I have a cat.

Yes, I am that much of a cliche: A single, working girl, living alone in a city apartment [and I use the term 'city' very loosely] with a solitary cat.

In my better moments, I feel like Holly Golightly.

At my worst, I feel two kittens short of sad and crazy.

Tonight, I was perhaps a bit of both.

Admittedly, I adore my little Zooey cat. The single girl cliche exists for a reason, pets do help to ease the pains of living alone. When I'm bored, she provides entertainment, when I'm cold, she cuddles [probably more for her own benefit than mine], and when I'm sad, she comforts [or maybe that's the crazy talking]. Tonight, she taught me something.

It was because she wanted her food bowl re-filled. Having had a long day of lounging around the cozy, heated apartment while the rest of the world braved the brisk fall wind, she was understandably famished. She sought me out, stared up at me with those big, green eyes and let out a single meow. At this, I became overwhelmed with the urge to not just pick her up and hold her, but to squeeze her in a hug that stopped just shy of suffocating. I was suddenly the Abominable Snowman from Looney Tunes, I wanted to hug her and squeeze her and call her George. OK, so maybe not that last part, but I needed to hold her, simply because I could.

Isn't it funny how caring for something allows you to feel a sort of ownership over it? I imagine my urge to suddenly show affection to my cat is but a fraction of what a new parent feels looking at their child: the idea that you created this being and therefore should have every right to random attacks of suffocation. I know from experience that it's similar to the emotion felt in a romantic relationship.

That has always been one of the emotions that marvels and excites me, the idea that, once you've reached a certain stage of togetherness with another person, you can pretty much reach out and touch them whenever you wish. And I'm not just talking about the more intimate touches, I'm talking about even something as small as reaching over and touching their nose. Think about it, when else is it socially acceptable to feel you have the right to invade another human being's space as you do your own pet's? It still baffles me and gives me immense pleasure to know it is my right as the girlfriend to reach out whenever I wish and touch whatever I want [within reason, but honestly, how many guys would object to any of it?]. It is both disturbing and liberating, the rights we allow one another under the contract of love, but really, when you're sharing saliva on a daily basis what else is off limits?

It's that lack of inhibition and boundaries that I miss often as a single girl. The need to reach out and touch strangers or embrace my fellow Target shoppers in a hug simply doesn't go over well in polite society.

So for now, I'll settle for my cat.
Just shoot me if I get any more and start referring to them as my children.

My computer was acting like a depressive on an episode: the slow movement, the inability to complete tasks once started, the inconvenient and irrational shutting down of the entire system during the most crucial part of the day...I couldn't take much more of this.

It started simply enough, I just wanted to delete a few unnecessary programs, install a few new ones, upgrade my antivirus software. But once in the programs list, I began to realize that I had no idea what anything on my computer actually did. Much like my life, the screen in front of me was an endless list of choices that I only knew how to deal with by trial and error. Unlike my life, with my computer I wasn't willing to take that risk. Too much money had been spent to inadvertantly turn it into a paperweight.

Now here's where the irrational part begins. Sitting there, in front of my pink Dell laptop wondering what step to take next, I began to sob. Not a frustrated, pouting sob, but an all-out waterworks of pain. My heart was breaking over an inanimate object and I had no idea why.

And then it hit me.

It wasn't about the computer at all, it was about my last relationship...my only real relationship ever. It had lasted almost 7 years and had ended [badly] just over a year before.

He was a computer expert. So in the past, any problem that had occurred in that area had been quickly and efficiently dealt with in a matter of minutes.

Apparently, while I had made peace with the larger issues of breaking up [i.e. the loneliness, the hatred of the new girl, the confusion over why love just disappears...], I had also transposed all that was left over into seemingly unrelated and insignificant areas, like my computer.

And actually, I found it rather fitting. My computer, like my life, was about to take on new tasks. It was in some ways new, but still contained much of the old information and habits. No matter how many new programs I uploaded into the system, there would always remain a few crucial basics that allowed the machine to function normally.

Basically, I could change certain aspect of my life, as I had done for the past year, but there were other areas which were required to remain with me; not because I wanted them, but because, ultimately I needed them to continue functioning. I'd become fiercely independent over the past year in an effort to prove that I didn't need a man to survive, but there still remained a part of me that wanted to need someone. The romantic in me wouldn't die no matter how many viles of Romeo's poison I fed her. But maybe that was a good thing. Perhaps my idealist nature towards love was just part of my essential programing and without it, I would be nothing more than an expensive paperweight.

adventures in love & heartbreak with single girl
Alice She Helm.

October 2008, November 2008, December 2008, January 2009, December 2009,

Designer: infravermelho
Codes: mannequin}