This procrastination-aid is named Neko.
Yesterday I tried to explain that my one week break from entertaining you was due to some poppycock about finishing a rewrite of a new play. This was a pathetic lie. In fact, the reason I spent seven days not typing for you is pictured above. The problem is A Cat, and it is a doozy.
I mention it not as part of some bald-faced traffic-grab. As far as I'm aware, photos of cats are among the least popular things on the Internet. I share this with you because a bit of historical research has shown me that my problem—a cat on the thing I'm working on—is not something I have to face alone. In fact, it's been happening for hundreds of years. From The Atlantic Wire:
Image ripped off from the Atlantic Wire, taken by Emir O. Filipovich.
Now, via medievalist Emir O. Filipovic, evidence that cats have been up to this same mischief for six centuries: inky pawprints, gracing a page of the 13th volume of "Lettere e commissioni di Levante," which collated copies of letters and instructions that the Dubrovnik/Ragusan government sent to its merchants and envoys throughout southeastern Europe (Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia etc.), according to Filipovic -- sort of a 15th-century Federal Register. The particular document that the cat got its paws on dates to March 11th, 1445.
Not only is this adorable, it is reassuring. My cat isn't the only nuisance—my work isn't the only work being interrupted. My lie about finishing a play can die here. Obviously, it would have been impossible for me to work on the play anyway. When the cat isn't on the computer, she's here:
Dog is man's best friend. Cat is writer's worst enemy.