“If you would know a man, observe how he treats a cat.”
(Robert A. Heinlein. The Door Into Summer. New York: Doubleday & Co, 1957.)
James Dean being all handsome and fly with a couple kitty cats, and scope those specs no less! Heat.
A very big guy for pretty much only this type of pussy, Dean’s cat’s name was Marcus. It was a present from Elizabeth Taylor.
Finally, a pen and ink drawing which was auctioned two years ago by his museum on good ol’ eBay. Dean drew it for Geraldine Page, his co-star in a Broadway play. I don’t really want to know what those two are doing, but you have to admit it’s a pretty damned good drawing, as bestiality sketches go.
The journal has hit rock-bottom: I’m blogging about cats.
Women, poets, and especially artists like cats; delicate natures only can realize their sensitive nervous systems.
(Helen M. Winslow)
I think that’s horseshit. Me, I’m more of a Dog Guy, and I consider myself all kinds of artistic, introspective, and delicate and shit. Especially in my decorous manner of expression, yes? My deal with cats is I understand them far too well to dote on them: fawning, soft, pretty little big-eyed phonies — I’m a woman, cat; I’m on to your game. My kind invented your act, pal.
Except for my cat. He is pretty rad. He has no name and he purrs right before he bites you.
When I lived in Portland I ended up through my husband’s family finding myself the owner of three cats: Killwhitey, Blackpowerforever, and Sadie. (Guess which one I didn’t name.) They were fine for two and a half or so years and then all three died on me, of different causes and at different points, within a month — October through November, actually, of 2008. Very disturbing. R.I.P. to them and to my short career as a custodian of cats.
My aforementioned original, “real” cat that I’ve always had in California, who has hung around for some twelve-odd years, is his own man and toward him I make no pretensions of ownership. He’s off his nut but I love that fierce little dude.
Topless Claudia Schiffer in Catwoman mask by Mario Testino for German Vogue (June, 2008).
Winner winner, chicken dinner! I said goddamn, Claudia Schiffer. Haters to the left.
Internet, I am going to let you knock off early and go home for the rest of the day, because you have truly outdone yourself. Great hustle.
Several days later:
Wow, guys. Monica Bellucci and my fave photographer, Ellen Von Unwerth, are seriously giving the topless Claudia Schiffer Catwoman by Mario Testino of several days’ ago a real run for its money for the internet’s Best [Batman] Picture Ever contest.
Monica Bellucci, photographed in Catwoman mask and leather bodysuit by the stellar and magnificent Ellen Von Unwerth for “Bella Bellucci,” a feature in Vogue España, June 2006.
While Monica’s cleavage is always impressive and, of course, her face is basically the most beautiful on Earth, I’m still giving the advantage to the Mario-Claudia collaboration for toplessness. Better luck next time, Team Monica-EVU!
TODAY:
I’ve brought them both back for this very special Flashback Friday because it’s a tiime for a bat couture Showdown!: Model Citizens as Catwoman edition.
Top: Monica Bellucci photographed by Ellen von Unwerth ; Bottom: Claudia Schiffer photographed by Mario Testino.
And ladies, please remember that in my mind, you are both winners. Pick your feline femme fatale poison below!
Take flight and offer no angles to the wind. Escape this earth and its loopholes and pushy windmakers.
Illustration by Tony Parker.
Cats, no less liquid than their shadows, offer no angles to the wind. They slip, diminished, neat, through loopholes less than themselves. — A. S. J. Tessimond
“The cat lives alone, has no need of society, obeys only when she pleases, pretends to sleep that she may see more clearly, and scratches everything on which she can lay her paw.” — François R. Chateaubriand
By that definition, I am getting much less feral. And I like it.
I have this very hackneyed and cliched theory that women are like cats and men are like dogs. It’s overarching and misogynistic and probably a bunch of hooey, because I can’t even apply it to my own good girl friends, but the thing is sometimes it feels like it is just exactly the truth. In talking to my daughter’s father this weekend, I found out that his wife, from whom he is very recently separated, apparently doesn’t like me. By which I mean, hella does not like me. Historically, even. This is pretty distressing to me because, like an idiot, I thought we were cool.
Not only had I been really excited about meeting her, about which I clearly remember writing in several entries, but in the actual event of it I’d made a point of being polite, respectful, friendly, and talkative with her on the occasions we met. We talked at various times both in person and in letters about my move down here, about cooking, about our families — I really thought we’d hit it off. I gave her a card for Valentine’s day and tried consistently to be as friendly and upbeat as possible when she wrote me about her troubles with my daughter’s father, encouraging her and saying I was praying for the best possible outcome.
Photgraphed by Andre de Dienes.
To find out that she not only never liked me before but I am thinking pretty much actively hates me now was upsetting, but it was not the hardest blow. That was still to come. I don’t understand it, and I’ve known for a long time that his sister didn’t like me, never really understood why she had a bad impression of me but eventually gave up hoping she would change her mind and have just continued in as friendly a way as possible, but things are really compounded now. The toughest thing for me to grapple with is that Grandma P, who I’d always counted as a friend and counted on for sitting for my daughter and as a sounding board now and again in my own life, actually thought that my daughter’s father left his wife for me. That she would even consider drawing a conclusion like that, after knowing me all this time and knowing the separation and pain that I myself have been going through this year, is shocking and devastating to me.
The thing with his wife was bad enough, but the thing with his mom is stunning to me, and, as the time has gone by since he and I talked this weekend and I’ve had a chance to work through the jumble of feelings I have about all this, it turns out that’s one of the things that I’m having the toughest time with. I guess I was a fool? to imagine I had a connection with Grandma P, a) because I know better about myself and how some people just don’t like me, and b) I know that connections with many people are illusory and couched in ulterior motives. But I really did think that we were friends. I’ve welcomed her in to every home in which I’ve lived, always looked forward to her visits, encouraged her to call frequently and to have a relationship with my daughter even when her father and I were not in touch. So this has been a big surprise.
I don’t know why they dislike me so. If it’s because he and I hurt each other five years ago, then, isn’t that between us? I understand. When people hurt my friends and the ones I love, I want to tear them apart — but I also trust my friends’ and loved ones’ judgment. And if they tell me that it’s okay, then I have to know that that’s the end of my anger, and they know the way of it better than me. So if we can forgive one another and rebuild a friendship for not only our daughter’s sake but for the redemption of our own selves, then why in the name of heaven is that a bad or threatening thing?
This is what I mean about cats and women. They are full of secrets and you can never know what they are thinking. When dogs don’t like you, they make no trouble to disguise it: they bark and growl at you and try to bite. Cats are so much sneakier, you think they are fun to play with and you can trust them, and all the while they are stalking around and then coming out of nowhere with their claws … These women that I thought I could tentatively call friends made me think I was doing an okay job of becoming something like close and bonded with them, convinced me to offer up parts of myself and my personal backstories which I have a terrible time doing exactly because of situations like this, and it turns out that I guess I was wrong. I failed to meet the mark in some way, or could never have done so for some reason that is totally shrouded in mystery to me, like when they were handing out the woman-cat brains I was at a Polish sausage stand and missed the memo. It’s a real bummer.
There is nothing I can do about it except keep upbeat, focus on the daisies and bluebirds, and keep offering the olive branch as I have tried again and again to do — and pray that it “takes” at some eventual time. Because we have all got to know each other basically until we die, and I don’t understand why that has to be unpleasant or filled with drama, when we can just as easily choose to find the good in the situation? Until then, until they come around, I guess, I have to concentrate, have to try and stop dwelling on it and stop feeling sorry for myself, accept what I cannot change, and go forward. It’s just harder to do than say.
Like, sometimes I think he thinks he is being funny, but it’s just hurtful.
I often call a warning out to someone about to pet my nameless cat: “Look out!” Almost always they say, “Why?” or “How come?” Um, why do you think, you silly upbeat moron? “Look out! — he’s drunk?” or “Look out! — he hits on babies?” Perhaps, “Look out — he likes to dance but he’s a horrible dipper!”
What the hell do you think, “look out” for? He attacks people.
He is a biter with no name who brooks no petting and will dig his claws into your arm and give tearing off your hand his all, purring to beat the band the entire time. I’ve had him eleven years and I theorize that he purrs loudest when he is “getting” someone because it turns him on to defy expectations and fight the Man.
I love my cat. When he dies it is going to fucking destroy me. I’m so weak for loving a cat. But I do. That little guy is my soulmate.
PSA: Most cats are lactose intolerant. Did You Know?
“Who hasn’t seen adorable illustrations of a kitten lapping at a saucer full of cream?
As with so many romances, the one between cats and dairy isn’t quite what it’s cracked up to be. That’s because even though most cats adore a bit of milk, milk doesn’t always return the affection.” — the WebMD.
I mention this because I am lactose intolerant and I just ate a grilled cheese sandwich. With mayonnaise. I guess mainly I must hate myself. Misery is comfortable because it’s familiar, right?
“In the night, all cats are grey.” — Benjamin Franklin
Pretty sure he was referring to his penchant for older women, but I’ll happily apply it to a redhead in vintage lingerie and a cat mask. That guy was one smart cookie, am I right?
Another nugget of what is beginning to be daily NSFW advice from the lovely and talented Drew Barrymore, pussy magnet.
“I don’t think that life happens by sitting back and waiting. People hold their cards so tight to their chest. Life is short. Tell people you love them. What’s the worst that’s going to happen?” –Drew Barrymore
Well, offhand, blithe young Miss Barrymore, I would answer that the worst that is going to happen is that they will not love you back.
But she’s got me there: is that the end of the world? Only if you let it be, I guess. I suppose there are two responses, should they not want you in return: you can either throw yourself off a cliff over it, metaphorically, or you can keep moving forward and waiting until someone falls into step beside you, and start the whole thing all over again.
So, thanks again, Drew! She is always surprising me.
James Dean being all handsome and fly with a couple kitty cats, and scope those specs no less! Heat.
“Only the gentle are ever really strong.” –James Dean
His cat’s name was Marcus. It was a present from Elizabeth Taylor.
Finally, a pen and ink drawing which was auctioned two years ago by his museum on good ol’ eBay. Dean drew it for Geraldine Page, his co-star in a Broadway play. I don’t really want to know what those two are doing, but you have to admit it’s a pretty damned good drawing, as bestiality sketches go.
The Thought Experiment 