What Possessed Me

Hello, my name is Verne and I ’m pooptastic.

So now you’ve met Fauxhawk’s Bad Cat, Verne. He looks cute, right? He looks harmless, no?

It’s a good thing he spends all his time in the Cute Position, because THIS CAT WON’T STOP POOPING IN THE KITCHEN AND BATHROOM.

Seriously, WTF?

It is unclear to me why people think that dogs are filthier than cats. My dog, Lovey, didn’t poop in the kitchen and bathroom. She did, however, like to eat the crotches of women’s bathing suits and underwear, but so do thousands of Japanese businessmen. Perverted? Yes. Filthy? No. She was also overly fond of tampons and had an unfortunate habit of pulling used condoms out of the wastebin when company came over. Disgusting? Definitely. Filthy? No.

With Lovey, there was no pooping inside. Ever. Dogs are better. They just ARE.

(I am now a person who blogs obsessively about my cats. I assume this means I am one step away from making macramé flower pot holders.)

Titles are so 2004.

I picked my up my darling dad at the hospital today. It was nothing terribly serious, but enough to make us all feel a bit uneasy. My brothers and I are accustomed to my dad being as strong as an ox and completely invincible. We forget, especially when he is digging a fence post or tacking shingles to the roof, that he is eighty-two years old with a heart that sometimes doesn't feel like cooperating.

When we got home, we sat on the couch and my father pulled out three folders bulging with old family photographs I'd never seen before. Pictures of Model T cars, girls in Victorian dresses, and strapping men with beards worthy of Tsar Nicholas. He began to tell me stories, each illustrated by a photograph, of grandmothers, great-grandfathers, great-great uncles.

My father is a reserved, elegant, stoic man. He is not given to histrionics or hyperbole or - God forbid - garish sentimentalism. Instead, he speaks sparingly and loves intensely. There is a fathomless ocean beneath the surface; there is part of him that is unknowable. As we flipped through his history - pictures of his people, of places he once knew - I realized that this was my dad's quiet way of saying, I won't be around forever and you should know about this stuff. (Of course, my father would find a better way to say it - in Middle English or Canonical Latin and definitely without the words "hopefully" or "very unique" or "individual" used as a noun.)

There was no need to remind me. Though I don't talk about it much, I can get pretty morbid about my father. It's something I probably share with everyone else in the world, particularly with people whose parents are unwell or elderly.

It's difficult to imagine that kind of loss, but I try it on every day to see if it fits. Who's gonna dote on my mother? Or show me his new paintbrushes? Or ask me what I'm reading? Or tell the hostess at Pizza Hut that his name is Genghis Khan? Or (and here's where things get really selfish) believe in me in the way that he does? In a way that I don't feel I really deserve?

My dad gave me two photographs to take with me before I left. The first is of my grandmother, who was an actress born in 1902. Here she is at 21, in costume, and about to be married. My father adored her for her charm and vivacity. My mother, also an actress, felt she was a kindred spirit. I'm sad I never knew her - she died seven years before I was born.



And here is my grandfather, born in 1899, at three, looking awfully cute in his sailor suit.



And then a weird, creepy thing happened on my way home. A man looked me straight in the eyes and said, "Enjoy!"

In addition to being out of left field, it was the sort of comment that waiters make that usually annoys me ( "Hi! I'm Derek! I'll be your server tonight! Enjoy!" to which I am always tempted to reply, I will enjoy when I am good and ready and not a minute sooner. I might not even enjoy at all. How do you like that?)

But of course, I didn't say that (because it would be rude, not to mention vaguely psychotic). I thanked him, and continued walking into the subway station, sat down, and started reading about recent private equity investment in the financial services sector (as one does).

And then, for a moment, I wondered if that guy knew something. Knew that I was thinking about my dad and wondering how many dinners we'd have together, how many things we'd make together, whether he'd ever see me do something with myself.

And I thought, Yes. Enjoy. Enjoy it as much as you can. For as long as you can. That is all there is, really.

Take an eye break.

First of all, I am sick of Earth Day. I feel slightly guilty saying that, but it’s true. In fact, I am looking forward to tomorrow when everything will go back to normal and the blagosphere will stop pontificating about green carrot peelers and ecologically sound hot pants. In my fantasy world, I imagine all of these people tossing their cigarette butts everywhere and feeding lead paint chips to babies while no one is looking.

If you haven’t noticed, I’m in a bit of bad mood today. It was one of those days when I felt a bit hopeless and fraudulent at work, and forced to do things that scare me – and not in a good way. After spending half the day flapping my hands and stressing, I decided to take an eye break. An eye break is the next best thing to a really strong martini – it calms and soothes, while simultaneously providing a little buzz.

While I was reading Fly – (love this blog, love this girl), I discovered the best eye break of all time. The “Adventures of Prince Achmed” was the first feature-length animated film and the creation of Lotte Reiniger and her husband, Carl Koch. In 1923, they set out to tell the story of “A Thousand and One Nights” through silhouette paper cutouts, hinged at each joint. Each paper puppet was placed on a lightbox and photographed frame by frame. You can learn more about it here.

Though I haven’t seen the film, I am captivated by the beauty and intricacy of these stills. To me, this is pure magic. )And it feeds many of my interest: cut paper artists, orientalists and orientalism, and all things obsessive-compulsive.)











I feel better already.

Images from ASIFA Hollywood Animation Archives.