crazy cat man(do)

back in the early mid-'90s, i found a couple of kittens in the alley behind my parents' house. my sister and i decided to name them mr. manson and twiggy (because we were both into marilyn manson at the time; don't judge me). when twiggy had her first litter, we named the five kittens gacy, daisy, gidget, ginger, and mansona (it was a girl cat, and looked like mr. manson, and we didn't want to name her marilyn; and yes, they were all girl cats).

after we (and by "we", i mean my parents) got rid of that litter, twiggy had a second litter, this time consisting of two girls and three boys. my parents gave away the girls before we could name them, but my sister and i named the boys blinky (because he had an eye infection for a while and blinked a lot), batty (because he was black and every time he jumped, he spread his front legs out wide like he was a bat taking off for flight), and borgy (because, for some odd reason, this cat reminded us of the borg from star trek: tng; don't judge me).

those were the last cats i ever owned, and since then, although i've flirted with the idea of getting a cat or two (and having a roommate who had a cat that liked me more than him), i've still remained catless.

in the past couple of years, i've kept an ever-changing list in my head of potential cat names for the day i decide to embrace my crazy cat lady side. the first on my list were to get a girl and a boy and name them tank girl and booga, then i changed my mind and decided i wanted to get three girls and name them tank girl, sub girl, and jet girl. then i decided that those poor cats probably wouldn't like that much.

the next set of names i had was kal and kara, but those quickly got taken off the list for how geeky i thought it was, only to be replaced by the names flansburgh and linnell, which are ultimately more geeky. then i thought i'd go with ann and nancy. those were succeeded by petra, rachel, and tanya. then karen and richard. then aimee and michael. then gilda and gene. there was also myshkin and rogozhin, but i thought those names might, well, ended tragically and russiany.

of all the names, the ones i was most excited about for a long time was getting a boy and two girls, and naming them jack, janet, and chrissy. the purpose of these names was solely for the fact that i wanted to take pictures of them in various situations. like i wanted to take a picture of jack standing or sleeping in a frying pan. i wanted a picture of janet rubbing up against a potted plant. and i wanted a picture of chrissy laying on a chair with someone about to poor water on her. i think i ultimately abandoned these names because i felt that, if i actually went through with them, then i'd have to get rid of chrissy after a couple of years and replace her with another cat i'd name cindy, who i'd only keep for a couple of months and then replace with another cat i'd name terri and buy a cute nurse's outfit for. and that's just too much effort, when you think about it.

for the past year or two, i had finally settled on getting two boys, and naming them kalki and dr. giles. but over the past week or so, i've been leaning more towards getting three girls and naming them maggie, terre and suzzy.

if i spent as much time working on my resume and applying for jobs as i do with coming up with potential cat names, i'd be super-employed right now. oy.