Atu once laughed at me and accused me of having this parasocial relationship with Taylor Swift.
I was thinking about it this morning and realised that yes, she’s right, no arguments, but this is very me coded. Because when I thought about it, I already had one with almost everything else I like. My obsession with pop culture elements I am fond of should already have indicated this. Potterverse, Whoniverse, Guide-verse... I am always that obsessed fanatic. Even with food although that's perhaps a topic for another day.
Also cats. Which was why I’d started thinking about this. I was just watching my cat bathe herself and said: Nix is such a nice wonderful person. And my family is just as bad. Feli was like: she can even travel and shift homes. Then Lee chimed in with: yes, she's shifted homes thrice, yet she knows where to go home to, she's so wise and capable of change. And Nix was just sitting there, bathing herself.
Which reminded me of the other night, again Nix was just sleeping and most of my family was just looking at her and going: Nix is super bitchy, she doesn't tolerate others, she doesn't make friends. And it's just the funniest thing because literally all the cat was doing was sleeping.
Meanwhile, the humans around her are just creating this whole delulu life where she is sometimes wise beyond her cat-abilities, yet sometimes she is dumb as a rock, sometimes she is kind and gentle and sweet, sometimes she is mean and jugdmental... and all the cat does is live her life!!! She sleeps, eats her body weight in food, bathes, demands random un-understandable shit in cat language and sleeps. We've created this entire world we share with her and the cat is just... a cat! This realisation has got me laughing.
The fact that I have a parasocial cultic relationship with Taylor should therefore not be surprising because I do that shit even with my cat, fecking.
Atu has always said the both of us are easy prey for cults. She’d say: I don’t know why one of them hasn't recruited us yet since we are easy pickins. She’s right, too. We’d be easy to recruit. Even in Christian denominations, my sisters and I have always said that we'd have made such great Catholics – all those rites and rituals and burning candles, we'd have been so into that whole thing. It’s just a pity we weren’t born into one. In fact, us sisters and Atu included could have been open to some witchcraft religion too, had the opportunity presented itself to us. I don't think we'd be in those satanic deity cults because you know, born into Presbyterian/Baptist church and all that. To say the least, we’d be too self-conscious. But ya, witchcraft like mix the herbs, make moonwater, light the incense sticks, dance in the moonlight, read tarot cards, observe summer solstice... whoo, I'd be into that!
As it is, even when I only attend Sunday Schools while close to everyone else in Mizoram seems to attend church at least 4x a week, I am truly concerned about attending certain services with extra rituals in it such as Maundy Thursday Communion, Christmas and Good Friday/Easter services, Year-End service with Commemoration for the dead… I hardly ever miss those.
Also with Nix, she is very close to us, her humans. But she’s also fiercely independent. And she hates water so I’ve bathed her exactly once in her life; she was so angry none of us have ever dared to again. Unlike our other cats who take water baths about once a fortnight. Nix has also been put in a box three times in her life to change homes. All three times, Eli was the one who put her there and carried her. So she associates boxes and being trapped with Eli; she never lets Eli touch her. And we think this is why she bullies Eli’s dog, the honorary cat Snowy. See how easy I venture into my world of delulu world-building where Nix is almost human, the way we talk about her.
Like I said, Cat-holic.
Nice👏
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