Galactus the cat: bastard, manipulator, incredibly sensitive

A few months after we moved in, this black cat with one small patch of white on his chest started hanging out around our porch. Every day he'd walk up to the door like he wanted in the house--like he belonged in the house--and we wouldn't let him in. He got pretty scraggly looking eventually, with the mangled, semi-sticky cat hair equivalent of a homeless guy's, along with the appropriate semi-emaciation. We kept thinking if we ignored him, he'd go away, but of course he didn't. When I found fleas in the house, I decided he wasn't going to leave, so I bought him a flea collar and some cat food.

After a while, using purrs and leg rubs as force of persuasion, he convinced us to let him in the house, where he took up status as another moody, eccentric permanent house member. He consumed everything we put in front of him, so we named him Galactus. As soon as he had access to the house and a regular supply of food, he started acting like a big prick. No longer would he snuggle up to your leg like he used to on the porch or come sit in your lap and turn on that purr motor. Instead he got spoiled and pushy. Seriously, when he's hungry, which is almost hourly, he acts like he will pass out if he doesn't get some Purina damn fast.

Now, I'm a cat person, but even I don't like to be duped. I begrudged Galactus for playing the sweet, cuddly role until he got his way, at which time he revealed the true asshole lying beneath his mangy black fur. But he seems to have this preternatural sense of when to turn on the charm.

Tonight, for instance, was a weird night. I went out with some friends to a bar called the Showdown. We sat around having cheap beer and a good time; I enjoyed almost the entire night. Then up walks Shannon the married girl, again, with her husband. She stops and chats for a while, the guy seems alright, albeit a bit doofy and sporting a fair to middling beer gut. No big deal. She even says that we should keep in touch, which I guess is cool. But at one point one of my friends leaves to go spend the night at his girlfriend's place, and I realize that I'm the only single guy there. This shouldn't be a big deal. But as we're walking to the car, I'm feeling a little down, for whatever reason--probably because the two couples I was there with, for all their normal problems and difficult situations, seem really happy together. For the ever-single guy (or gal), to witness your friends in these relationships is bittersweet. You're glad they've found someone, but your envy is an almost physical sensation. Tonight, with that damn perfect girl showing up briefly, looking incredible, well, all that plus three beers got to me--just a bit.

And when I'm just a bit affected, little things can really set me off. When I got home, all I wanted was to cook some Abrego Shells (pasta with a tomato and oil based sauce) and go to bed. So I've got the shells to that perfect brown point in the oil--just to where they smell like popcorn--and I go to get the tomato sauce out of the cupboard, but there's none there. I swear I had no less than three cans of that shit in my cabinet all semester. But it's gone, I guess one of my roomates used it. And of course, none of them have any either. I'm looking at my shells, which are on the brink of burning, and all through these empty cabinets and I'm accidentally knocking peanut butter off the top shelfs onto my head and, I don't know why, but I fucking lose it. I get all worked up and frustrated by the stupid shells and the weird feeling I had at the end of the night, and I hurl the fucking spatula into the sink as hard as I can and go into my room.

I start talking with some friends on AIM, trying to calm my dumb ass down, and a friend asks me about the party last night. I went to this party with these two girls I kind of have a thing for and their boyfriends, and I came back all drunk and pissed off, and I wrote something on this weblog that really embarrassed me. I regretted writing it in the morning so I deleted it, but a friend gave me a little shit for doing that, which I knew I shouldn't have, but I did because I caught shit the last time I let my emotions overwhelm one of my posts. I actually felt guilty about that and frustrated about last night and down about tonight and I was already worked up and a little drunk--I felt my face flush and my eyes burn and I got so mad at myself for sitting here, about to cry over goddamn nothing, feeling like the biggest dipshit in the world, and then I feel tears running down my cheeks, I'm so damned ashamed to say. But then Galactus sneaks up and hops onto my desk. He's purring while he tries to walk on the keyboard, almost like he's trying to distract me. I pick him up and he sits in my lap for a bit and lets me pet him. Then he walks up on my desk again and starts playing with my blinds, like he's never seen them before, pawing them, pulling them down and sticking his head in the cracks and looking out the window. I'm laughing and crying at the same time, like an idiot, because I swear he's hamming it up for me. I'm fucking ashamed that I'm so lonely even the cat can tell.

But it's strange, because Galactus tried to help me out the last time I was this upset. It was back when I'd sprained my ankle again, and I was so mad, the way only inescapable and dehabilitating physical pain can make you. I was sitting on my bed, so frustrated, just wanting to relax, and the fucking CD I'd put in, Beck's Sea Change, starts skipping on one of my absolute favorite songs, "Golden Age." Again, it was this one little thing that set me off, and I threw my book across the room and screamed. I was lying there, seething, and Galactus wanders into my room and crawls up on my chest and just starts purring. I swear he knew that nothing else could have calmed me down more. He never does stuff like this, he never does anything affectionate except when he wants food or to be let outside. Yet twice now, he's shown up when I've been absolutely miserable and, it seems, tried to make me feel better.

What the fuck? Have I come to this, dependent on a goddamn cat to fucking keep me from my own self-pity?

I think I'll post a picture every time I write something, as opposed to every day. All this just made me think of when we moved from Corpus Christi to San Antonio, and there were no kids my age in the neighborhood. I adopted a stray cat then (even though my mom told me not to), setting out some leftover gravy for her. I'd sit out on the porch and pet her after school, and my mom still sometimes jokingly referred to Princess as "my oldest friend." Princess died well over a year ago. She'd long since gone senile, it turned out with undiagnosed feline diabetes. The Christmas before she died, she had some kind of attack, and she couldn't move her head. Her neck and shoulders were locked into this awkward position so that her head couldn't lift up and her shoulder blades looked like they wanted to burst through her skin. The only way she could walk was this strange gait that made her look like a bull, lumbering and struggling. She laid down under the Christmas tree and I thought she was going to die there. We didn't know what was wrong, and all I could do was pet her and I cried then too. Whtaattttttttt jesus what is wrong with me.................Why do I feel the need to post this?

this is the last good picture i ever took of that cat