As a recent shut-in, I’ve found myself obsessing on my house. I painted our bedroom a soothing gray. I framed a lot of framable items, and bought a painting from a guy I went to high school with. The painting is lovely and reminds me of the elbow of the artist’s dad, Steve, who was my American Studies (AMSTUD) teacher and was witty and unflappable.

Once all us AMSTUD students were in class waiting for Steve, and he walked right by us, right past the windows where we all sat, waiting for him. He never looked over. He had totally forgotten he had class, and after five more minutes we left and we never brought it up with him. I would like to be like Steve—I could forget something and no one would ever tell me. They would just let it go.

Back to a day in the life of a shut-in. The other component of shut-in house obsession is that it’s very jarring when things are out of order. Like now, with 10 fans and 3 dehumidifiers churning in the basement, which is all trussed up like the house at the end of ET. I have to unzip a plastic barrier to walk into the basement.

Everyone is on edge. I have walked the cat to her litter box no fewer than three times today, because I know she doesn’t remember where the litter box is now that she can’t use the basement. This morning at 5:00 AM I woke to her staring at me. “Litter box,” I thought but was too tired to get up and just hoped she could hold it in until 6:35, when Calvin bolts awake.

Tonight she was waiting at the closed basement door that leads off the kitchen. “Litter box,” I murmured and called to her, leading her there. She follows me around a lot, and I had led her to the box at at lunch and she actually had done her business.

This time she followed me but didn’t go in. I picked her up very respectfully and placed her in the litter box. No dice. We walked back to the kitchen and again she stationed herself at the basement door, where the buzzing and humming and whirring of the fans were the loudest.

“Okay, I’m giving you a chance to go down there,” I said to her, and opened the door. It’s dark down the stairs and everything was loud and hot and dry and moldy and blowing. Nemesis put her face in the crack of the door and got very still as dust billowed around her, this sad and confused cat moping at the hellmouth. Change is hard! She put her face further in and I wondered if she was going to bolt down the stairs, which would suck for everyone.

Then she drew her head back just a little. I slowly closed the door and she sat back on her haunches, resigned to not going down the stairs. I think most of the concept made it through her little cat brain because she started lolling about trolling for belly rubs right near the litterbox. I’m very proud she didn’t go into the hellmouth seeking the past.

Then the rest of us discussed how upsetting it would be if she thought that was where the litter box always was and started peeing and pooping there. I don’t think she’ll do that. She’s an older cat and likes her habits.

Maggie’s helpful new friends

Everything is strange right now, and tonight Maggie had visitors. A nice-looking couple with tattoos, who were very clean–shiny clean–were at Maggie’s door. Who were they? First Calvin and I watched them on the security camera, and then I went out the front door and down the street and up the alley, where I unlocked the back door and got toilet paper.

On the way back in—Maggie nowhere in sight—I talked to them. “Are you guys social workers?” I asked, knowing that social workers don’t work in pairs who are clearly a couple.* The guy said they were just friends of Maggie’s. Now, that’s bullshit, because Maggie has no friends. I am a woman wearing a mask carrying 2 rolls of toilet paper. Do I look like I believe this lunatic has friends? Please.

The not-social-workers proceeded to clean up Maggie’s yard and RAKE part of her dead, failed fairy lawn. We watched them out the window as we ate a really good dinner of duck leg confit, brownish-wildish rice, and summer squash and zucchini sautéed with Swiss chard (this meal REEKS of CSA share), and salad and a nice red wine. When we weren’t watching the clean couple rake dust and pick up trash, we watched Glow. Calvin and I had seen most of it before but we knew the kids would love it and they do.

All the way through dinner Calvin argued with himself about going out there are to raise some hell. He wanted to, to say something like, “Hey, you want to know why I have fans going in the basement? Because your FRIEND flooded the basement!”

I felt that I took my best shot with the social worker question, and I did have a tiny anxiety attack during dinner that Maggie would blast music through the wall tonight, as payback for talking to her “friends,” and I would be forced downstairs to sleep on top of the basement churnpit.

Messing with her is like poking a flatulent rotting dolphin who was too much of a jerk to live with other dolphins and they turned on him and aggressed him with their snouts, and now he just lies there and farts as his smooth gray dolphin skin withers, losing its elasticity. Do you want to stick your finger into rotting water-mammal skin? Only if you can poke fast and beat a hasty exit.

Because Maggie is liable to snatch at your poking finger and pull you down through her hellmouth into chaos and spite and desperation.

*I bet they are from a Mutual Aid group.