Bits has been my cat for fourteen years now, which means I was six years old when we got her.  She was my second cat, and a great partner for Kibbles.  There are plenty of pictures of the two of them draped over our sleeping bodies, stretched out on couches, and cuddled inside boxes.  She’s always been a princess in her mannerisms–paws together, crooked nose stuck in the air, coy looks at anyone who’s available to open the front door.  She’s been a solid part of this family for the majority of my life.

And for some reason, I still cannot stand her sometimes.

Lately, I’ve attributed this to something I’d like to call Little Sister Syndrome.  She’s wayyyy too into whatever I’m doing, at all times.  Wherever I am, she’s there.  Whenever I have something to do, she has something she needs, mainly, human contact.  Whenever I’ve achieved perfect quiet, she interrupts with that sad, creaky meow.

It’s always been that way to a certain degree, but it’s heigtened this summer.  Ever since Moses died, Bits has become THE CAT.  Not just one of the cats, but the cat (Tub doesn’t count in this case, because he lives in a separate world downstairs, does not sleep with us, and anyway Tub is a bear).  It’s gone from, “No, Bits, please don’t sleep on my neck,” to “What the fuck, you’re ALWAYS HERE.  Every time I go to my room, you’re there!  Why are you always in here?!  Get out!  Stop sleeping in my bed, ew, were you on my pillow?  Jesus, Bits, why do you roll in dirt?  Now there’s dirt on my pillow.  No, it’s TOO FUCKING HOT, don’t touch me!  Don’t touch me! Jesus Christ!  Ow, your claws really hurt, don’t DO THAT.  Get out, I mean it.  Stop coming in my room, stop borrowing my clothes, stop touching me and my things, and go get a life.”

I’ve never felt such animosity towards her before, and at first it really worried me.  I worried that now that Moses was gone I was having those “why couldn’t it have been you” feelings, that I had truly picked a favorite, that I was becoming the mom from Ordinary People.  In my better moods, I would sit with Bits and pet her and tell her how pretty she was and how much I loved her, just because I worried that it wasn’t true.  But it is true, because how can I not love the Kittumest One, the cat so maleable that she earned a new nickname for each new shape we could mush her into?  It’s impossible. More likely, I think the loss of Mo meant the loss of a creature so totally devoted to me, with no apparent ulterior motives.  Instead, every night I had a cat who wanted warmth for herself, who seemed totally unaffected by the disappeance of her brother.  It was unnerving, which distorted every other clingy aspect of her.

But the fact is, Bittums, you haven’t changed a bit since the day we got you.  If I have known you for fourteen years and the only thing that has changed is the health of your hips, then I love you still.  And anytime I flip my lid just at the sight of you snuggled under my covers after frolicking in mulch, it’s just because you’re my little sister.  Yeah, you’re always fucking there and it gets wicked annoying and you get way too close to me and sometimes you just better not touch me or else, but if Tub comes to beat you up?  I’m on your side.  Or if it’s almost dark and you’re still outdoors?  I’m the one calling you in.  No wicked animal of the night is going to get you, and most importantly, no one else gets to call you a stuck up bitch.  Just me.

I have not been handling Moses’s loss well at all. This weekend has been a whole bundle of crying where crying should not be done, perimeter walks to spy a body, and terror during all the thunderstorms (Mo hates the rain). I gave up on taking my daily pictures for a while because they felt like such black holes anyway. Whenever I came close to having a good day, it would be ruined by nightfall. Monday night, my mom gave me a call to see how my day went, and all I could come up with was, “I can’t stop thinking about him.” We talked and cried for a few minutes, mostly about how we don’t understand how this happened.

This could be a potentially controversial thing to say (if anyone ever read past the first sentence), but as there are two medical professionals in this family who have agreed, Mo acted as though he had some form of feline autism, if such a thing existed, which makes this all the more tragic. He was my baby boy who I desperately wanted to protect because something about him was just so unusual. We have had many cats, each with a perfectly distinct personality, but none quite so odd as Moses. He couldn’t stand being held and would hold people out at arm’s length (I will forever bear the scars he left on my boob the first time I discovered this tidbit); the slightest bend of a toe caused by the slightest breeze would send him flying off the bed; his interactions with the other animals were some of the most awkward run-ins ever witnessed, and they either avoided him because of his tendency to make uncomfortable or taunted him because of his exaggerated responses; he never left the yard, and you were almost always guaranteed to find him in one of his many nests he built around the house. A running joke was that he frequently disappeared into alternate dimensions because he could move as fast as lightning–one moment you were looking at him, the next he had slipped back through the smoke and would only emerge later when he knew I was going to bed. He was meticulously clean, with the prettiest, thickest fur, and was obsessed with sleeping nose-to-wet-nose, at least with me. Every now and then there would be a break in his social anxiety and he would sleep with others, but for the most part, he was my boy. Once an indoor cat, we were very reluctant ten years ago to allow him outdoors, but he was so timid that we knew he would never wander too far, particularly when he always had the spot behind my knees to sleep in. None of my descriptions probably seem unusual for a cat, but I know cats, okay? We all agreed that something was a little off with him, more so than usual.

Thus, it just absolutely breaks my heart that he has fallen victim to the outside world. I feel like I’ve failed him. He was my little buddy, and I was his protector, and I couldn’t do it. We still have no idea what happened to him, but he simply has never been gone this long. I don’t want to officially announce “ACCEPTANCE,” in case he is shivering out there, wondering why I haven’t found him yet, but personally I know I will feel better once I’ve accepted it. Today was the first day I didn’t cry. I did expect him to skip across the driveway when I pulled in, or to be on his throne when I went into my bedroom, but I didn’t cry when I realized he wasn’t there. I’ve gotten used to referring to him in the past tense. This is always a horrible transitioning point when someone dies, being able to go from present to past. I am just going to assume that he knew it was coming and went to pass away in the woods, as cats are known to do. It doesn’t stop me from puh-puh-puhing out the door when the thunder rolls in, but it does make it a little bit easier to get through the day. It kills me, because I always pictured him in the future–I was going to bring him to Ireland with me. He was going to be the key feature in my apartment, my house, my home. His green eyes went with my green eyes went with all of my furniture. Two green beans in a pod. But I am doing better right now. Not great–when there’s not much else to think about, I think about him–but better.

I will say, I am horribly offended at the lack of sympathy from my friends, who have instead made cruel jokes about him being eaten, but on the other hand, I am foolish to expect any more than that. Wasn’t it only four years ago that they were writing thank you notes from the foxes on our Lost Cat signs? Wasn’t it the year or two before that that Kibby’s final journey outside was featured in others’ Spanish vocabulary sentences, like a source of comedy instead of tragedy? There are the kind people, the ones who call because they think they may have seen a cat that sort of looks like that, but I just always seem to surround myself with the ones who could give two shits. I know, I’m sure they think I’m being silly and overreacting. If that’s the case, then add that to the list of how so few people know me very well.

In cases like these, I would wrap myself around Moses and wish someone would care about me the way he does. Without him around anymore, I don’t know where to turn. No where but up.

Every couple of years I seem to have a streak of bad luck that ranges from a few months to the whole damn thing. I’ve had a good two years, which means that I’ve been long overdue for getting smacked in the head with a righteous hammer. It wasn’t the perfect school year, especially with my body rejecting nearly everything it once tolerated, so perhaps this stretches back to October, but at any rate, I certainly see no end in sight.

I just feel so sad lately. I’m working seven days a week, and I am tired of being on the train and bus, especially when I always seem to be there when something ridiculous happens (no, no, Bus 554, don’t worry about showing up for an hour and a half, where could I possibly have to be on a workday morning?). I am off of contacts for the next two weeks, at which point I’ll have to switch to dailies, which will cost me so much more money, and my glasses make me feel ugly. Never mind being ugly every second of the day, having to feel it resting on the sides of my big red nose just hurts me in my chest. I had a procedure recently that was more embarrassing than it was painful, so I have talked to literally no one about it and don’t plan to because there will not be the right reaction. I don’t see many people anymore, anyway; most of the times this doesn’t bother me because when I am this morose, the last thing I want is people, but I have this crazy idea that every person should have a Someone they can always talk to. I am also sad because I may have missed my opportunity at a Someone by a day and a half, even though probably nothing would have happened (why would it? guys don’t make passes at girls with glasses), but the almost-there possibility is driving me crazy inside–I’d talk to someone about it if there were a Someone, but if there were a Someone then there’d be little else to talk about on the subject. My haircut did not turn out the way I wanted it. I’ve been having a lot of trouble dealing with my brother’s gradual exeunt from my life, becoming no longer my brother but someone else’s husband. I’m more upset by Tim Russert’s death than I thought I would be and was so moved that his book about his father sold out by noon today. I fell for every possible trap lain for me on Friday the 13th, and it was also the day that I realized that Moses hadn’t been seen in several days.

I already feel like saying a big fuck you to everyone, because I already know that no one quite understands my love for my cat. It’s just, when I’m feeling like this, like I am the ugliest, stupidest, most unlikeable broad on the planet, and it’s a consistent feeling I’ve had since October, then Cozmo is just about the only one who knows what to do. He knows to just sit with me without projecting any vibes like he would rather be somewhere else, or that he maybe agrees with some of it, or tries to give me advice on how best to handle it; he just sits with me, falls asleep with me, and that’s all I need. When you’re as lonely as I am, you gravitate towards the things that love you the most. When the thing that loves you the most is a cat, well, then it’s a cat.

And still, the last time I remember seeing him, I was in a sleepless Sunday night rage, the type where I try to knock myself out, and I kicked him in the face for putting his wet nose against my ticklish feet. No one else has seen him since about Tuesday. He never leaves the yard, at least not more than an hour. I can’t imagine him getting eaten by a coyote because he’s faster than a speeding bullet, nor can I picture him getting lost because he’s lived here for 12 years, yet here we are. I sobbed this morning, calling for him out in the woods; I sobbed on my lunch break, holding my breath whenever someone walked in to grab a radio; I sobbed on the drive home, because the signs I had made in a fit this morning had actually been hung up around the neighborhood, in the mailboxes, on the golf course. When I came home, my mom said, “You got a haircut, I see.”

“It’s not the way I want it to be. Few things are.” I sobbed instead of eating dinner.

All the tears are coming from more places than this, simply because inconvenience after inconvenience has been building up for months, but they’re absolutely heightened because Moses isn’t here. Even with Kittum Bits sleeping on my feet and Gretty in my lap, I have never felt more alone. I deal with at least a hundred people everyday, and I have never felt more ugly and alone.

Two emails from my dad today.

Just had a scratching contest with greta and won.

Oh, I actually beat greta because she had to pee.

Not even lying, it’s just like being at home again.

Just so we’re all on the same page, and just in case I am too afraid to go through with it when the time comes and I need some written evidence that will force me: If I have to get a flat next year, I will get one that allows animals, and I will bring Moses. Amid everything I would like there, the things I hope to find there, I just can’t see myself looking out a window that he isn’t in. Also, I just kind of really miss his goofy little face right about now.

Things are going well, although the return to school fast approaches. The weather is tricking me, however, because it feels like it’s warming-up-for-good middle-of-spring but is only the beginning of January, and oh the agony of post-Christmas winter. I can’t hyphenate enough words to begin describing the toll seasonal affective disorder takes on me, though I’m sure I will produce enough entries in the coming months to give you some vague, barely formulated idea of HOW I HATE THE GREY.

Fortunately, today was very nice, particularly when I got out of work two hours early. There were walkers, joggers, bikers everywhere, and I immediately thought, I must join them. I parked in the driveway, changed into better shoes, and hitched up the dog to take a stroll. The guys who were flying RC airplanes had gone, but all the old men were out with their dogs, just like this old man. I spoke to one with a well-behaved yellow lab for a while, who said after a while, “I should go before the sun sets and the wife sends out the National Guard.” He and the dog got back in their car, and I liked my barrette, and the cyclist said hello, and then the world did the following.

…And then my dog pooped in the road.