I wake up, without an alarm, at TEN! Not six but TEN! I write in my journal, and hang out online. I talk to the cat. (Actually, this is pretty much what I always do, mornings after I drive him to work. But now morning doesn't have to start at 6 this week.) I go to work. I come home. I play on the computer more, or I read, or I watch TV, or I play with the cat. It's a simple life, but a good one. And it doesn't start till 10.

Actually, I'm a little surprised to discover I miss him. In past years when he's done this week in Cowtown while I stay home, I'd spend at least 2 days just being seriously glad he's gone. Then a few more days enjoying the hell out of my own company. Then, around Thursday, I'd start to miss him. But here it is, Sunday, and I'm already wondering what sort of freakish life I lead, that he's the only person I talk to on a daily basis. I've talked to Christine a few times, but that's really it.

I tell myself that I don't want to get to know the people I work with. They all seem to have e-mail now, and I'm constantly afraid one of them will remember I'm the freak who was talking about always being online a full year ago, and decide they want to be my virtual friend. They'll start sending me mass forwards of pictures of butts with faces drawn on them, or TopTen lists, or even worse, those crazy internet rumors. I'll feel obligated to respond in suit. I am living in the AOL target audience.

Yeah, I know I'm acting like a stuck up "Mayflower Mentality" Internet snob. This is all new to them, and really really funny. There really is no reason I can't pretend to LOL at "The History of the Schitt Family" (You know, Bull Schitt married Givva Schitt, etc. etc. etc.) then, like some sort of stereotypical Chinese guy Zen master, point them towards The Onion , or the Brunching Shuttlecocks. "Ah, so Grasshopper. You speak of sites that babble like brooks in stream, and are about as funny. But not until you can grab It's A Dysfunctional Life out of my open hand..." But I just plain don't want to.

(There's a lot of me trying to be clever with my limited knowledge of HTML tags up there. If it came out as gibberish, please ignore it. But if you see real links, go to those places, if you haven't already.)

I was going somewhere with this, I'm sure of it. Gimme a minute...Ah, yes. I have no friends, and I don't want closer friendships with the people I work with. This leaves me with D. and the cat, and D. is on vacation. I think this makes me A Crazy Lady With a Cat.

I'm sure everyone knows a Crazy Lady with a Cat. She seems normal enough, just maybe a little quiet, until you find out she owns a cat. Then, the CLWC will do nothing but talk about her cat, because basically, it's all she knows. Deprived of human contact, the CLWC will become downright obsessive about her cat.

She'll stop in the pet supplies department of any store that has one. (My cat always looks confused when I come home with armloads of shopping bags, and don't immediately pull out the thing I bought for him. He knows there's almost always something.) She buys her cat clothes. (George wears a bow tie collar. But it's a collar. It holds his tags in place. It's functional, dammit. The fact that I thought he'd look adorable in a little bow tie has nothing to do with it.) She talks baby talk to and about her cat. (Actually, I don't do too much of that. I call him "fuzzy" sometimes. "Oh! Da fuzzy! Da fuzzy kitten! Yes, who's my fuzzy?" Jesus Christ. I am a Crazy Lady With a Cat. Help.) She takes pictures of her cat, and shows them off the way other people show their children. (ok. I don't do that. But only because I haven't bought film in two years. That's it. If I never buy film, I will never be tempted to take dozens of pictures of my cat. I will thus avoid being a real Crazy Lady with a Cat. Yeah, that's it.)

There are of, course, Crazy Men with Cats, as well as Crazy Ladies with Dogs, Goldfish, or whatever. But I am especially concerned about the Crazy Lady with a Cat, because that's the one I'm turning into. Besides, you never see the story about the guy found dead in his apartment, with two or three dozen gerbils that haven't been fed in a week. It's always cats.

For some unknown reason, obsessive people and cats are somehow drawn to each other. The cats consider being the reason for a human's continued existance completely normal, and the Crazy Lady lives only to please the Cat.

"Meow?"

"What is it, Georgie?"

"Meow?"

"Timmy's trapped in the well down by the creek??"

"Meow?"

"Bring a rope?"

"Meow?"

"OK, a six foot rope."

"Meow?"

"Yes, I know what you're really saying. No, we can't play the hallway game right now."

"Meow?"

"Dammit, fuzzy. The neighbors are starting to think I'm strange."

"Meow?"

"No hallway. Don't you understand? What if the Building Manager saw you?"

"Meow?"

"No, George! No means NO!"

"Meow?"

"Well, ok. But just for a few minutes..."

See? See how persuasive he is? Oh, if you could just see him, trying to open the door with his widdle fuzzy paws... I'd like to state right now that if I ever do completely lose my mind and create a website of nothing but pictures of my cat, it won't be my fault. He has his ways. Terrible and bewitching ways. Yes he does. Oh, yes he does.

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