Meow, meow, meow, meow...

Cats are weird.

Ok, so I suppose that in the interests of full disclosure, I should preface that statement with the following admission: I am a dog person.

I don’t mean to be, it’s not a conscious choice I made, heck, I even own a cat at this point (when you live in a small apartment in the middle of a city, I don’t think it’s fair to try to have a dog… unless you own one of those little rat dogs… which incidentally, I’m not even convinced ARE actually dogs), but still, it’s undeniable… I am a dog person.

They’re just friendlier… they bring you things like slippers (not disemboweled birds), they play games like “fetch” (not “let’s stare menacingly from the other side of the room), and they seem to LIKE me. My cat on the other hand, pretty much regards me with a sense of derision that implies I’m taking up valuable space in what would otherwise be a very lovely living arrangement. Dogs ENJOY people. Cats seem to view them solely as a means for getting food and disposing of poo.

And yes, cats are weird.

Don’t get me wrong, I like my cat…. and as cats go, I’ve got a pretty good one. She doesn’t shed a lot… she doesn’t bite (much)… and occasionally she’ll launch her tiny cat frame 6 feet in the air and contort it like a strudel for absolutely no good reason what so ever (an added value in any household pet). But there’s no denying that she’s weird.

For instance, my cat likes the color black… a lot. More specifically, she likes to lie down on black things, no matter what shape, form, or degree of difficulty that may entail. No matter what room she’s in, she’ll inevitably find the one black thing in it, and make it her nesting ground. I’ve found her in various cat–like poses on computer bags, shirts, pieces of music equipment… she even tries to lay on the side of the door when she’s in the car (making for a wonderful demonstration of the properties of gravity). Given the choice between a perfectly comfortable blue micro-fiber fleece blanket laid delicately on a field of catnip, and a rather less agreeable black-colored surface punctuated by thousands of sharp spikes that glisten with the entrails of fallen felines and smell of death… well, she’d take the blanket, but she’d stare longingly at those spikes for hours.

Cats are just weird.

Then there's the whole "stay near me/don't touch me" thing... You see, my cat is not by any standard what you would call an “affectionate” cat, but that doesn’t stop her from confusing me with the implication that she might WANT to be affectionate. (Hey, it’s like high school all over again… Ack, I don’t mean it THAT way… As always people, you can love your pet… just don’t LOVE your pet. Believe me, when I speak of affection with a cat and affection with a high school girl I’m talking about a WHOLE different kind of affection… not that I would um, engage in THAT type of affection with a high school girl at this point either… that would be wrong too… but when I was in high school, it was OK… the high school girl part, not the cat part… that’s ALWAYS wrong… at least that’s what the cops told me… kidding! Where’s your sense of humor? Now what the heck was I talking about?) oh yeah…. um, my cat is not by any standard what you would call an “affectionate” cat, but that doesn’t stop her from confusing me with the implication that she might WANT to be affectionate. She always seems to want to be in the same room as me… but yet, she doesn’t want to be near me. If I sit on one couch, she’ll move to the other… If I go in the office, she’ll follow, and then take up residence in the corner. Everywhere I go, she’s always just over my shoulder, out of reach… It's like she's haunting me... In fact, it’s kind of like being chased by Jason from the Friday the 13th movies… Only in this case, my “Jason” is short, furry, has a tail, doesn’t wear a hockey mask, and is most likely wholly incapable of picking up a sleeping bag containing a half-naked high school girl and bashing said girl against a nearby tree…

I tell ya, cats are weird…