If any of you guys are reading this, just remember it the next time your wife or girlfriend says she has a headache. I suffered from migraines even before this change in my hormone dosage. And, if your wife's or girlfriend's hormones ebb and flow as I now suspect they do, she really will have headaches sometimes--yes, perhaps even at times when you want to fuck her. Really. It's not one of those "check is in the mail" excuses. And we certainly don't plan our headaches; they just come.
So what did I do? What any woman does: Try to get some rest, and do at least some of the things I'd planned to do. One of them was to take a bike ride, though later in the day than I'd intended. The weather was warmer and sunnier than it has been in some time, so I think that the sun bearing down on my fair skin probably tired me out, too.
Still, I had a good ride, even if I lingered at the Rockaway Beach and Coney Island boardwalks longer than I'd intended. I drank a coke while at Rockaway Beach, and I could swear that it was absinthe. Not that I've ever drunk absinthe. But I found myself lightheaded at the same time I had my headache, and the textures of the skins of sunbathers, volleyball players and swimmers filled, not only my eyes, but the pores of my skin. So did the colors they wore, the sea that's turning into a softer shade of blue-green than it's been and, of course, the sun. I felt as if I were beyond my senses, or that they were beyond me: All I could do was to be filled with impressions. Some may remain with me, like the one of the friendly husky pup whose eyes mirrored the sea and the young man, as friendly and as radiant lucent in his own way, who was walking him. The pup's name was Sam; I never did learn the young man's name.
At Coney Island, I sat on a bench about halfway between the Parachute Jump and Sea Gate. That part of the boardwalk doesn't get the throngs of people that fill the area around the Cyclone and the other rides. Usually, one finds other cyclists, older couples and teenagers, most of them black. I have always felt comfortable there: I can hear the hissing tides and feel the song of the sun lambenting on them about as much as such sensations are available in a large city.
And I encountered something that has been disturbingly frequent these days: a cat who wanted to go home with me. As far as I can tell, this one was female. A narrow white streak that began just under her nose widened as it swept down her neck and underside and tapered again back to her tail. Her legs were black, but her paws were white. And she had one green and one blue eye.
She had been sleeping or stalking under the boardwalk. After I propped my bike--my good ol' Mercian--against the railing, she bounded up the splintering steps to the boardwalk. I looked her way, she looked at me and tiptoed toward me. Without my even calling or gesturing toward her, she sniffed around my legs and ankles, and circled them. Then she jumped onto the bench and propped her front paws on my right thigh.
She didn't even flinch as I stroked between her ears and down her back with my fingers. For a cat who was living under the boardwalk, she was extremely clean, and her coat was very smooth--almost as smooth as Charlie's, one of the silkiest I've ever felt. I took out a piece an oatmeal cookie I had in my bag, broke off a piece and gave it to her. Then I gave her another piece. It certainly wasn't the best food for her, but I didn't have anything else on me. Besides, would a Nathan's hot dog, tasty as it is, have been any better for her?
Anyway, before I got on my bike, I bade her good-bye with a very long stroke from her ears all the way to her tail. She rolled over and wriggled to the rhythm, such as it was, of my fingers stroking her belly. I knew I wasn't getting away so easily and, truth be told, I didn't want to. And she knew it. But how do you tell a kitty who's probably been abandoned that you already have two, and your landlord--who lives directly above you--could have a seizure or worse if you brought in another?
As I got on my bike and began to pedal away, she followed me until she couldn't keep up with me. I wasn't trying to outrun her; indeed, I didn't want to leave her behind me. I felt the same way the other day after I had nearly the same scenario with another cat in the park at the foot of the Whitestone Bridge. The only difference was, that cat was male and orange--a dusty shade, like Max's--with stripes in a slightly darker hue. He, too, would have followed me home if he could have kept up, and I would have taken him, just as I would have taken her.
I wish I could say those cats, or the dog I found in the street on Thursday, were just hallucinations that I could blame on the hormones. Unfortunately, I've been reading and hearing reports that more and more people are abandoning animals. Some of those people cannot keep homes for themselves, so they cannot keep pets in them. Or those people are so overwhelmed with bills and such that they can't afford their pets anymore. Or, maybe, they're just stressed out and they don't want to take care of anything or anyone if they don't have to.
Whatever the case, I'm sure that more animals will tug at my heartstrings in the near future. Maybe, once I recover from my surgery, I should move to a farm or some other place with lots of space for animals. The only problem is, while I get along well with dogs and even better with cats, I have practically no other skills relevant to farming. Just because I milked a cow once, that doesn't mean I'm not a city girl to the bone.
I mean, didn't all of the humor of Green Acres derive from a proto-Material Girl trying to adapt to life on the farm? Zsa Zsa Gabor didn't even have to act in that one; just the sight of her in overalls was funny enough.
That show aired a long time ago. I wasn't even taking hormones back then!
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