Emchap's Shit from the Internet 09/29/21 š
I have lived relatively few years of my life without a cat. We had a succession (Squeaky, Lance, Pounce, Cookie, Camper) when I was growing up, with the occasional canine interloper. I got Birdie when I was 22 and on my own after college, when I saw an ad for the Fulton County Animal Shelter offering free cats because they had too many.
I showed up, he seemed good, I paid no money, and I came and took him home a week later. He has been loudly harassing me and any visitor ever since/trying to sit anywhere I would also like to sit, and is now by cat standards rounding the corner on middle age. (He was already around one when I got him.)
I forget that he is only one way a cat can be, particularly after spending the last 2-ish years mostly on my own in my own house. This week, however, I was catsitting for a neighbor, and got some up-close exposure to not-my-cat for the first time in a long time.
She has two: one is a ginger tabby kitten possessed by the devil, and the other is stillāafter a week of coming up eight flights of stairs to feed him every eveningāa theoretical construct who I only truly believe exists because the litterbox would be concerning if it was the output of a single cat. Birdie has never been unknown to any visitor at all; he flopped on the feet of my HOA president when she came to say hello to me, and he spent half of the last few days curled up on my friendās lap while she visited me. He has loved every single boyfriend Iāve ever had more than I have, because they have ample lap space and a strong investment in not looking like a dick to their girlfriendās cat.
The ginger kitten, however, was a complete fascination for me. First off, he weighed nothing, in the way of even half-grown cats; Birdie, in contrast, weighs 14 lbs that I feel very strongly when he puts them on my trachea. The kitten is afraid of nothing and absolutely attempted to run out into the hallway when I opened the apartment door today, despite the fact that he is half a foot long and has never been outside. He did not stop moving at any single point the entire time I was feeding him, and I saw him fully slide into a wall today after he ran too fast down the hallway. He was unfazed.
It was a small, goofy insight into the things people remark about when visiting my cat, since of course he is now my feline benchmark. Birdie is more talkative and is more cuddly; he does have a deeply concerned expression on his face to the point that multiple people on dating apps have used that fact as an opening line. (As I typed this he stared at me from the windowsill, looking for all the world like a prince cursed to cat form.) Iām done feeding the upstairs cats for now, but the break did make me pleased to return home to the welcoming screams of my own goofy housemate.
Shit to read
Guys you cannot understand how much joy every single article about Astro the Amazon Robot is bringing me. It seems terrible. I love it.
As someone who a) works with salespeople b) is online dating, this piece about a charisma drought really struck home.
I have no children, but this piece about how to talk about children (who are just future adults) about a universe in which Covid isnāt going away was, I thought, the least depressing way of talking about it.
Every single aspect of this piece about why humpback whales think orcas can go fuck themselves is fantastic.
This made me howl-laugh yes obviously itās more Dear Evan Hansen content.
Shit to eat
Thinking that the rain is not so bad, put on your rainboots (which are really insulated snowboots) and a light rain jacket, and take your friend and her umbrella outside.
The rain is in fact very bad, and you will notice that the streets are flooded, almost immediately.
This will not turn you back, in part because you and your friend are both very polite āIām happy to keep going of you areā sorts and nobody wants to be the one to end the outing.
By the time you arrive, half your friend will be damp and the whole front of you will be.
Collapse into a corner table at the Russian restaurant near your house.
Once there, let the happy hour menu and your eyes get the best of you; order a seasonal pumpkin cocktail and farmers cheese dumplings and a cheese boat and a fish plate.
Eat the food. It will be the best food you have had in a year, including the other times where you have gone to this restaurant. You will stuff yourself to discomfort and continue eating, because of how good it is.
It will start to rain as you go home, so hard that the leftovers will fall out of the paper bag in which you are carrying them, but it will not matter.
Eat the dumplings, cold, for lunch the next day.
Shit to watch
This clip from Gamechanger, a game show in which the rules change every episode, which causes me to cry actual tears every time I see it.
Shit to buy
These bed sheets, which I just bought another set of. They are great.
I am currently waiting on this candle (and many others) to arrive.
And same with these gold earrings.
And this fancy vacuum, because I am finally admitting to myself that my poor Eufy cannot handle the floors in my current place, as it keeps getting stuck on the ledges.