I say that I got Boo when he was tiny. I emphasize how Boo was teeny enough to fit in my cupped hands. How he was teeny enough that his oversized satellite dish ears seemed capable of toppling him over if I set him down.
And I explain how I was scared of Boo.
I had grown up in a house that didn't have pets. I had also grown up under the strong influence of a grandmother whose responsibility it was to make her grandchildren fear most things. My grandmother taught us to avoid all animals since biting people is what all animals do.
It took me too many years to realize the collosal discrepancy between the number of people I knew who loved animals and the number of people I knew who had ever actually been bitten. It took a few more years to break the habit of automatically crossing the street everytime I saw a dog.
It didn't take me quite as long to figure out Boo. As soon as I brought him home and his little Boo head made contact with my lap, harboring a fear of animals just seemed an absurd proposition. Like most of my friends' pets, Boo was just this little being who loved to play and cuddle and follow me around wherever I went.
Now, I'm not sure what the real reason is that pets follow us around. But in Boo's case, I chalked it up to fascination. I assumed that Boo was just completely involved in understanding every little detail of my day-to-day. I assumed Boo just lived for watching me pee and sleep and wash my face and clean dishes. I assumed that being alone by day rendered my at-home actions just ridiculously enthralling to the Boo-ster.
Anyway, that was Boo's life.
Boo's life didn't have chapters. Boo's life didn't have phases. Boo didn't have that thing where everybody else remembered every detail of the times he was trying to forget.
Nobody referred to Boo's wild years or that period when Boo wasn't making good decisions.
Nobody laughed about that weird person Boo dated or those three years Boo spent eating organic foods and going to alternative musical theater with somebody that nobody else liked.
Nobody analyzed whether Boo's choice of major had been the best or whether Boo's career choice emphasized money and power over doing something meaningful. Nobody suggested Boo go back to graduate school or take up more hobbies or think about having children.
It was just understood that Boo's life was simple. It was what it was.
Everyone knew that Boo began really small and then got bigger but still loved to cuddle. Everyone knew that Boo loved to fetch and to eat potato chips. Everyone knew Boo was a master of hide and seek, particularly if it involved a shower curtain. Everyone knew that Boo's beautiful emerald eyes were natural, not cat contacts.
For a guy with nine lives, Boo just had one. And everyone knew the same simple Boo life.
But now Boo is complicated. Now Boo's life has a phase.
It was Jeff who formally and officially recognized it, although I had suspected it.
It was Jeff who said "Wow. Boo's so happy here! Boo was depressed in Virginia."
As weird as it sounded, I knew Jeff was right. Especially since Jeff originally met Boo in Virginia. Jeff never knew the tiny Boo with big ears who lived in Bethesda. Jeff only knew the Virginia Boo who wanted to cuddle on Jeff's lap when he visited and then sleep near Jeff's feet while Jeff and I talked and reviewed papers and worked on work-related things that a cat doesn't care about.
And so Jeff was shocked when he visited Boo in Boo's new DC digs and found a completely different black cat. In DC, Boo runs and jumps and chases imaginary things all day long. In DC, Boo apparently thinks he's still two years old.
As the designated sleeper in the new DC digs, I would just like to say that it would be fine with me if the running and jumping and chasing could start a little later in the morning.
But I'm happy for Boo. And watching Boo bounce around now is just great. It's like the Boo from "Boo: The Early Years"....which, by the way, is the name of Boo's newest CD release. Boo's first CD, "Just Another Boo" sold so well in Europe that he wanted to put out a special collection for his most serious fans.
Anyway, at the ripe old age of five (and really close to six), Boo now has phases and a past.
There was Boo the kitten. Then Boo in Reston. Then Boo in Vienna, and now Boo in DC.
And Boo loves DC.
As for me, I shared Boo's Bethesda years, the Reston years, and the Vienna year. But those are only three of the chapters of a total three thousand chapters in my life. I've had more phases and periods and chapters than the bible has verses.
My DC years are yet to be written, although I suspect that they'll match or possibly even exceed Boo's in terms of being great.
And now, heading into the DC years of greatness, I'm thinking how cool it would be if our various phases and periods and chapters could be dropped from our life story. Kind of like how points and convictions get dropped off of your driving record after a few years.
Just think. You could mess up a job or a marriage or a hairstyle or a Thanksgiving dinner and nobody would have reference to it after three years.
Two years in some states.
So a few years from now, Boo's NOVA depression would disappear from his record. In just a few years, Boo would just be the happy, playful, cuddly cat his previously simple life story represented. In just a few years, Boo would once again be a phase-less feline.
Boo would go back to just having one simple life story. No chapters.
If only.
If only our phases and periods and chapters could be dropped from our life story.
In just a few years, I'd once again be a regular babe...just living and working and running in DC. Just burning pizza, missing birthdays and forgetting to move the wet clothes from the washer to the dryer. Nobody would remember the "blah, blah, blah and now I'm moving back to DC" phase.
In just a few years, my buddy Dave would once again be a regular guy who goes to work and flies some planes and teaches his kids not to whine. Nobody would remember the 'going through a divorce is really sucky' phase.
In just a few years, Christina would once again be a regular babe who goes to work and runs marathons and does too much for other people. Nobody would remember the 'getting back into the work routine' phase.
In just a few years, we'd be calling Rhea for her latest attack on American politics, not for an update on how she's dealing with her mom's situation. We'd be asking Stuart once again about his golf game and not whether his practice is living up to his expectations.
In just a few years, we'll all have moved on.
We'll all be past the struggles we think will last forever when those struggles are in our face.
In just a few years, we'll no longer fear that the way we are now is the way people will forever think of us.
Then again, in just a few years, we'll be in other phases. Maybe we'll be in phases that make this phase enviable. Or phases that make this phase a blur.
Maybe the cycle of phases just repeats itself.
My friend Rob calls my foray into Virginia the "Siberia" years.
For years, I told Rob he was unsupportive of my pursuits. For years, I lamented Rob's refusal to venture beyond the Potomac to see his friend in the southern sister state. For years I said that Siberia was a stupid and unfunny joke.
But it occurs to me now that getting the Siberia phase of my life dropped from my record would be more stupid.
Because logic dictates that there will be more Siberias ahead.
It's nice to fantasize that there will be no more divorces, no more family illnesses, no more transitions in and out of relationships and jobs and offices. No more upheavals. No more disruptions to the simple living of life.
But apparently, there's always another Siberia ahead.
So maybe life is just a random pattern of various Siberias with periods of stillness and simple living in-between.
And if that's the case, then perhaps it's the periods of stillness we should get dropped from our life stories.
Because if I'm gonna keep ending up in Siberias, I'd rather just embrace it and face it and forge ahead.
I just hope the various Siberias ahead involve really great spaces for Boo to play.