A Few Points Shy of the High Score

notes from a man who spends too much time playing video games

Archives
<< current

This is where you stick random tidbits of information about yourself.

Thursday, July 28, 2005
Was sitting at my desk having a cup of coffee yesterday morning when the kitten, as is her habit these days, leapt onto the desk and began her search for pens, paperclips, rubberbands, batteries, etc. Basically anything she can knock to the floor and bat around for 10 to 15 minutes.

As she surveyed the desk, she spun around, turning her backside towards me. Her tail happened to be hoisted high, giving me a bird's-eye view of her butthole. And there, pinned in the halo of fur surrounding her butthole, was a dark pebble of poop.

With all the time she spends grooming herself, and, in particular, grooming her crotch, I figured I'd leave the pebble there and let her take care of it. It was only a matter of time before she found it. So, I went about my morning, sending various emails, etc. An hour went by, and the pebble was still there. Two hours...and the pebble was still there.

Finally, by noon, I figured I had no choice but to help her out a little.

"Hold still," I said, gently lifting her tail. With nervous fingers, I plucked the pebble of poop off of her. Once the extraction was complete, the kitten let out a polite meow, which I interpreted as, *Thank you.*

If this isn't true love, I don't know what is.
10:32 AM

Thursday, July 21, 2005
An ice cream truck has been patrolling my Queens neighborhood nearly 24 hours a day for the past month, always blaring a Casio keyboard rendition of "Turkey In the Straw." I get so fucking depressed during the summer months. It's not just the overwhelming heat and humidity in New York, the blinding sun. It's picnics, watermelon, BBQs, fireworks, popsicles, parks, beaches, pools, margaritas, camping, state fairs, badmitton, hot dogs. It's ice cream trucks that play "Turkey In The Straw" all night. It's summer culture itself.

And it's the way people are hellbent on doing something, going somewhere, desperate to make something, anything, happen. The way everyone is always determined, no matter the cost, to have themselves a ball. The way the newsanchors on the local channels are always pretending to beg the weatherman for a sunshine-filled forecast. (The sun icon used on the screen is inevitably a smiling face.) The way everyone is forever asking one another, "So, what are your plans for the weekend?"

Implying that to not have plans is somehow abnormal.

Well, fuck you. Those are my plans.

There's something false in all this relentless cheeriness. Something that doesn't ring true to me.

One of my neighbors invited me out to his Hamptons house. A college friend tried to get me to go down to Breezey Point in Brooklyn last weekend. Still another invited me to a cookout in his tiny backyard in Park Slope.

Thanks, but no. Instead, I draw the blinds. I run the air conditioner. I sit in the dark and watch DVDs. I drink beer and play videogames. I get more pale, more mushroomy, by the second. I rarely go out, and only then if I absolutely must. (For more beer, or DVDs, or kitty litter.)

Sometimes I think I suffer from a rare brand of seasonal affective disorder. Only instead of being afflicted during the dark, bitter months of winter, as most people are, I get it during the summer.

Or maybe I'm just on my way to becoming a cranky old fuck.
9:26 AM

Monday, July 18, 2005
So I got a cat. A kitten. 10 weeks old. 2 pounds. She was a street cat who was rescued a few blocks away from my apartment. (It's a rags to riches story; she was homeless, but now she's moved on up to my deluxe apartment in the sky. And yes, I'm quoting The Jefferson's theme song.)

I named her Humtum, but I usually call her Pewey (which is short for Pewey-head). I'm not sure why I do this.

I love her dearly, but she's a pain in the ass sometimes. I've got steel wool stuffed into cracks and crevices around the apartment, which is designed to keep out bugs and mice. Pewey has made it her personal mission to locate every bit of steel wool she can find. This drives me insane, and I'm terrified that she's going to eat some of it. And she climbs all over my keyboard when I'm at the computer. This was sort of endearing at first, but quickly became annoying, especially whenever I'm on deadline.

I realize that she won't be a kitten for very long, so I wanted to make sure that I properly record her kittenhood for posterity. So I follow her around nearly every day with a camera, snapping pictures of her, trying to catch her in the act of napping (not hard to do), or doing something cute.

One day last week as I followed her from room to room with my camera at the ready, it struck me that there might be something more than a little sad about a 36-year-old man alone in his apartment in Queens trying to take photographs of his cat.
1:37 PM