Thomas Wictor

Posts Tagged ‘feral cats’

Houdini would be very proud of my damn cats

I’m not an animal lover. In fact, I never acquired pets until last year. I was given a choice: Let two kittens die, take them to the pound to be euthanized, or adopt them. Since I’d spent all of 2013 dancing with death, I adopted the cats. They were about seven months old, so the…

 

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The main difference between us and animals

There are lots of differences between us and animals. We humans wear clothes, even if it’s just a penis sheath. Almost every group of us has a written language. We manufacture conveyances that defy the laws of nature, just so we can hurry from Point A to Point B. Last night it hit me that…

 

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Who must do the hard things?

I can’t remember where I read the adage, “Who must do the hard things? He who can.” I admired the “he” in the saying, because I could never do hard things. I was a lost, scared, self-loathing teenager when I read that, and I figured that was was. As the singer David Crosby said, “I…

 

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I pass AND Fail the Israel Test

An Israeli alerted me to George Gilder’s Israel Test. Although I pass the test as Gilder lays it out, I fail it miserably in other ways. First the test. You won’t regret the four minutes and thirty-seven seconds you invest in watching this video. I’ve never been envious of anybody for any reason, because as…

 

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Catastrophe: Why I hate my neighbors

If you read my memoir Ghosts and Ballyhoo, you’ll learn about Syd the Second. I’m absolutely convinced that he was the reincarnation of Syd the First. The reason I call Syd the Second the Cat Who Saved My Life is that he set a magnificent example of how to overcome trauma. Though a maniacally untrustworthy…

 

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“I just wanna bitch.”

My father’s hobby was complaining. He’d come over to vent, and if you tried to help, he’d say, “I just wanna bitch. I’m not here for solutions.” It’s ironic because his favorite way shut you up was to ask, “Are you complaining?” He didn’t want to hear anybody else’s problems. Dad loved to hook up…

 

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I hate my neighborhood

There was a time when I didn’t hate my neighborhood. Back when I moved here in 1993, it wasn’t a bad place. What happened was that all the old people died and young monstrosities moved in. Now I can’t wait to leave. The main reason I want to leave is that everyone here is a…

 

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