I have owned one cat, Daisy, for most of her life. She came to me a perfect being, small, fluffy, and prone to using the restroom for #2 outside of her litter box. Though I love her to pieces and would metaphorically die for her if asked, I have never felt the desire to be her, mostly because her life seems sort of boring, and also, I don’t want to clean my own asshole with my mouth. However, to become a “cat” like in the trailer for Cats—humanoid, with hands, with breasts, with fur—seemed like a way to get in touch with the felinity that lives within. My original intention with this idea was to take it to its limit. I would dress as a cat from Cats and get on the subway dressed as a cat. I would sit at work and edit blogs in the same outfit. I would go to the deli to get a chicken cutlet sandwich and eat it in my unitard, making sure not to get crumbs on my fur. However, when I saw the unitard, the wig, the ears, and the leg warmers, my spirit crumbled. My capacity for embarrassment is high, but I could not stomach the idea of riding the subway in a unitard that clearly highlighted the contours of my own kitty. I did not want to walk through the mascots of Times Square dressed as a dollar-store Grizabella. I had no desire to explain to any of my coworkers why I was wearing a stole made of fake fur, though I am sure they would understand. The idea to live like a cat, whatever that means, for one week, was scrapped. It is now slightly mortifying to realize that the cat I transformed into is a poor facsimile of Daisy, a black-and-white fluffybottom with an unfortunate FUPA. After revisiting the CATS trailer, I am horrified to admit that I bear more than a passing resemblance to the James Corden cat in CATS. Once ensconced in the unitard, covered in makeup and a thin sheen of my own sweat, I felt not particularly feline, but definitely embarrassed. This embarrassment precluded me from leaving the studio dressed in this fashion, though the unitard was remarkably slimming. Shame is underrated in 2019, but I still got it. Perhaps the journey was really just about the transformation.
