A few good cats

Just a few.

I turned 34 this week, but as long as Zoë Kravitz and Dakota Johson live, I will always believe that the hottest age is two to three years older than me. This is a wonderful carrot when it comes to aging. Anyway, here’s my birthday wish: I want your thoughts on this newsletter! As much as it’s my passion project, it’s a passion project that I would like people to read and enjoy. Hit reply on this email and answer my riddles three:

1. Where do you live?

2. How did you find out about The Scumbler?

3. I’m cheating here and folding multiple questions into this one, so do not feel obligated to answer all of them. What do you like best about this newsletter? Which formats or franchises speak to you most? (For instance: The Most Interesting Person in D.C., “general interest” interviews, recommendations, cartoons, essays.) What do you want to see more or less of? Are my posts too long???

Thank you, as always, for reading — and for contributing to the ongoing development of The Scumbler! Now, onto this week’s potentially alienating subject.

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I’m a dog person, raised in a family of dog people. “Cats are crabgrass in the lawn of life,” my mom would say, quoting Peanuts. My sister had a cat at one point, and I had to learn to be nice and supportive about it.

I don’t actually hate cats. They’re just to be avoided at all costs. Alex and I are a big-time allergy household, which means that their dander is a tremendous inconvenience, practically and socially. That’s not their fault; it’s not ours either. But the other day, I caught myself cooing over the cat next door. So I’d like to formally admit my truth: While every single dog is a good dog, there are also a few good cats.

Here they are.

We looked at a lot of apartments when we were moving to D.C., and the process went full circle: The very first rental we toured is next door to the place where we ended up. I know nothing about the occupants of that apartment, other than that they have a very cute cat. It’s an uncommonly small cat, I think, with a permanently kitten-ish look. The cat likes to sit in the window — just above human eye level — and gaze with great focus and intensity at the people on the sidewalk. Being equally nosy, I gaze back, despite the small security camera perched on the windowsill. I feel that I understand this cat, and maybe it understands me, too.

When I was a kid, I really loved Miyazaki’s movies about children with jobs — so, Spirited Away and Kiki’s Delivery Service. I, too, wanted the sense of purpose and independence that came with work. (Spirited Away is less about independence and more about child labor, but I didn’t totally get that as a ten-year-old.) Because I was also a girl into witchcraft, I loved Kiki’s familiar, Jiji, a spunky talking cat with a cute little nose. I think that Jiji would get along famously with the cat next door, who I imagine to be an intelligent and sardonic little stinker.

I’m obsessed with a cat-shaped pillow that lives on the couch in Alex’s dad’s home office. Alex’s great-great Aunt Erna sewed it. This pillow is like a three-dimensional sketch of two cats; its hand-painted look and tawny coloring reminds me a bit of an Egon Schiele portrait on brown paper. Although I never want to live with a live cat — indeed, cannot! — this is a cat with whom I would gladly cohabitate.

Do you recall the song “Sail” by the band AWOLNATION? It’s one high-voltage bassline occasionally interrupted by a dude crying: “SAIL!” (Very sophomore year of college; I can almost smell the hot beer sweat.) My friend Phoebe, who is the least online person I know, is obsessed with an old video of a cat taking an awkward, splayed-out leap off a windowsill in perfect time to the music. Sometimes we put it on just to watch her collapse with laughter, which of course makes everyone else laugh, too. Stupid cat, good cat.

Here’s what we listened to when I was very small: Blondie, Eurythmics, and the original cast recording of Cats. I thought those people in their furry headdresses and fluffy leg warmers were the height of glamour. Now, I respect them as insane craftspeople who have dedicated themselves to the art of slinking and simpering across the Broadway stage. That’s beautiful; may we all learn to express ourselves so fully. We will not speak of Cats, the 2019 movie musical.

If you have a cat, I would like to assure you that your cat is also a good cat. Also, I’m sorry that I could only come up with one real life cat. It’s my birthday, so please cut me some slack.

Meow,
Eliza