A Blog About You.

You always thought of yourself as a normal (though perhaps struggling) artist-type. Talented enough, smart, social, etc. And you've always operated under the basic assumption that crazy cat-ladies were--by definition--old, living by themselves (or, living with no other humans) and socially awkward. Because you're young, and are surrounded by people, and are not totally socially retarded, you always kind of assumed that you (artist-type) and she (cat-lady) were on opposing ends of the spectrum. That, on a Venn Diagram, you would be two distinct bubbles, no overlap.

But you've recently realized that you don't have to be old. You don't have to be maladjusted. You don't even have to be alone; you just have to be lonely.

Not even like, 'I'm-so-lonely-I'm-going-to-pay-a-prostitute-for-conversation' lonely. Nope. Just plain old, 'One-of-my-best-friends-lives-in-Finland-and-the-other-lives-in-Missoula-but-doesn't-have-a-phone-and-all-my-other-close-friends-are-scattered-across-the-U.S.-and-I've-always-been-a-quality-over-quantity-when-it-comes-to-relationships-type-of-girl-so-here-I-am' lonely works just fine.

The equation, you discover, is: lonely lady + cat= crazy cat-lady. It's like the e=mc2 of the desolate.

One day, you hit that point where it seems totally reasonable to bounce ideas off a cat. They don't mock you, or roll their eyes. I mean, yeah, they sit there totally disinterested, looking at you like you don't have the right to talk to them. But they listen. And then, when you're done ranting and raving (or crying), they don't offer you advice. They don't psychoanalyze.

They just continue to sit there. Or, they get up and leave. Or, occasionally, they let you pet them.

And after a couple of weeks, they get used to you being all Chatty Kathy, and sometimes even sit on your lap when you're telling them about your idea for a fantasy novel for young adults. They wrap themselves around your neck while you blather on and on about how you don't want your novel to end up sounding like Tolkien (or like that other kid from Montana who wrote a book that sounded like Tolkien.) They swipe at your (incessantly wiggling) toes, which reminds you that you used to have friends who teased you about the fact that you perpetually fidget your toes, so you tell the cat that. And she doesn't care; she just wants to sharpen her claws.

The worst part is, you start writing blogs about cats. You should blog about how you've given up on The Great American Novel you'd been trying to write, because frankly, you just don't think you have the talent. Or about how you've dug up your notebook from last summer and, after revising some basic plot issues, have decided to start working on that fantasy thing you started. About how you've decided you don't need the Booker Award if you can have the Newbery Medal. Because it (the fantasy thing) is more fun to write (than the serious novel). And also, because you watched "Twilight" and have realized that you don't have to actually have talent to write a successful novel for young adults. Which, naturally, should led to you blogging about your fear of failure. And also about selling out, and whether or not you could live with yourself were you to, in fact, sell out, and how you would only write YA literature until you had a foothold in the industry and your student loans paid off, and then you would write something more substantial (which is not to say YA Literature can't be substantial). You'd maybe try to rationalize your decision by informing the internet that you'd always planned to write kids' books. Always. You could relate the anecdote about how, when you were like, 4 years old, you wrote and illustrated that 'book' about a bird who looses his nest (a blatant rip-off of "Are You My Mother?"), and it won some award at some fair, you proudly declared your intentions to write kids' books. Or about how when you where 10, and had just finished The Hobbit, you just knew that that was what you were going to do with your life. Or about how you still check the YA section of Barnes & Noble every time you visit. You wouldn't be able to refrain from postulating if it is really 'selling out', or just 'getting back to your roots.' And you'd blog about normal things like writer's block and how the history of mining (which is actually fairly crucial to your novel) is incredibly boring to research.

But you've become a cat-lady. A crazy cat-lady. So, instead, you blog about how your cat tried to eat your sock. Or how she thinks hitting the space bar on your computer is the spiffiest thing in the world. Or how the cats are filling a void that was created when everyone you knew seemingly dropped off the face of the earth.

And then you read the blog aloud to your cat before posting, just to make sure there are no typos.

Welcome to your new life as a crazy cat-lady.