Abby Asks

I’ve started doing an absolutely foolish but necessary thing.  (Not base jumping; that was last year.)  I’m cleaning out my crap.  Miss Manners would probably call it clutter, but let’s be real.  Crap by any other name…..is still crap.  This is a fool’s errand because it’s just so emotionally exhausting.  See, I’ve come to see the state of my home as a reflection of the state of my brain.

I have OCD, which means there’s a lot of clutter-crap in my brain.  Over the past year I’ve started to work on renovating my neurons.  The thing about my OCD is that it’s mostly invisible.  All my rituals are done in my mind.  So you can talk to me and I look normal (socially inept and awkward are my normal).  But in my head I’m envisioning the Tom Cruise version of War of the Worlds where everyone gets incinerated.  Or turned to dust.  Or whatever the fuck happens.  (Incidentally, my mom believes that the aliens did not die from a virus.  Dakota Fanning’s screaming killed them off.)

Similarly, a lot of my clutter is invisible too.  Well, not all of it.  But lots of stuff is stowed away in closets and boxes and drawers and slow cookers and the microwave.  Just like my OCD.  Deep in the folds of my neurons there’s crap.  Deep in the folds of my pants there’s crap.  Not real crap.  That would be gross and a sign of a very different mental disorder.  So there’s metaphorical crap and literal crap and all kinds of crap flying around.  (Not like monkeys do with their poo, however.)

So I’m cleaning out the crud.  And Freud would probably conclude that I’m anal given all of the crap imagery.  Crap by any other name……

My parents’ cat and I have reached a détente.  Zeus, who much like the dearly departed Kim Jong-Il would like to be called the Supreme and Most Magnificent Leader, likes to play rough.  I didn’t realize at first that his idea of play was my idea of torture.  I don’t speak cat.  His play includes attacking my calf and ripping my pants to shreds.  He also likes to corner me in the hallway and stare menacingly.

I used to live with this cat.  While growing up he was so sweet.  He would sit in my lap, giving no indication that he wanted to claw me in the eye or eat my entrails.  When he played then he liked toys and games.  He loved it when you threw a ball in the air; then he’d run and catch it.

But then I moved.  Perhaps he’s mad about that.  I think he has PMS.  Plus, there’s other cats to contend with.  He’s the alpha male.  But when I brought my concerns (facial lacerations, deep contusions) to my parents they said, “Oh, he’s just playing.”  And apparently I was doing it wrong.  In order to “play” with the Supreme and Most Magnificent Leader in the known universe (sorry Kimmy, your time has past), you had to let him bite you!  “He just wants to gnaw a little bit,” my mom said.  “On my flesh?”  “That’s the general idea.”

No one demonstrated this technique to me.  I was to learn by trial and error.  I was only told:  Keep your body still.  So I did and he gnawed.  It worked….after a few tries.  When someone attempts to bite your hand, one’s natural human reaction is to pull your hand away.  Quickly!  That left me in pain.  Now I just let him gnaw.  And he doesn’t puncture my skin.  I can’t fathom the depths of his mind.  I don’t speak cat.