On Keeping Other Species Toeing their Goddamn Line

In spite of the confrontational tone of that there subject heading, this is really going to be quite a peaceful rumination (a word that always makes me think of cows, so I thought it was appropriate).

I've been having a few work-from-home days recently, which means spending more time with Fluff, the most needy, insecure, demanding and neurotic feline ever to shred a carpet (he's also adorable, but I'm trying not to sound like a crazy cat lady, so we'll just skip over that).

If you take one thoughtful, analytical step back - pets are weird.

Take a step right back. We are keeping another species (with whom, in evolutionary terms, we should be competing for vital resources) in our homes, in our lives, and fed. We lavish upon them the affection we might well lavish on our children (although I can tell Fluff to "sod off and stop bugging me" in a way I might not want to speak to my own spawn).

Originally, this probably all started because animals are useful, and because they are easily manipulated into doing stuff we don't want to do - like hunting mice (cats), helping us hunt or pull carts or guard things (dogs), pulling large heavy objects (horses, oxen), and generally earning their keep. That's a start. While out there in the wacky land of biology, a number of species have worked out how to live and play together for their mutual (or at least one-way) benefit (hello, symbiosis), let's be blunt: my cat does not earn his keep.

He ate a moth the other day, but the poor thing was already dead.

That is the practical side. It doesn't seem like a stable, sensible strategy to keep a pet, and there are numerous people who refuse to keep pets simply for that reason. If you have not felt or been able to form a bond with an animal, then the behaviour of enthusiastic pet-owners is just going to seem surreal and wasteful to you.

There is a more esoteric side to all this (and I'm not sure I'm using that word correctly), and a more marvellous side. I have a tendency to occasionally view animals as utterly alien to human thought. I'm a biologist and a writer of science fiction, so perhaps those facets of my personality are quietly getting together to marvel at one astonishing fact: there are strange animals living in my house.

Never mind that I put them there. There are beings in my house, that I interact with - in a more-or-less predictable fashion - and I have no real idea what they think, if they think (evidence suggests that, with Fluff at least, this is unlikely; however, Black, our other cat, is a problem solver and possible contender for feline engineering awards) and how they see the world, or us. There are catches and traps in the way we think about pets - remember they may respond to their names, but that doesn't mean they understand the label. How on earth do they see us as something to interact with, when we are ten times their size and walk on too few legs? How do they know which bits are eyes and noses?

They are little lives, little lives wandering about in my space and conducting their alien activities with an intent concentration that I can't begin to understand.

Sometimes the warmth of my cat on my lap, the vibration of his purr, the movement of his ribcage with his breathing and all the weight of his fragile little life just astonishes me beyond words.

They are not really very useful, but they are in their own way essential.

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The number 3 and the number 0, in that order.

Thirty looms on the horizon (for a given value of loom; it's more than half a year away), and if I grumble about it from time to time I get pitying looks from the odd individual announcing to me that it is, in fact, "just another number," as though I have caved to society's expectations by viewing the next decade with such horror.

Terribly mainstream of me. Clearly I have been pummelled by the media.

Mathematically, that's sound. It really is just another number.

Socially and psychologically, I have to disagree. We really are pummelled with preconceived notions and assumptions regarding the big three-oh, and while the majority of those are complete nonsense, we still carry the weight.

We might know that we're not suddenly plummeting into a dull middle-age, but we're aware of the risk.

We might be aware that all sexual attractiveness isn't going to disintegrate, but we know we live in a youth-worshipping culture.

And we might also know that we might have completely different standards and expectations from the preceding generations, but we can't help but be aware of what our parents were up to at this age (my mother had two children at this point, and had been married for ten years).

We can't help looking over our shoulders to see how far we've come.

If I stop to assess the situation, I'm okay with what I've managed at this point. I may not have a mortgage; I haven't produced any squalling offspring; and I haven't finished my PhD.

I have Husband, two cats, two degrees, a diploma, and friends that I'm reasonably sure are better than I deserve. I'm reasonably fit and healthy; nothing has started sagging yet (not that I'm likely to post it on a blog if it does, but I'm going to take the opportunity to say now that all is well); and overall my life is a vast improvement one what it was back at the threshold of my twenties.

I'm less inclined to panic about myself, and I'd be quite happy to measure my life in terms of panic.

Subject to Change

No doubt numerous blogs start with this sort of phrase: "This is an experiment."

It's an experiment because I started another blog - a different sort of blog - several years ago, and it turned into something entirely different from what I intended. I had intended to be anonymous: I caved and told my friends about it. I had intended to be creative: I got self-conscious and caved on that as well. I intended to be honest in my observations: and I started to worry about upsetting people (which was appropriate, as I managed that almost from the word go. What can I say, it's a gift).


So I suppose that this is intended to be both more and less personal.