the artist formerly known as buttercup

Notice anything about this picture? Like maybe a pair of wide kitty eyes staring at you?

This is our cat, Gilly. She was originally named Buttercup, but we re-christened her Gilly when we realized that Buttercup didn't sound nearly mischievous enough.

Gilly is one of those multifaceted cats. She demands more from life than napping and birdwatching; I mean, she's as subject to biological impulses as any feline, but she wants to REALLY LIVE, you know? And for Gilly, REALLY LIVING means a fondness for Q-tips, an insatiable drive to sit on anything that should not ever ever be sat on, and, because she is a girl, makeup.

Gilly loves makeup.

Every morning when I go through my daily ritual of making myself not look like a swamp monster, Gilly accompanies me. She perches on the edge of the bathtub, and keeps careful watch over my makeup brushes.

She's conflicted, I think; she can't decide if she'd like me to teach her how to pluck her eyebrows or apply liquid eyeliner, or if she just wants to KNOCK ALL THE BRUSHES OVER AND CHASE THEM.

I get a touch annoyed when Gilly's little paw swats my mascara brush out of my hand making my face look like an abstract painting, but she's just a cat, man. And while I may not know what it's like to want to KNOCK ALL THE BRUSHES OVER AND CHASE THEM, I am certainly no stranger to the complex interplay between driving impulse and higher level cognition.

Which is what I'm guessing is going on in Gilly's kitty brain. And right now, as I stare at the economy sized bag of candy Paul hid from me and which I have found, attempting to quell an overwhelming urge to EAT EAT EAT, I feel this bond between us.

A bond made of suppressed urges, of nature fighting against lofty dreams.

Or something like that.