Every morning, someone I’ll never meet does a little creative writing project and emails it to me in the form of a daily horoscope. I have no idea what it means but I don’t take it seriously. The person, if there is a person, who writes these things may or may not consult the stars, the Magic 8 Ball or an Amtrak schedule. I can’t know. Even so, sometimes the horoscope is 100% right, in a non-Ta-specific manner. Today, for instance, it advises that making a symbolic gesture will lead to change in real life; clean up!

I have been cleaning my apartment with extreme prejudice. Last night, it dawned on me that I should paint the closet in which Larry hid out during the difficult last weeks of his life. Since I can hardly think at this point, that idea seems like genius, and if it’s not, I can blame any dumb thing I do on fumes.

Yesterday’s big irrational thought was What if he weren’t really dead and I left him with terrible people who would do who knew what to him? I spent most of yesterday trying to keep my hand off the phone and calculating odds. Would people who didn’t really put my cat to sleep tell me they hadn’t put my cat to sleep? No, of course not. Eventually, I had to remind myself over and over that they were good to him and to me, and since I trusted them while he was alive, he’s dead. I have not abandoned him to – say – medical experiments. These doubts are even funny; they had their honest start in the office, on Tuesday morning:

Tata: No. Let’s put him to sleep. No more tests for him.
Substitute Vet: Is there someone I can call for you?
Tata: What?
SV: Is there someone at home we can call? Someone you’d like to be here for moral support?
Tata: What?
Anya: That’s why she brought HER SISTER.

I was explaining this to my mother, who couldn’t stop saying, “What?” either, when it dawned on me what the substitute vet was saying.

Tata: So apparently he thought Anya was my lover and he wanted to call my husband.
Mom: Was he telling on you or caring for your cat?
Tata: Both?

A few weeks ago, a friend and I started tossing around ideas for an art project, which seemed hopeful. Georg is right: I need projects, and I’ve been avoiding people for about a year while I put everything into making a living and taking care of Larry. Once again: I’m not saying that was rational, but I did it. Anyway, I ordered supplies for this art project and didn’t expect them until later this week. An hour after Anya and I emptied the apartment of Larry-related objects, the UPS truck delivered those supplies.

I couldn’t have gotten the message more clearly if it’d come marked AQUARIUS.

This morning, we put Larry, the little black cat bent on stealing your soul, to sleep. I’ve been crying my eyes out for weeks, fearing this moment for myself and for him. The choice came down to putting him into a hospital to warm him up – his temperature was really low – then treatment. The substitute vet did not remember treating this self same pussycat twice, two weeks ago, and was deeply unhelpful. Anya came with me and spoke rationally and when I decided it was time, the clinic staff, which has grown attached to Our Cranky Hero, tried to talk me out of it. I wavered, then insisted. I loved him too much to hospitalize him.

This is the last picture I took of him yesterday.

My apartment feels empty. My heart aches. This person in cat form was more interesting than most people in human form. He went to sleep in my arms, then I handed him to the assistant for the last shot. I hope I forget this and just remember the fascinating, quirky character. Anya and I emptied my apartment of possibly infected cat reminders. I dragged everything to the dumpster, and it’s been awful, just awful, but so, so much better than trying to decide and the agony of waiting.

So ends the story of Larry, the little black cat, no longer bent on stealing your soul.

I have my hands full at home with the sick pussycat peeing everywhere, so I’ll be blunt. Blunt-er. More blunt that usual. Do not mistake my refusal to touch an errant shrimp ring for virtue. I am not virtuous, but I am clear on where I end and where slimy marketing begins, and I have that luxury because I have nothing to sell. My career is not at stake when some dimwit notices me or doesn’t, and neither is my self-worth waiting for someone to stare at me and calculate. Fuck that. It is important to understand I already know I don’t need to be famous to create a body of work, I have and I will continue; the critic that matters is me. Currently, I’d pan me, though with one decent mssive I can win me back; but you know who should raise the bar? Colorado State lawmakers sniffing at losing all they can eat:

DENVER – One state lawmaker says he ate just one shrimp at a recent reception for fear of violating a strict new ethics law. Another says he sometimes has a bowl of cereal for dinner instead of the sandwiches and hors d’oeuvres he used to nibble at gatherings. There’s no such thing as a free lunch at the Colorado Capitol since voters passed Amendment 41 last fall. Free breakfasts and evening receptions have vanished, too, in a cloud of confusion and jokes about exactly what is forbidden and what is allowed.

Dude, I hope that’s tartar sauce on your lapel.

Amendment 41 bans lobbyists from giving any gifts, including meals, to lawmakers. Anyone else can give gifts up to $50 to lawmakers, other government workers, contractors and their families. Former lawmakers must also wait two years before returning to the Capitol to work as lobbyists. The National Conference of State Legislatures has called it the toughest ethics rule in the nation.

Hot dog, I want tough ethics rules – but someone’s still mad about his tender wiener.

Republican Sen. Ken Kester of Las Animas – the lawmaker who said he sometimes has Life cereal for dinner – said meeting with lobbyists over lunch helped him understand the issues because it’s impossible to read all of the hundreds of bills introduced each year. Like others, he was quick to say he never pledged a vote just because a meal was provided. Chuck Ford, a self-described “black hat” lobbyist who represents construction groups and the gambling town of Black Hawk, said meal breaks were the best time to talk to lawmakers because of their busy schedules. Having a lobbyist pay for that meal was a perk for lawmakers who make only $30,000 a year, he said. He recalled picking up a $500 bar tab for lawmakers because “I could afford it and they couldn’t.”

“The trend, what we call reform now, is toward making life miserable for everyone involved in politics,” Ford said. “Politics is the way we get the job done and it works.”

Oh, fuck you lengthwise, Mr. Ford. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that just because something has always been done one icky way that it must ever be so – unless it’s the Electric Slide. You heard me!

The inventor of the “Electric Slide,” an iconic dance created in 1976, is fighting back against what he believes are copyright violations and, more importantly, examples of bad dancing.

Is it possible I liked the whiny lobbyist better than the litigious choreographer? Yahuh!

The 1998 Digital Millenium Copyright Act governs copyright infringement as well as technology whose purpose is to circumvent measures intended to protect copyrights. Under the DMCA, rights-holders can complain to services like YouTube that content uploaded by users infringes their copyrights.

But on the YouTube page Silver himself posted showing the Electric Slide, he wrote, “Any video that shows my choreography being done incorrectly is being removed. I don’t want future generations having to learn it wrong and then relearn it as I am being faced with now because of certain sites and (people) that have been teaching it incorrectly and without my permission. That’s the reason I (copyrighted) it in the first place.”

What a dick!

“I realize that this incorrect version of my choreography has been around for some 27 years,” Silver wrote, “and it seems pointless to try and correct it at this time but because of the legal ramifications, my lawyers have suggested that I take this approach.”

This is all a tremendous yawnfest, except for one little nugget of corn-flecked bullshit.

[Silver] also complained that actors in those movies also didn’t do the dance right. In fact, of several movies mentioned, surprisingly, Silver said only Joe Pesci, best known for his Oscar-winning role in the gangster classic Goodfellas, performed the dance correctly in the decidedly lesser-known film, The Super.

So we’re back to the damn shrimp ring and selfish desires. Just because it’s always been that icky way doesn’t mean it must ever be so – not if we refuse to bite.

Siobhan first called me at work yesterday morning.

Siobhan: Not dead yet!
Tata: If you were, this phone call would be even more interesting. Where the hell are you?
Siobhan: Hospital.
Tata: Huh. Can I panic now?
Siobhan: What time is it?
Tata: 10:37.
Siobhan: Wait until 10:38. I gotta go get a test.

I postponed panicking until such time as I knew why I should panic, since I like to plan these things carefully. Later, we agreed I’d visit at lunchtime. Then, we agreed I would not visit at lunchtime. Then I had a meeting all afternoon, and enough time had passed that Siobhan’s many admirers were taking bakery numbers in the lobby. Nobody with an IV drip needs to hear my mouth on a Friday night, so we agreed I’d visit today, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t been on the phone all morning.

Siobhan: They did an ultrasound on my chest and apparently I have a heart.
Tata: Get out!
Siobhan: It didn’t grow three sizes but it is black.
Tata: Nobody touched it, right? Your heart is pure, concentrated Eeeeeevil!
Siobhan: Right. Don’t bring me flowers. I don’t have room for more.
Tata: Are your admirers there now?
Siobhan: No, but I expect them any minute.
Tata: Throw them out at 2.
Siobhan: How about at 3?
Tata: Sold!

So, while we’re waiting for me to finish my pre-departure routine of bathing and complaining, I thought we might also observe that things are happening elsewhere, and some might matter more than others.

Natalyn Gracia loves her pink hair and so does her dad, Ricardo, but the Dalton Early Childhood Center calls her extreme and she’s missed the last four days of school because of it. Ricardo had her hair dyed for a school parade back in October. But, he said, he never got the warning letter that came two weeks later. If he had, he would not have had her hair re-pinked over the Christmas break.

A spokeswoman for the school said they are working with Ricardo to make sure the girl is under compliance with the schools rules, which means she has to lose the pink hair.

Sometimes, I can tell people are speaking in code. I can’t always tell what they’re really saying, but I can tell someone is stringing together words in a manner inconsistent with common usage. For instance, when I think of a four-year-old with pink hair, I think of a darling little fuzzball who asks interesting questions and trusts adults. Apparently, the Dalton Early Childhood Center thinks of this.

Apparently, Teh Gay is such a threat to civilization that a preschool has a rule against pink hair. I’ve had toy-pony-pink hair, and it didn’t make me any more queer than usual, but it did make people nervous, so I’ve seen the hand-wringing up close and personal. As with hate speech problems where the answer is more free speech, I think the answer here is more pink hair. I hope all the kids’ parents take her classmates for – forgive me – pinking. There’s nothing terrifying about hair color, if you’re not allergic, but there’s a lot to be frightened of when the adults act like big fucking babies.

Larry, the little black cat bent on stealing your soul, is a mysterious political artist, perfecting techniques in a new medium. This morning, he was waiting for me in the kitchen next to the Protest Poop. Yesterday, because I was half-asleep, I failed to realize the virtuoso placement of the protest poop relative to the artist, which is to say the cat faced the away from me and toward the food/water bowl, with the poop mere inches from the kitty rump, communicating ennui, despair and almost supernatural disdain for the caretaking human. I didn’t take it personally, but I wish I’d taken a picture.

This morning, when I saw the artist had again created one of his ephemeral works, I ran for the camera. Since the weekend bracketed by veterinary visits, Larry, the little black cat bent on stealing your soul, has been silent. Ordinarily, a healthy and happy version of the artist prowls around the house issuing directives and leaving manifestos in the cat box, so this silence has been very odd. When I approached the artist this morning, prepared to photograph his work, the artist called me by name. At least, he called me by the name he has always called me. It sounds like, “Brrrr?” which I have taken to mean, “You there!” or “Bartender!” So I am pleased to have documented this important work, which I promptly cleaned up.

The artist needs a thorough cleansing. Perhaps this method will pique his interest.

Sree Sreenivasan
WNBC
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY

Mr. Sreenivasan,

It’s hard to judge an on-air fellow’s personality by his – well – on-air personality, but I would have supposed by having seen you on ABC-TV for years that you were a decent sort, an intelligent man. I was pleased for you. I like it when decent people succeed in terrible, filthy businesses, like yours. Then I sort of noticed you’d moved to NBC. I switched when ABC refused to report on the war and, after a few years, there you were again, explaining gadgets before I’ve had a cup of coffee. Once again: pleased for you, decent fellow, etc., etc.

Last night, I attended the blogger summit, which was among the strangest events of my illustrious and strange career. Though I handle books in a library, I was once sent into the stacks to search for bombs. When I was a radio comedienne, I duct-taped a transmission back together in a rest stop on the way to a convention. I was a Dodge poet, a model and possessed an absolutely perfect derierre; yet I have never seen the level of shameless fame-whoring and elite ass-kissing as I saw last night. It was spectacular. I’m still all a-twitter!

NBC invited bloggers without a hint as to why, and we went anyway. I have to think about that more, but the invitation said something about food and people like free food. So: not a full house but over a hundred of us lined up to clip on two IDs for no good reason except to find ourselves meeting people by staring at their breasts, which is never a total loss. After an endless series of corporate self-congratulation talks and phony thank-yous, someone finally came to the point of this summit: to get bloggers to provide NBC news with hundreds of unpaid stringers and free stories. Hey, people who write for the love of the work should do it for NBC for the love of the work. That is so shameless I felt like I drank a bottle of VapoRub, but the truly exciting development was that though the auditorium was packed with NBC ringers, some of the empty, attention-seeking fame whores in the audience didn’t tell you to get bent. No. Some people were thrilled that NBC liked them, really liked them. Huh.

As a journalism professor, you must have certain ethical problems with this proposal. You seemed very surprised when I said we watch Keith Olbermann’s reports in video form online. It’s had to believe you haven’t heard of Crooks & Liars, but that may prove the real point: NBC’s inviting the bloggers in was a cynical and sinister move. Each time you said “MSM or mainstream media” it was apparent that you knew the MSM had a real problem no one mentioned, the elephant in the room: credibility. For the last six years, the mainstream media has aided and abetted the administration’s ham-fisted lying, the destruction of the Constitution, the pointless corruption that has been our illegal Middle East misadventure without so much as a solid question on Meet the Press, which is a breach of trust with the public. NBC is owned by defense contractor General Electric; NBC News has served as a docile lapdog of the administration. And now, NBC News invites in the bloggers, whose work grew up around the MSM’s simpering and cowardly refusal to do its job, to co-opt the bloggers’ credibility? Mr. Sreenivasan, I’m an artist, a peace blogger, a progressive, and a humorist. I’m practical about paying my bills and once wanted to be the first performance artist to wear PENNZOIL on her warmups. You and I know that if there’s an afterlife, Machiavelli’s laughing his ass off.

I’m not joining NBC’s merry band because we have nothing to offer one another. I don’t generate news leads; NBC isn’t about to discover the joys of recycled, solar-powered peace, love and understanding, with a side of sturdy manicures. The free food might have provided some temptation, but unlike Persephone in the Underworld, I resisted every drop and morsel. It is worth mentioning that while NBC promised to credit bloggers for their material, no one said NBC would publish that material unedited.

I wish you well, but I hope this venture fails because the bloggers appreciate their independence, their integrity, their credibility more than the corrupting attention of the thing that seeks to undo them, and free shrimp.

Sincerely,
Ta