Mr. Bojangles

I am in no condition for professional distance. My small following online will have to be patient for my aging mind to resume burrowing towards my theses and recounting the resumption of some sort of living as mine nears its end, and yes, I am as morbid as you like, but also an astute observer, and suspect my mortality will match my mother's in longevity if not suddenness: bad vascular circulation in my legs, decrease in breathing function, broken heart, and in some ways just as ignorant as I find most others to be. Perhaps Jerry treated me as normal when I was 19 because he himself had mildly manic qualities so that we clicked on the teacher/student paradigm, and I could manipulate him, but that only up to a point. I am angry at him too, but not for rejecting my confessional mind games; cognizant of the fact that this anger is unfair to the man. The grown up spastic looking back knows he treated me better than my own family does, did the best he could for me, and it is not his fault that my own intellectual discipline failed to conquer my self-pity, which I dole out and dish up in spades.

I do not want to be this spinster, a quintessential Aileen Wuornos in my own right, with dead animal trophies, mourning carnivorous personalities. It is a character type often and easily ridiculed, even while I realize I killed my proxy child through lack of vigilance. A hard truth for a quadriplegic in my situation, but a basic one. Joey nagged me incessantly for treats, and I gave in, buying the available rather than coaxing him to accept the medical diet, and in trying to curb my anxiety over his straining, trying to constrain my reactions and budget, I killed him, my baby boy, the sweetest cat in the world, a maudlin biddy telling The Cat Doctor staff "I'm sorry," as if I expect their absolution.

I'd rather be the Diane Lane in Unfaithful, conflicted even in the liberation of sexual betrayal, but I was actually the Paul Martinez figure. The reason I do not discuss this is fear of the wives. I got caught, once, and it was pretty horrible. A dead cat is pedestrian by comparison to a courtesan's criminality.