thoughts on cats

along with my twenty or so revelations about myself, the Lord, and the world which I couldn't even possibly start to unravel because of lack of motivation and my inability to put them into sentence form, there have been some smaller scale changes to my way of thinking.

Cats, I have always said I don't like them. Probably because I felt a strong sense of loyalty to my dog Carmel, who once was injured by a bitter cat named April. Carmel was merely trying to be loving, there was no need for claws. I was there, I would know. I also have said I don't like them to be cool. Its cool to not like cats sometimes. And i've said it to be original as well, because sometimes its not cool to not like cats and that makes me different. Which is also cool.

Really, I have just used this whole opinion to my advantage.

I was sitting contemplating my actual opinion of cats, really trying to dig down to the root of it all and I felt as though it would need to give them a chance to figure this out. So while at a friends house I sat next to her cat, Mikey. I wanted to sit by him first just to let him know I was interested in maybe getting closer. He turned his head up and looked at me. I waved and made my way over to his cushion. His head went back down. I did not know what that meant but I kept going. I began to pet him. We cuddled a bit. He was quite soft. Then he began to purr. I really felt like we were bonding. We bonded for a while, probably twenty minutes. Then out of nowhere he bit my hand. The same hand that had been making him purr for twenty minutes. I pulled away and yelled "who do you think you are?" Then I felt stupid because I had just yelled at a cat in a room by myself, halfway expecting an answer back. He put his head back down stretched, and repositioned then hit my hand with his paw and looked at me as if to say "why did you stop petting me?" Sassy-pants cat had quite the nerve. But then it suddenly occurred to me, maybe this is a test of loyalty! Some kind of cat initiation! He had probably sensed that I was new at this and wanted to know if I was in or out. I can't ride the fence on these things. Clever cat, he was really just helping me in my decision process.

So I decided I am in. They aren't so bad. They don't lick much and they are nice to cuddle. The purring thing is neat as well. So now I kind of like cats, and not just because it might be cool.

oh, and this is mikey...