Workshopping a new #StupidCatSong based on 'Wicked', the award-winning musical about my cat #Grahamstodon…
Something has changed within me
Something is not the same
I'm through with playing by
the rules of someone else's game
Too late for second breakfast
Too late for a dawn-feed leap
It's time to trust my instincts
Close my eyes and sleep
I think I'll try defying Grahamity
No food's nearby; I'm defying Grahamity
And he can't bring me down…
I told myself that today I would sit down at my desk and do some proper work to make up for not having done any work on Friday or Saturday
Instead I loafed about on the couch reading a trashy Cold War spy novel, wasting time on social media and trying to groom matted bits out of #Grahamstodon’s fur as he scratched and bit my hands in fury
every so often I’d get off the couch to potter into the kitchen and make myself a little snack, like crackers with cheese and dip and sliced tomatoes, or Greek yoghurt with Milo stirred through
I'm obsessed with the cats who live in and around my apartment complex and whom I only glimpse
Moonlight (black with dash of white on chest) lives across the hall from me and loves to strut about outside. Is the neighbourhood darling, often patted & photographed by studenty types on the street. Has Cat Business at a house on the other side of the street that involves staring intensely into some weeds. I occasionally let her into the building and knock on her door for her. She's going to give her owners a lot of grief when the cat curfew comes in soon
Other local cats I'm obsessed with include:
– Medium-haired young tuxedo (was a kitten but must now be fully grown) who used to sit in their bathroom windowsill which is visible from my balcony, and at whom I used to slow-blink and chirrup ingratiatingly, and once held #Grahamstodon up to look at, but neither of them gave a fuck. Haven't seen this guy in a while
– Lovely long-haired blue-grey cat in the next balcony over from mine, whose doting owner (whom I have seen cuddling this cat on the balcony) has devoted the whole balcony to a multi-storey cat enclosure. It looks like they keep the balcony door open 24/7 for access, and I've puzzled about how this works in winter
– Long slender white-and-orange cat who often sits in a window of the next building, opposite my bedroom. I used to wonder if this cat was real or decor, and once I cheered loudly, "YOU'RE REAL!" when I saw them actually move, which made them look at me
– Bonded pair two buildings down: a tiny friendly tortoiseshell with no eyes whose wary tabby pal keeps a lookout for her. I have spotted them in the front yard; if you say hello to the tortie to say you are there, she will accept chin-scratches
– Fluffy dilute (apricot-toned) ginger who lives at the house across the road where Moonlight has Cat Business. I have never seen this cat out the front, but when I've walked down the back laneway I've seen them perching on their back fence and have had chirruping convos with them
– Young-looking thin grey cat I just saw in our back garden while I was watering my plants just now. I chirruped at them and they looked up warily but padded cautiously away. I wonder if this cat lives with one of my neighbours or was just visiting
There are definitely more cats tucked away nearby – I think I've seen a tabby in the window of the next apartment over from Long Peaches and Cream
I wish I could be friends with them all, and that they could be friends with Graham, although the other day I brought Graham out onto the landing to say hi to Moonlight, who didn't give a shit, and Graham was more excited about being allowed outside my house out of his carrier
Thank god nobody ever sees my Mastodon posts because this is the most cat-crazed I have ever allowed myself to be on main
I’ve had a temperature tracking device in my living room for three years, since 2 August 2022, when I first participated in the ‘Winter Renters’ citizen science research project run by the lobby group Australian Renters to demonstrate the conditions renters experience in their homes
The lowest temperature my tracker has recorded is 13.5C, on 3 July 2024
It got down to 13.8C on 7 July 2024
14.1C on 1 August 2024
14.4C on 22 June 2025
14.6C on 24 July 2025
14.9C at 8am today
To me these are still pretty comfortable conditions – what I call ‘jumper weather’ – though I can tell they bother my elderly arthritic cat #Grahamstodon, who will pester me to be cuddled at my desk
Though my muscles do get quite stiff after hours working in my unheated study, it’s a far cry from previous rentals where my hands would ache from the cold and I would have to wear fingerless gloves at my desk to type properly
I seem to recall that my previous two houses could get down to 12C, although I don’t have any hard data because I used to just use a thermometer
I still have that thermometer set up in my hallway: it’s pretty accurate to the living-room tracker even though I keep my toilet and bathroom windows open a couple of inches year-round, for airflow
Oh my god, feeling like I'm falling apart today
I wasted yesterday hanging out with my friend Karen and viewing wattle as it is #WattleSeason
then I had to work into the night to make up for the lost time. Went to bed at like 3:30am
#Grahamstodon lay on me while I was in bed and I somehow wrenched my shoulder in my sleep
now when I try to use my computer mouse, my little finger tingles. That can't be good
Trying to get by on a leftover apple scroll from yesterday, and a mug of strong Irish tea – my friend Em recently gave me a pack of Barry's that she had bought ages ago (on my recommendation) to please an Irish ex who turned out to be careless with my friend's tender heart
but I have to stop work soon anyway, as today is my friend Jess's funeral
Jess was immensely witty and charismatic, but she was chronically ill and suffered all her life. She was only just coming into her powers as a writer
Going back over her Instagram posts in bed at 3:30am, I was reminded how hard she fought for life and how fiercely she strove not to be defined by her physical frailty, to the point where I sincerely believed she could survive every health crisis and was genuinely shocked when she died suddenly
she had a post where she spoke about wanting to write another book, but being afraid that her health would not hold out. It is so bitter to know, months later, that it didn't, and that Jess must have been troubled by many more such thoughts that she never let slip in public like that
my whingeing about my own body shames me by comparison, just as I feel ashamed posting about my stupid cat's mania for food as the population of #Gaza is murdered with horrible slowness by lsraeI's deliberate starvation
how can we honour the dead and keep our own hearts from giving out in such times?
So I took #Grahamstodon to the vet because “he was miaowing really loudly and he hid under my bed which he only does when he’s very stressed”
and she prescribed gabapentin, which he has previously had as a pre-vet sedative, at a lower dose as pain relief for his arthritic hips
Me, artlessly, to the vet, “So I was reading the health insurance CEO killer’s manifesto today, and he says his mum was taking gabapentin for her chronic pain”
She nods, “yes, it’s a human drug too”
So far the gaba seems to be manifesting mainly in a renewed zest for batting at my indoor plants. He’s got the big stoned pupils
my dreams of Grahambapentin allowing me to groom the mats out of his fur appear not to be fulfilled at this low dose
He’s on half a capsule but the vet said that as he is a Lorge cat he could potentially have a whole capsule without too much sedative effect
I’ve tried various therapies for this animal’s arthritis if you ever want any advice about Synovan, Solensia, Metacam or Epiitalis Forte
Every time I see one of my friends post a tribute to their pet who has just died, I think about the day, sooner than I expect, when I will have to tell social media that #Grahamstodon is no more
To them, it will be a little moment of sadness because the pet they’ve seen me post about is dead
But to me it will be a huge loss because I don’t have much else in my life
It is silly to mourn him while he is still alive… so far
Just put way too much thought into a throwaway joke about how #Grahamstodon is a purebred Australian Fool, and his pedigree name is Meridionali Stultus Griseoviculus
I wanted to blend the tropes of cat pedigree names (breeder name/cat name) and Roman nomenclature (praenomen, nomen, cognomen)
I don’t know why I picked #Latin as the lingua felem nomen
So my cattery is branded as Meridionali Stultus – which sounds like a plausible name for a breeder of Australian Fools – but also Graham is a member of the gens Stultii and his praenomen is Meridionali
although in Latin maybe Meridianus would be a better praenomen
Anyway, one possible etymology of the name Graham is ‘grey hamlet’, so I have made an equivalent cod-Latin mashup as his cognomen
Sometimes I pronounce Graham’s name “Geraham” because he is such a soft g
Mel Campbell