone else, why, then, they were wasting their acting talent. And that’s just wrong.

No wonder Married With Children was so popular. Everyone was sick of listening to Dixie Carter go on about feminist issues, Delta Burke sharing her fat chick feelings, and the Golden Girls scaring us to death with the woes of the aged. After having my awareness raised night after night, watching Al Bundy sitting on the couch with his hand down the front of his pants was prime entertainment.

I guess that’s when TV got mean. Of course, with all of the reality shows now I kind of miss it. But it’s still better than being preached at.

So now the germ-paranoid masses are back to filling up the landfills, one disposable towelette at a time.

Speaking of germ-paranoid, I’m going to use my status as vanity-web-site-publisher-and-otherwise-unpublished-writer to preach to you about the evils of antibacterial soap.

Five years ago my husband, Steve, then known as my boyfriend, Steve, got a small cut on his elbow. No biggie, lots of people get cuts on their elbow. This one got infected. Okay, so far no problem. A little infected cut.

One morning I took my daughter to Kindergarten as usual and came home to find Steve lying at an odd angle across the living room floor. This might seem like strange behavior for some people, but not for Steve. He is a rather impulsive person and if he feels like taking a spontaneous nap on the floor then, by god, he’s going to do it. I stepped over his still form and walked into the other room to check my email.

I was on the computer about an hour when I looked at the clock. It occurred to me that it was time for Steve to be at work but he didn’t come say goodbye to me before leaving and, indeed, I never heard him get up. I poked my head into the living room and saw that Steve was lying in the exact same position he was when I got home.

Steve didn’t answer when I called his name. I tried poking him a few times but his body was too hot to touch. A few slaps warranted an incoherent mumble. I slipped on my flip-flops and grabbed my keys, half-dragging his lumbering body out to my car.

The Emergency Room personnel rushed Steve through triage and admitted him immediately. It seems that 106º temperature is considered dangerous. Something about Steve’s bright red elbow being the size of a watermelon alarmed the doctor on duty.

After almost a week of intravenous antibiotics, Steve was worse. The red cloud that was overtaking his skin had spread. All over. Every day the infectious disease specialist would come in and mark the red border with his ball point pen, only to find the next day that it had advanced even further. Between his scarlet skin and rows of wavy black lines, Steve looked like a topo map of Mars.

Steve cried. Not because he was in the hospital, not because he was too weak to move, helplessly watching his body decay right before his eyes, but because a few nights before he got sick we had gone to see Battlefield Earth.

“I can’t believe I’m going to die and the last movie I saw was so bad!” he wailed.

“Shut up and eat your Jello,” I comforted him. “It’s better than that Pirates of the Caribbean event at Disneyland we went to.”

“That’s true,” he agreed. “Give me more mashed potatoes.”

The doctor took me out in the hall and told me that Steve was scheduled to have his arm amputated tomorrow. The infection was getting into his internal organs and the only way to stop certain death was to remove the source of the deadly virus that was marching through his cells.

I was eerily calm. No, this is not going to happen. Steve is going to get well and nothing is going to be chopped off. I was right, by a miracle the red border started to retreat and the doctor put off Steve’s amputation another day. And another, and another, until finally Steve was allowed to go home with all of his limbs and organs intact.

The first thing he did, after getting take-out Chinese food, was watching Star Wars to cleanse his movie palate.

When Steve was still in the hospital, I asked his doctor how something so benign, such as a cut on the elbow, can turn into something as deadly as cellulitis so quickly.

“People overuse antibacterial soap,” the doctor explained to me. He went on to tell me that we evolved right along with bacteria and viruses from the beginning, and we need a certain amount of exposure to them to keep up a resistance. In today’s germ-paranoid world, people are constantly over-antibacterial-soaping themselves, totally annihilating their bodies chances of getting used to germs. That, with the overuse of antibiotics, we’re all slowly screwing ourselves.

I’m not suggesting we all go around licking cat butts or anything, but I’m embracing the germs in my environment and sticking with regular old soap and water, thank you!

May 23, 2005

How long has it been since the Pope died? Today it occurred to me that they didn't endlessly blabber on about him on the news. Nothing against the guy, really, I don't know him either way. I'm just not Catholic and it doesn't really make any difference to me. Other people like me, who aren't Catholic, do they care? It makes me wonder why I'm supposed to care. Because I'm pretty sure that I'm expected to care because he was on the news all the time.

Of course, I'm tired of seeing Michael Jackson on the news too, and he sure aint the Pope. Wait a minute, now that the Pope is dead they both have that weird pallor in common, the really bizarre clothes, and, of course, Michael is on the stand for going after little boys so...maybe I shouldn't pursue this any further.

I remember very clearly the last time Michael Jackson was being accused for molesting little boys. I was pregnant and after three months of puking, I graduated to six months of doctor-ordered bed rest.

Being told you can’t get out of bed or you and your child might die is a daunting responsibility. At first I thought, no big whoop, I’ll lie around and watch TV. Lots of people do it. I can finally see all the Gilligan’s Island I want.

I was 23 and very naïve. Spending a day on the couch now and then is fun. Being forced down is another experience altogether. No volleyball, no mall, no mountain biking, no hiking. No drinking, no visiting friends, I missed my job at USC, outings were confined to my almost daily visits to the doctor. But at least I could watch TV.

Then it happened.

Gilligan’s Island was pre-empted by Al and OJ cruising the freeways in the white Bronco.

There was nothing else on except for OJ.
There was nothing else on except for OJ.
There was nothing else on except for OJ.

Who was happy by all this attention on OJ? Michael Jackson. Did you notice how as soon as the media started following OJ around, everyone seemed to forget about Michael Jackson’s case? He was able to kick the whole thing behind the curtain, stick his hands in his pockets, and nonchalantly sidle away as he quietly whistled to himself.

Meanwhile, it was just me, OJ, and my giant belly. Day after day. I sent my husband out to rent me movies but he apparently shopped at Hell’s Video Store and came home with winners like Rancho Deluxe and Tucker. I couldn’t read since my preeclampsia gave me mind-numbing headaches. Same goes for drawing. There was only so much Bach and Madonna I could play on my portable keyboard, and once I started my birds would squawk for hours. I was stuck. I had to make do with network television.

The only bright spot in my world of media was the launching of the Conan O’Brien show. Since I was in a perpetual fog from not moving, sleep was virtually out of the question. But I had my Conan. And a few hours later I could watch Good Day LA.

In the beginning, Good Day LA was a funny, original show. Check out the kooky news people! Antonio Mora, Dagny Hultgren, Susan Lichtman, Tony McEwing, and Mark Thompson made a hilarious team.

It evolved over the years and got bastardized into what it is today, the two stupid bitches and Steve Edwards. Mark Thompson managed to hang on during this line up for a while but he got bumped off to evening weather. It makes me wonder what goes on behind the scenes over there. I imagine some sort of pissing contest.

But why the loud-mouthed, histrionic drama queens? Don’t they know they make us, womankind, look bad? Does the world not want to see clever broads on TV? Why don’t they just put Kathy Griffin on Good Day LA and get it over with?

Please, please, please…don’t present women to the world this way. My daughter is ten now and I don’t let her watch stupid women on TV. I don’t want her growing up thinking that talking over people, brandishing insults, belching, and shaking her ass for the camera is an option.

Which leads me back to Michael Jackson. I wonder if something else is going to come along to shake him down from the media spotlight. Or is he finally going to have to see this ugly beast through to the end?

The new Pope is pretty old. Don’t give up hope, Michael.

May 20, 2005

God, I love shoes.

I can't believe that pointy pumps are back in style. My toes are still deformed from the last time they were in. I had them in every color and wore them with everything until I was walking on the little nails inside the heel, threw them away, and bought some more. That's all you needed in the 80s, a pair of pumps, a bad perm, and a lot of hair gel.

Where did the name Pump come from anyway? That doesn't sound like a shoe. It sounds like something a farmer would have, or maybe a sex act. It sounds better than what it really is, that's for sure, sort of like fish tacos and Billy Crudup. Wait, I got that backwards, Billy Crudup and fish tacos are way better than they sound.

I think Tredair makes the most awesome shoes. I have multiple pairs of kitty Maryjanes. I wear them with everything and hopefully, if I wear them long enough, they will train my feet back into their natural shape.

May 19, 2005

I just got my shipment of makeup I ordered from ELF. I swear to god, the eyeshadow says "Avoid contact with eye area" on the package.

May 18, 2005

I'm going to see Star Wars Episode III in the morning. The movie hasn't even come out yet and I'm already sick of it. Mind you, I've been a huge Star Wars fan since I was in the 2nd grade, but geez, they really market the hell out of everything these days. Not to mention the fact that I live with a Star Wars freak. I didn't know fandom could go to such proportions until I met Steve.

Before I moved in with him, I thought I was the ultimate Gilligans Island fan because I owned a book about it. No. I am an amateur, a dabbler, a dilettante.

There is no end to the discussions, watching the Episode III trailers over and over, collecting every Star Wars-related piece of merchandise available on the market. I even ate some of those crappy little hamburgers so Steve could have the toys.

There are Star Wars movie poster and autographed pictures hanging on our living room walls alongside my Man Ray and Lasse Åberg prints. Vadar's head stares at me from behind a glass cabinet, kept company by the idol from Indiana Jones, a Zanti from Outer Limits, Audrey 2, bloody fake money from Robocop, and the shirt Steve wore in Kentucky Fried Movie. I haven't seen my Gilligans Island book in years, it's probably buried somewhere under a pile of Star Trek magazines.

When I finally met George Lucas a few years ago at an Academy event, did I congratulate him on his dazzling success? Thank him for enriching my life? No. I stared at his beautiful head of crisp silver hair. It was mesmerizing. It would curl one way and then WHOOP! change directions in an elaborate series of peaks and valleys. I worship thine head, oh god of coiffures.

If you need me tomorrow, I'll be sitting for hours on the cold, hard sidewalk in front of the theater reading Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. I like the bit about the horse.

May 11, 2005

On Saturday Kat and I are going to the Third Eye Gathering. For Kat, growing up "The Third Eye" was a slang word for "anus." So when I asked her to go to the Third Eye Gathering with me she was quite alarmed. Thank goodness we got that straightened out.

May 5, 2005

Eight years ago today we had a Welcome to LA party for Kat, thinly disguised as a Cinco De Mayo celebration at the bar where I worked so my boss would pay for it. Good thing Kat likes Corona. Happy Welcome to LA Anniversary Kat! I think you're official now.

I'm getting dressed to go meet Rain for coffee. I don't actuallly drink coffee too often (see Brawny Story below) but it's more of a description of our social activity, not an inventory of what we're actually drinking. I will drink tea, as I always do. But saying that I'm meeting someone for tea makes me sound 1) English, or B) like a little old lady. I am neither. On top of that, to say "I'm going to meet Rain for tea" sounds like something else, maybe that I'm collecting raindrops for a really natural beverage, or that I've been drinking bongwater.

Going through my clothes as I'm looking for something to wear to meet Rain for, errr, coffee, I found a pair of pants I accidentally bought a while back. You know the ones, the low-rise jeans that threaten to show off your hoohaw. I want to show off my hoohaw even less than other people want to see it. They should really come with a warning label. "Warning, you will randomly flash your ass at strangers when you sit down" would be a good one. I only wear them with a really long shirt. I'm not knocking the people who actually look good in this style of pants, but shouldn't there be a weight limit on these things?

This leads me to a few strongly-held beliefs I have about fashion. First, a really good rule of thumb when shopping for a skirt is not to buy one that is wider than it is long. You would think that was common sense, but we've all seen the belly fat and stretch marks spilling over the tops of all the low-waisted pants out there, so obviously common sense isn't always a factor. I keep my unsightly business hidden safely under my Levis, thank you.

There is a Mediterranean restaurant in Pasadena that has the most amazing Sunday brunch. One weekend my friends and I noticed they only bring out the really voluptuous belly dancer for the brunch buffet. She's beautiful and talented, but she really must keep the cost down for the restaurant owners. As soon as I see that belly jiggling my way I always put down my fork. I can barely squash down my buffet guilt as it is, I don't need a visual reminder vibrating in my face.

I can just see Gary and Harry in the kitchen.

"The kabobs are going fast! There is hardly any poached salmon left! Quick, bring out Katya!"

The silent alarm goes off, Katya rushes into her garb as she slides down the pole and quickly takes her place on the floor.

(I don't know that her name is Katya, but I think that's a pretty good name for a belly dancer.)

I would like to explain something to all the Hot Topic shoppers out there. Buying clothes that already have safety pins neatly sewn into them, with pre-made reinforced holes so they don't rip, is the lamest thing in all of creation. It defeats the purpose of wearing safety pins in your clothes at all, and makes a mockery of the hard work of your punk and new wave predecessors. Listen here, sonny boy, back in my day we put our own damn safety pins in our clothes and we liked it.

Since I've dyed my hair red (Rubine by Manic Panic) more people talk to me on the street than they used to. Two men have asked me if it's my natural color, but most people say some variation of "I like the red." When I see another person who has colorful hair we are now immediately obligated under some unwritten rule to stop and talk to each other. My brother, who has an affinity for tattoos, often stops to talk to other people about their tattoos, so now I know what their conversations are like. Where did you get it, how do you like it, that's some nice work there, look at mine here, I'm thinking of having this done, that sort of thing.

There is one guy I talk to sometimes at the mall. He has a pink mohawk. Our conversations were pretty benign until one day, when we were talking about the endless upkeep, he said "Yeah, it's a lot of work letting people know you're cool."

Excuse me? I thought he was joking, but no, he was serious. I quickly scanned his clothes to check the status of his safety pins. Dying your hair a certain color doesn't make you cool. It doesn't automatically make you uncool. But dying your hair so that other people will know you're cool is defininately uncool.

Hey, I just looked down. Rain is from New York, I'll have to ask her about the pizza.

May 1, 2005

Why I'm awake tonight: Why is the Greek food in Chicago so different from the Greek food in Los Angeles?

And what is the emotional upset about pizza? I get so tired of hearing my out-of-state friends go on about pizza.

"Oh, yeah, Missy? Well you haven't tasted pizza until you've been to (Chicago or NY, depending on where they are from.)

One friend of mine from New Jersey (who was excited on his first visit to LA, by the way, when we were at Taco Bell and a guy named Juan made his burrito) would not stop talking about how superior the pizza is in New York. And what can I say? I've never been to New York, we're not on our way to New York, I don't give a shit and I just want him to shut up. Personally, I like the woodfired stuff at Avanti's in Pasadena but apparently no one wants to hear about this newfangled West Coast crap.

After living in LA for a while he finally found this place downtown that made pizza "Just like they have it in New York" so he dragged me down there at whatever time of night to try it. He was so excited! Staring at me with his mouth open, his eyebrows up, his hands poised in midair as if they are waiting to grab my response as it comes out of my mouth. I took a bite. Whatever. It's a kind of bland and flat, and too moist. Too much cheese.

There is nothing I can say. If I like it we'll have to discuss how much I like it. If I don't like it he's going to spend the rest of his life trying to convince me that I'm wrong. It's fine though, I'm not knocking it, but I sure don't share my friend's enthusiasm.

I nod. "It's good," I say, trying to chew without making the moist ball of dough touch my tongue. Too late, the slimey crust made contact with the inside of my mouth and I gag a little bit. "Ooo, trying to chew too much at once there. Yeah, that was really good."

"Don't you just want to eat here every day?" he asks, digging in.

"I don't know, man, that's kind of a long drive just for pizza," I say.

Wrong answer, just so you know.

Not long after that, another NJ friend ordered me a pizza from Joe Peeps, so I could see what real pizza is like. It was alright. A beam of light didn't shine down from heaven or anything, but it tasted good with lots of Louisiana Hot Sauce.

Later, I met Dearinger, a die-hard Chicagoan. After hearing her go on about Chicago pizza for a couple of years we were finally able to complete this endurance test when I accompanied her to Chicago. We took a taxi to a place called, I forget what it's called, I'm wanting to say Porquoi or Pernod but that wasn't it. Anyway, Amy gave us the name over the phone so I thought we were going out for French and I dressed up. Beer, people screaming at the many TVs, me in a $300 jacket. Got it? Okay.

The pizza was kind of soupy, lots of stuff in it. Sort of like an Italian stew served over bread, fat soaked into the crust. It was okay. On my more recent trip to Chicago I was able to try the deep dish pizza at a variety of restaurants, just to make sure I hadn't gotten ahold of a bad one, or maybe I had too much tequila before. No.

I told one of my Chicago friends, a transplant, that I had pizza for dinner.

"Oh yeah? What place?" he asks immediately. Oh no, has he caught pizza fever already?

"Uh, I don't know, some place that starts with a P," I answer.

"Could it be 'Pizzeria'?" he asks.

"No, I'm not that stupid," I answer. I check the sign later. Pizzeria Oro.

What is it about the freaking pizza that makes people come to LA and drone on about how much better it is at home? Does this have something to do with homesicknesses and yearning for the familiar greasy teat they grew up on? I've never tried to push pizza on anyone, although I'm from Oregon and we're not really known for our pizza. The next time I'm in Chicago if I order chicken and cilantro with goatcheese on a wholewheat crust will I be bludgeoned to death?

Does everyone get so charged up over their food, or do I just hang out with a bunch of proselytizing pizza pushers?

Back