I have a cat now, another sign of my turn into domesticity and adulthood. The cat, officially named Charlie McLovin Harlan, went sort of nuts on us last night and around 4:30 in the morning decided he wanted us to wake up and pay attention to him. So he did a lot of meowing, scratched at the bed, and occasionally leaped up on his hindlegs and with his forepaws, swatted Harlan while she was trying to sleep.

Last night was not a fun night, the kind of night that I'm pretty sure would be something akin to having a new-borne baby.

The thing I've noticed about cats is that I'm not all together sure they're supposed to be domestic animals. Now maybe I'm saying this because I am a full-fledged dog person, but dogs definitely act like a domestic animal should be-- happy to see you, easy to play with, and fully capable of giving affection back. Cats, on the other hand, seem ambivalent about all such things. In a way, cats often come off either like moving furniture or like roommates you live with whom you kind of like to hang out with but also leaves the dishes out too long and invites friends over at all hours of the night and sometimes you'd like to strangle them.

What I mean is that unlike dogs, cats seem to be completely content with living in their cat bubble world and do nothing but sleep, eat and chase imaginary mice. That's all they want to do and come off like that's all they really want out of life. Oh sometimes they'll hop on your lap or curl up with you, but it's always on their terms, never really on yours. When you want to pet them or play with them, they usually tolerate it more than anything else. Charlie will give us a roll of the eyes and let us pet with him or give us a really annoyed look, like "Jesus, people not again-- can't you seem I'm trying to sleep?"

Now none of these things are wrong, in fact it's why some people like cats, especially since it makes them low maintenance. It also makes people think cats are smarter which always struck me as retarded (the argument always boils down to how people say that, yes, dogs can do tricks but that's because they're dumb. Cats are smarter because while they could do tricks, they choose not too because they're too smart to play silly little pet games. Which is akin to me saying I could do physics if I wanted to, but I'm too smart to apply myself to something as silly as physics).

On the other hand, cats are awfully cute and sometimes you just want to pick them up and squeeze them like they're nothing but a live stuffed teddy bear. Which is probably why they always look so irritated when you do pick them up.

None of this, however applies to Charlie. Because Charlie is the most wonderful, loving, handsomest cat EVER.