physiology

Feline Blindness, American Positivity, Otherwise German 

I closed my blind, seventeen year-old cat in the space underneath the freezer drawer recently. He has lost so much weight since his sister died that he fit without causing the door to catch. His meow, which guests routinely mistake for a baby’s whimper, sounded distant, the way it sounded on mornings I used to discover him outside the kitchen slider after a rogue night on the deck.
What is the word that means the same thing as widow, but refers instead to one left behind by a half-sibling? In German, of course, it’s Halbgeschwisterwitwe. Maybe it’s the same in English but just not very common here*.

If it’s true that emotions affect our physical well-being, I ache to think I may have contributed to Garp’s health problems as a sibling-widower by going on and on in front of him about getting a puppy. I wonder if he understands the power of positivity. 

A few weeks ago I added both good energy and electrolytes to my physical therapy regimen, and my leg has stopped hurting when I run uphill. For the purpose of running euphoria, I am tempted to have warm thoughts even more often–it seems to work for Kilian Jornet–but I guess I’m a little bit afraid of losing my edginess and my dirty Hendrick’s martinis. 

The German word for children-who-are-gradually-getting-more-allergic-to –their- seventeen-year-old-sibling-widowed-cat-while-they-wait-to-get-a-puppy is not used in English because we don’t like to admit the truth of it, just as we don’t read our children the original Grimm’s Fairy Tales. In either case, we hate to see our children teary and bloodshot. 

*e.g. Schadenfreude is in Webster’s Dictionary, but we don’t use it very much because the sentiment is so un-American. 

The Humming Game, Shamanism, Feet

Running is just like life. In literature, we would call such a comparison iambic pentameter, because of the connection with feet. Or we may have called it that other thing—was it a Nagual? Although I was never offered an Echols Scholarship when I was at UVA, (please refer to my upcoming post about birth order,) I did manage to get a willy-nilly liberal arts education anyway. For instance, I could talk about Carlos Casteneda for hours if you and I were both on peyote. Or music—jazz or classical, but we would have to play the game where I hum something and you try to guess what it is (Mozart’s Piano Concerto 21 in C Major.) Also, I think I remember that my wrist is distal to my shoulder—if it isn’t, I have just fallen down some steps. Wasn’t I talking about running? Thank goodness, because I was getting out of my depth.

The thing is, how much do I really want to write about the ways in which running is like life? Because if you read Runner’s World or The Huffington Post or you yourself have ever been a runner or have sat next to a runner couple at El Diablo Burrito, you know running makes everyone philosophical. I get out there, and get high on endorphins, and I get a lot of big, stupid ideas. If I’m running with anyone else, I talk way too much. There is good photographic evidence of this starting around mile 16 of the New York Marathon, when Stevie puts on her headphones. Running is probably more like drinking. What would Caballo Blanco do?