Afghanistani cat psychology

Okay. This is the next instalment of my writing challenge. Way back in June I asked people to suggest topics for me to write about. Please feel free to add more topics as this is the second last one on the list :) I promise to write about all the topics suggested, as evidenced by this latest instalment :)

Anonimo said:

My cat keeps chewing on my books, does that mean she would like to read or that she hates my doing it?

This is a philosophical quandary, really, isn't it? It's so difficult to say, having never seen Anonimo's cat, nor indeed how much he feeds him. Perhaps the cat is partaking of a portion of paperly afternoon tea, disgruntled with tuna with truffle portions, or tuna with chicken flavour, or tuna with smoke flavour. There's only so much fish a cat can eat, and really, while we're thinking about it, why do we force so much fish on them? Me personally, I can only eat fish once or twice a week at most. My dog could eat chicken every day, almost, especially chicken necks. But then, I'm not a dog. And neither is a cat.

Alternatively, perhaps the cat's book chewing is a psychological reaction brought about by her owner's walking around with piles of unidentifiable objects on top of his head. (If, indeed, that is Anonimo. I'm presuming, from his profile that firstly he is indeed a he, secondly, he is not the bemused woman in that picture, and thirdly, that he is anyone in that picture. Indeed, I am also presuming he is a he and not a 12 year old Latvian transsexual bell ringer. On top of the mystery, Anonimo's blog is written in Spanish so who the hell knows?

Thankfully, however, part of that problem can be answered with the likes of Babelfish. We don't need to be kept in the dark, despite languagish encumbrances. We can find out a tiny bit more about the mysterious Anonimo from his profile, and Babelfish tells us:

Happened cheap psychologist by force of the existential circumstances of my to happen.

Okay. That makes it a bit clearer, doesn't it? Now, where were we? That's right. The dilemma. You know, just making this all about me for a moment - which, I seem to recall, the whole writing challenge deal was all about not writing about me, but anyway - if it was a perfect world and I was going to do this writing challenge in the way I would wish, tonight I would have written a thousand word magical realism short story to ponder your question. Really, it screams out for it, doesn't it? What a lilting, jingly story that would be. But alas, I am unable, at least at this portion of my journey, to write any stories. Now, that might have caused me a bit of distress a few weeks ago. But this last week, courtesy of the insights and encouragement of Julia Cameron, I am returning to the coloured breathing space of knowing that right here, right now, there are small things I can do today, where I am. (Like, for example, work on the rather adorable little sprite boy who is my latest clay mask). And so, I am choosing to look at the positive. While indeed I did not write an amazing magical realism story that would catapult me to instant fame, this evening I did paint in crap watercolour. Which has no relevance to this topic, unfortunately, containing neither a cat nor a book even in abstract form. And so here we are.

So. The cat. I feel funny writing about Anonimo's cat when I don't know it's name. Is it a girl? Is it a boy? I get a picture in my head of a grey tabby, medium sized, quite dainty looking female who nevertheless nibbles her owner's ear on occasion and bites him when he's not looking. And so this is the cat I think of when I look at her and try, scientifically, to determine her behaviour. Something kind of vaguely like this:

Image by McBeth. Entirely unrelated to this post or to Anonimo but, in a strange little synchronous moment, note that the next book this puss is going to eat is One Hundred Years of Solitude by Garbriel Garcia Marquez, a writer of magic realism. In totally unrelated news, I was looking at a platypus on the teev before and thinking, if I ever have a cat, I'm going to call it Platy.

Would she like to read? We automatically dismiss it, don't we? We say, "Oh, no. Everyone knows that cats wouldn't be able to be jealous of something that they have no idea about. How does a cat have any conception about reading, for God's sake?" But sometimes I think we are victims of our own scientific knowledge. How can we be sure? Sometimes I think reality is so weird that maybe the smartest beings in the world are actually gnats, and flies carry the cure for chlamydia. So we cannot say for sure that cats couldnt read if we taught them and they understood language. I mean, has anyone done any double blind studies? No, exactly.

But still, nevertheless, one has to surmise, if faced with only these two options for Anonimo's cat, that she is probably indeed not wanting to read, but is indeed wanting to get attention of her pet. Cats. That's what shits me about them, you know - when they want attention, then it's jumping all over your lap chewing your books. But when you come home from a hard day balancing stuff on your head, does your cat come running to greet you in the way a dog does? No. It lifts its head up from its place on the window and sneers. And burps. And a couple of letters escape. And it goes back to sleep again secure in the knowledge that it's snooty outer exterior has hidden the fact that while you were gone, it shat in your bed and ate page 23 of your book.