this week's fixations #15
cat attacks, fall feels, and the art of oversharing
EATING AT MY MIND THIS WEEK ...
CAT SCRATCH FEVER
imagine this: you drink half a bong water to unwind for the evening while your husband is away playing soccer. you do yoga, spend some time journaling outside on your deck, maybe shed a few tears while writing a very honest and sentimental letter you’ll never send.
after a while, you go inside to get dinner for yourself and the cat, who is perched on the back of the couch, looking out the window, as usual. when she hears you open the door, she hops down to greet you, but the string to the blinds tangles around her hind leg, catching her when she jumps, and dangling her upside down half a foot above the ground. she screams a horrible sound, and the bong water is now in full effect, and because she is screaming and writhing around in the air, you worry the string is wrapped around her neck. panicked, you run to help.
everything else is a blur. teeth deep in your ankle. claws attached like velcro to your skin. as you manage to detach one paw from you, her teeth and second paw move to your forearm and dig in deeper. she’s still screaming, growling, and a long thirty seconds have passed and you think you might never be able to get her off of you, but somehow, you do, and somehow, the string untangles itself from her paw and your cat sprints downstairs while your ankle streams blood that pools into the bottom of your adidas slides.
it hurts like hell to get up the stairs, but you do it. you can’t stop shaking. you call your husband but he doesn’t answer because he's playing soccer, and you know the game won’t be over for another twenty minutes. you text him, just in case he happens to have a chance to glance at his phone.
i just got clawed so bad by kitty
bleeding a lot
i think i’m okay but i need you to come home
you’re worried the cat’s foot is hurt or broken, but there’s nothing you can do about it right now.
it hurts to stand, so you do your best to remove the shower head and bring it down to you. the water runs red as you wash your ankle, your arm. a clump of skin falls off your foot and rinses down the drain. you think you need to go downstairs to get gauze, a band-aid—something—but as soon as you stand up, the edges of your vision start to blur. you sit down quickly. try calling your husband again. send another text.
i’m lightheaded so if you call and i don’t answer i might have passed out just come home when you can please
you’re still shaking and your fingers are moving slowly across the keyboard and the blur around your vision is still creeping in, so you’re relieved when you manage to hit send. you lay down on the bathroom floor, rest your head on the pile of dirty laundry by the wall.
you wonder if you’re bleeding out but you’re not bleeding that bad, you wonder if the cat hit an artery but again you’re not bleeding that bad, but there’s a lot of pain your ankle your forearm your middle finger, where a long scratch runs its length.
you think of your husband picking up his phone. one more unanswered call. one more text.
sorry i’m probably overreacting because i drank that bong water so don’t freak out i just need you here lol
you don’t actually think you’re overreacting, but who knows?
you google “how serious are cat bites” which is a bad idea for this moment in time, when you are alone and in pain and anxious and just need to wait twenty more minutes. you try watching a chappell roan interview, but it doesn’t work to distract you. you try listening to her music, then some country music, but that doesn’t work either. instead, you lay there and think about how you are alone and maybe dying and you don’t know how the cat is doing and you cry. it is all very pathetic!
eventually, your husband does call back, and your voice breaks when you explain what happened, but you’re relieved to know he’s on his way home. you manage to hobble your way down the stairs as he’s arriving, and he helps clean you up and checks on the cat (she’s completely fine) and wraps up your arm and your ankle with gauze.
this is why i got married! you think. thank god for christian.
~*~end scene~*~
i hope you enjoyed this dramatic re-telling of last wednesday!
after a trip to urgent care the next morning, a trip to the emergency room, a follow up at urgent care a few days later, a ten-day antibiotics prescription, and staying mostly off my feet for a few days (i was barely able to walk), i’m doing a lot better.
i’ll spare you the disturbing photos of my ankle, which turned an angry red and swelled up to about twice its size in less than 24 hours. cat bites are no joke. everything got infected! my doctor was concerned!
but i’m good, and aura is, too. we made up. lesson learned … if anything like this ever happens again, i’ll go to the other side of the couch and cut the string with a pair of scissors.
ANTICIPATING AUTUMN
i know it’s still summer and there are more hot days ahead, but i feel myself shifting into a fall mindset a little early this year. i’m not quite ready to order one of the fall drinks from starbucks or bring my halloween mugs out of storage … but i’m happy to watch videos from youtubers who are LOL.
i’m also starting to think about some things i want to read/watch/do this fall, and i’m feeling excited to start wearing sweatshirts again.
here are a few books i’m looking forward to reading in the next couple months:
slewfoot - a historical horror novel following a young puritan woman who forms an alliance with a mysterious supernatural entity in 1666
jonathan strange & mr. norrell - a fantasy novel detailing the revival of english magic through the rivalry and partnership of two different magicians in the 19th century (piranesi by the same author was one of my favorite reads of 2022)
uzumaki - a horror manga about a town cursed by spirals, where inhabitants become obsessed and transformed by spiral patterns … very on-brand for devourings tbh
and a few new release movies i’m looking forward to watching:
beetlejuice beetlejuice - i mean a sequel to a classic is always a little nerve-wracking because they can (and usually do) kind of suck, but very glad winona ryder, michael keaton, and catherine o’hara are all returning
speak no evil - this looks good but the main reason i want to watch it is because it stars mackenzie davis and scoot mcnairy, who also starred in halt and catch fire, a show christian and i watched earlier this year and loved
heretic - an a24 horror film about two young missionary girls who enter the house of a man they hope to convert, and he traps them inside his home
aaaaand a few recipes i’ve saved to try:
mini pumpkin sheet cake with brown butter frosting - i made the strawberry version of this mini cake earlier this year and it’s probably one of my favorite things i’ve ever baked
creamy red pepper pasta with burrata and herbs - this looks like the best comfort meal
feel better chicken soup - honestly just so hard to beat a solid chicken soup recipe once it gets colder out
anyway i know a lot of people aren’t quite ready to give up summer yet (check out my gold standard summer media guide if that’s you!), and i’m trying not to get too ahead of myself here … but ugh i can’t wait to sit outside in sweatpants and an oversized sweatshirt and drink my coffee in the morning.
WHO CARES WHO CARES WHO CARES
my current mantra!
i have a complicated relationship with sharing things online. when i was younger, i loved posting snapshots of my life, my thoughts, my projects. i was less self-conscious … i felt more like i had the right to share.
then, around twenty, i started re-evaluating a lot of things. my religious beliefs, my political beliefs, the sort of life i wanted to live … and because i come from a background where these things have very high stakes, and i was going against the norm, i mostly just wanted to hide. i'm not the type who likes to argue or disagree or justify my actions, so i scaled back how much i was sharing online. if i posted, it was generally pretty surface level. nothing i feared would stir the pot. this was a big change from my high school days—i used to write a blog and share it freely.
now, i have this push/pull with sharing. either i want to be seen, or i don't. i want people to have opinions of me (preferably good ones), or i don't. to be frank, i'm jealous of people who seem comfortable putting themselves out there. i want to share my thoughts, but i don't like feeling motivated (or de-motivated) by others' reactions.
social media can feel performative. it doesn’t have to be that way, and i follow some people who have an admirable skill of truly coming across as genuine online. the problem is that even authenticity feels performative these days—it’s what people want from other people, so we stage it. i take a bite of my donut before i take a picture of it, then cover it with a filter that looks as little like a filter as possible. “real life.”
anyway. i don’t know. enough time has passed that i feel less afraid about being honest online. there's not much left to lose, and i feel the urge to share more again. but i'm struggling a little with this newsletter. no one is prompting me—i'm just writing whatever is on my mind, which is literally the whole premise of devourings. yet i can't help but wonder … who cares?
hopefully you do!
(don't worry, not planning on going anywhere. just needed to get this off my chest.)
cheers to the weekend!
