The Vine: July 31, 2003
Dear Sars,
No depressed or annoying people in this rant, but there do happen to be two depressed or annoying and/or just plain weird cats and one slightly annoyed roommate at the heart of my question.
The two cats would be my beloved 10-year-old “Twinkie” (a.k.a. “Catzilla” or “The Toothless Wonder”) and my 4-year-old, one-eyed, who we’ll call “The Captain.”
The roommate in question, “J,” never had cats until he moved in with me. Both cats are shelter adopted and J helped in the picking of them. In the beginning everyone seemed to get along fine, but slowly but surely it seems as though an invisible line has been drawn between the cats and J.
The cats hang out primarily in my room, with the exception of food or bathroom breaks. This is a bit more understandable given that Twinkie is a 20-pounder who spends most of her time sleeping and that Jack seems to be a bit reclusive and shy by nature, as well the previous bad circumstances which landed him in the shelter in the first place.
The thing is, whenever they hear J on the stairs coming up to our apartment, or if he walks down the hallway towards my room, the cats freak out, and there’s this mad dash to find the deepest darkest corner of my room. The Captain invariably ends up wedged between my laundry pile and the wall, while Twinkie heads under the bed at a speed surprising for one so chunky. If J manages to get into the apartment and into my room without scaring them, what ends up happening is, he’ll sit on the bed and there will be some hissing and batting, and either he leaves or the cats do. What’s more is that when J is not at home, both cats become more social. They’ll both come hang out in the living room, mostly sitting by me or on me, and this is the only time they actually indulge in any playful types of behavior. And although they pointedly ignore each other’s existence they seem to both agree that if they even suspect J’s around, it’s time to return to their old hiding spots.
I’ve had cats all my life and I’m pretty good at picking up on things that bother them and why, but with J I’m clueless. He’s always been gentle with them, and in the beginning he and The Captain indulged in many rough-and-tumble types of play sessions. Twinkie seems to love it when he brushes her with a comb but he has to corner her to do that in the first place. J’s beginning to feel like some sort of leper around the cats, and I can’t think of any more ways to try and get them to like each other. As for myself, I worry about them because they’ll only hang out and play around me, so if I’m with J they sit around and look sulky or depressed. Any suggestions or ideas would be greatly appreciated, as it would make the home life a bit happier for all of us.
Sincerely,
Wondering why we can’t all just get along?
Dear Wondering,
One of two things is going on here. Either the cats have, and share, an understanding of the pecking order in the “pride” that you and J don’t…or the cats dislike J because of things that happen when you aren’t around.
It’s probably the former. Hobey and Little Joe do not scuffle, at all, if they don’t have me around to witness it; when they spend a few days at the kennel, they occupy the same cage totally peacefully and get along great. At home, it’s the Thrilla in Manila at least once a day. It’s an alpha-male thing, I don’t understand exactly how it works, and it just is what it is.
But it’s possible that stuff goes on between J and the cats that you don’t know about. I suspect that a former roommate of mine may have thwacked the Hobe a few times when I wasn’t around; he had gone on the record accusing Hobey of peeing on his bed, falsely (nice try, but just washing the sheets isn’t going to get rid of that smell, rookie), and ever since then, Hobey has taken longer to warm up to men than women.
I don’t want to accuse J of anything; I have no way of knowing what goes on when it’s just the three of them, and neither do you. But you might want to keep a sharper eye out. After all, cats are not really known for enjoying “rough-and-tumble play sessions” the way dogs are, so perhaps that’s part of it. The cats might just not like J, though, which happens sometimes and which J should learn not to take personally.
I’ve found that in much of my own writing, I come across a hopelessly repeating situation that no teacher/professor I have ever had could really agree on how to punctuate, so I come to you, oh goddess of grammar. When joining two independent, but related, clauses, which is the correct punctuation mark — the colon or the semicolon? (Or the comma, although I haven’t had my writing corrected to that for years.) An example:
This adherence is also the reason why no specific person seems wholly to blame for the war; each character pushes the families further down the road to war through their own attachment to dharma.
Way back when, I would have used a comma between “war” and “each.” More recently, people have told me to use semicolons if I want to join clauses like this, and my last professor insisted that colons were the correct punctuation here.
Help!
Grammatical Failure
Dear Failure,
Do not use a comma. A comma there turns it into a run-on sentence.
Either a colon or a semi-colon is correct there, but not interchangeable; the sentence means something different with a semi-colon (which would connect two proximal and similar thoughts) from what it means with a colon (which signals a statement or definition proceeding from the first clause).
If you want the second clause to function specifically as a definition of the “reason” mentioned in the first one, use a colon; if you want the second clause to function as a reiteration or emphasis of the first clause, use a semi-colon.
And…not to pick on you here, but the sentence could use a little fine-tuning elsewhere. I’d redraft the sentence like so:
This adherence means that no individual person seems wholly to blame for the war [or “this adherence leads to the sense that no individual person is wholly to blame,” et cetera]; each character, through his or her own attachment to dharma, pushes the families further down the road to conflict.
Without any context for the clauses, it’s hard for me to know exactly how you would want it phrased, but since I’ve got you here, I’ll give you a quick clinic based on the changes I made. You want your writing to express your thoughts effectively, but economically also, using strong verbs and cutting redundancies like “the reason why” (a reason is, by definition, a “why” — phrases like that bog down your prose). You also want your writing to remain engaging, so try to vary your sentence structure (which is why I rewrote the second sentence to contain a prepositional phrase), and mix up your synonyms a bit (“conflict” for “war”).
Again, I didn’t use you as an example in order to pick on you. I did it to show you that knowing how to manipulate your writing in certain ways will not only improve said writing, but will also allow you far greater latitude for bullshitting when you’ve got twelve hours to brain-dump ten pages on Keats and fuck-all to say. Trust me. The ability to change up an appositive disguises a multitude of incorrect assertions.
Dear Sars,
I’ve just had what I feel is a ridiculous fight with my live-in boyfriend and need to know if I am the one who is at fault.
Months ago, F bought a pair of jeans. A few months later the seams of the pockets fell apart. I suggested that if he had the receipt, the store might take them back. He duct-taped the pockets and continued to wear them. Fast forward three months. It’s a lovely spring day and we decide to take a walk in the city. He brings the jeans to return them. We go into the store, and I try on a pair of jeans that I like. He walks into the dressing room and tells me that they won’t take back the jeans, and he wants to leave immediately. I ask if he likes the jeans I’m wearing. He says no. I ask if it’s because he’s angry. He says yes, and that he may start breaking things if he stays any longer. He tells me to meet him outside.
I pay for my jeans and meet him in front of the store. I know that he won’t be thrilled, but I don’t expect him to start yelling at me in the street. He tells me that I’m selfish, that I don’t have his back, and that he’s so angry that he wants me to get in a cab and go home. I promptly turn around and leave. He calls my cell phone several times. I don’t pick up. He leaves an angry message or three saying that he hopes I’m returning the jeans.
Frustrated and teary, I sit in a park for a while. As I’m leaving the park, I see F. He smiles and tries to hug me. I tell him that I don’t feel like talking. He says he wants to talk and tells me that the store stole from him, they’ve taken what was rightfully his and that I backed the store up. He says that he’s lost and I’ve taken the side of the other team. I tell him that I don’t understand why he’s so angry. After more dickheadery that includes him telling me that the jeans don’t even look good, he says he’s so angry that he can’t talk to me. Maybe he’ll see me in an hour, maybe he’ll see me tomorrow. He turns and walks off.
Am I a selfish person who doesn’t have his back or is he overreacting?
Thanks,
Corporate whore
Dear Corp,
I don’t think “overreacting” begins to cover it. Of course the store didn’t take the jeans back — he duct-taped them! Months ago! And what does he expect you to do about it in the second place — call the company’s headquarters and tell them to revise a perfectly reasonable policy to prevent refund scamming when you don’t even work there? Jesus, what a baby.
It’s not about sides. It’s about F not really grasping how a retail economy works. Tell him so, and don’t even think about apologizing.
Hi, Sars:
I am a bisexual woman who graduated from college last year. During my years at college, I developed a crush on one particular guy, “Brad,” who is also bisexual. He and I always had a flirtatious thing going on, and at a party last year right before I graduated, I ended up in a drunken threesome with Brad and another girl, “Amy.” I just wrote it off as one of those crazy fun things we all do in college and didn’t read anything into it. I kind of fell out of touch with Brad after graduation.
However, my best friend, “Sam,” still talks to Brad. Turns out Brad and Amy ended up dating and having a rather torrid romance. At Sam’s recent birthday party, I saw Brad, and after most everyone had left, Brad and I ended up talking for a while. Brad told me that he and Amy had broken up for a while because they were having problems, but he really liked her and they continued to see each other and have occasional sex.
At that point, Brad made his move on me and obviously wanted me to go home with him. I was still attracted to him, but it had become obvious to me that he still had strong feelings for Amy and I felt weird being her “replacement” for the night. I just gave him my email address and told him to keep in touch.
After Brad left, it was just me and Sam. Sam (who, incidentally, is gay) seemed upset, so I asked him what was up — and he confessed a huge crush on Brad, and it seems that Brad kissed him at another party a few weeks earlier. However, Brad didn’t seem interested in Sam since then. Sam doesn’t know about the threesome or the conversation I had with Brad that evening, and I didn’t bring it up.
I guess my question is this: Should I follow my libido and spend some time with Brad? He’s been in touch and keeps pestering me to have dinner with him, but I don’t know if I want to be alone with him. I have a feeling that this would hurt Sam, even though he says he thinks Brad will probably never be interested in him. Plus there’s the whole Amy thing. I know she and Brad still hook up, and I really like her and don’t want to hurt her either.
Sign me,
Caught in a Love Polygon
Dear Poly,
No. Do not — I repeat, DO NOT — stick your hand in the Brad.
He’s playing everyone right now, it seems like, and that’s fine, but if it’s going to hurt Sam’s feelings and (probably) get you in the doghouse with Amy, why not avoid the drama? Email him back and say, “Look, Brad — we can get together if you want, as friends, but just so we’re clear, it’s not going any farther than that.”
I get the sense from your letter that you think you don’t have any control over what happens here, but you do. If you wind up alone with Brad, just decide not to go there, and don’t go there. It’s really that simple.
Hi, Sars,
Long-time reader, first-time writer to The Vine.
I went on a blind date last night and was actually attracted to the guy (that was a shock — I usually get set up with guys that I have zero interest in on any level). I’m not sure he liked me all that much, because we were there with a mutual friend (who set us up) and she’s pretty talkative, and I found it hard to get a word in edgewise. She’s cool — I’m just saying, is all. Also, we didn’t have a lot of time to talk — the place we were at closed early. On top of that, I’m pretty shy until I get to know someone, which didn’t help things.
Anyway, at the end of the date we didn’t talk about getting together again. I’m not sure whether I should get in touch with him or wait for him to (possibly) make that move. On the one hand, I feel that “nothing ventured, nothing gained” — there’s no good reason why a girl can’t do the asking, and there’s no good reason why we shouldn’t give it another shot. On the other hand, hearing “I’m sorry, but you’re not my type,” no matter how nicely it’s phrased, would be a blow to the ego. I may have decided to “make the move” by the time you read this, but still, what do you think?
Wish I weren’t so shy
Dear Shy,
Without knowing more about exactly what kind of “didn’t talk about getting together again” we’ve got here, I would say yes, go for it. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, as you said yourself…unless your friend left the two of you alone at the end of the evening and he didn’t bring it up, in which case either he’s shy too or he’s really not interested. I can’t say based on the information I’ve got, so, you know, the hell with it. Drop him an email and see if he wants to get a coffee sometime.
[7/31/03]
Tags: boys (and girls) cats grammar retail roommates
