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Modern Love:
Feline Groovy BY KIERSTEN CONNER-SAX (as Susanna Jane Pelletier) I am 37, and I am in love with
my cat. I am not ashamed. Mojo loves me, too. People may think
it's shocking, or strange. An unmarried, childless, 37-year-old woman, in
love with her cat? Yes. We are twin souls who meet at night over a plate of
tuna tartare. No one understands me like Mojo
does. Not my mother, harping about her friend's daughter who just met a
wonderful man on J-Date. Not my co-workers, constantly getting married or
having children and becoming more and more inflexible. Certainly not Tad, my
old boyfriend, whose wife is fat. Tad and I haven't spoken in nine
or ten years, but I Googled him recently, and found pictures of Tad and
"Gigi" on a ski vacation. He had written cute little captions, but
none of them even mentioned how fat
she was! I thought, thank god we broke up; I would have had to dump him as
soon as I realized he wanted me to be fat, and I would have felt terribly
guilty. And if we hadn't split up, I
wouldn't have found Mojo. I met Tad in my Constitutional
Law class in law school. It was a fairy tale romance. He was tall, muscled,
and blond, with a barely concealed hint of contempt for me. When I helped him
with a brief or a test or his law-review application, the sparks flew. But he
was too scared to see what we had until school ended, he couldn't find a job,
and his mother told him he would have to start paying rent. A few months later it was over.
We had had wonderful times; why, I was a bridesmaid in three different
weddings in the months we were together! But one evening I came home from
work to find him moving his things out. He told me it wasn't me, it was him,
and that he wasn't ready for a relationship after being so badly hurt by his
mother. I tried to make him see that I wasn't looking for marriage or
commitment or support or concern or common courtesy; I just wanted him. But Tad did me a favor. When the
messenger with the restraining order found me, I was standing in front of a
pet store. I started to cry. Parents pulled
their children away from the store window, and I cried harder. Then I began
to bang my head on the glass. When I stopped to rub my forehead, one little
kitten looked up and meowed. It was Mojo. I went inside, and it seemed as
though everyone in the store pulled away, and it was just the two of us. He
was all black with a white tummy, as though he were dressed for a terribly
formal event. Now, Mojo often is dressed for formal events. I bring him with me
everywhere, so I bought him a tuxedo collar for weddings, and a black armband
for funerals. My mother stills talks about J-Date, but she also calls Mojo
her Grandkitty. Unfortunately, my father feels
threatened by my relationship. "For god's sake,
Jenna," he told me last week. "Stop dressing up the damn cat and go
out once in a while." Of course, he's wrong. Just a
few weeks ago I broke up with Alan, a decent, kind-hearted math teacher,
because he was allergic to cats. We woke up in bed, and Mojo was
curled up on Alan's chest. Alan sneezed all over Mojo, who naturally arched his back and hissed. I
immediately grabbed Mojo to me and held him, whispering that the mean man
wasn't going to scare him any more. "I'm sorry, Jenna,"
Alan told me, pulling on his clothes as he backed toward the door. "I
don't think there's room for a man in your life." I pushed the door closed behind
him. "No there isn't," I purred to Mojo. "You're the only man for
me." He purred right back. Jenna Goldman is a reporter for O, the Oprah Magazine. |
©2005 by Kiersten Conner-Sax
From "50 Tries" at kiersten.connersax.com