Achilles and I have/had been together since the winter of 1992. He was a puff of gray fur with a drippy nose, and the loudest purr/meow combo ever. He came to me as an unexpected gift from my then-boyfriend. He had two bandaged front feet--destined to be called Achilles. I was a Freshman in college destined to be a cat parent in need of a catnup. Teenage pet ownership is like teenage pregnancy. Sort of.

I was hiding Achilles in my dorm until an unfortunate, ill-timed false fire alarm went off at 4 am. I was in the computer lab in the basement of McGee Hall writing a paper for an asinine assignment to describe My Favorite Space. Achilles was asleep in my closet four stories up. My attempts to sneak upstairs failed, so I was shivering outside cringing, “We’re busted... And I’m never going to finish this stupid paper.”

When I made my way back to my room, the Fourth Floor Resident Assistant, Angie, blocked the entrance with her smirk. Achilles’ litter box was wedged in the doorway keeping him in while the door was open. I was indeed busted. And The Hypotenuse was the first of many late papers. Achilles and I lived apart for two years until I got my own studio apartment in the Robert Browning. He moved with me nine times from 1994 to 2006.

In 2006, we moved in with a Swedish reike practitioner/actor/improv teacher/event promoter, who I met through a friend. Kidding. I met her on Craigslist, clearly. We lived together on the noisiest street in “Williamsburg” for nine months. M had never had a cat. Achilles had never met a Swede. They hit it off.

M would practice reike on her friends and Achilles would wiggle into her room to be near it. She started giving him reike--which is about the only thing he would sit still for. She diagnosed his heart condition before my vet did. About six months into our tenure living together, I was offered Manna--also known as a rent stabilized one-bedroom apartment on the quietest street in all the land. The apartment was on a street so special and pretty and quiet that no NYC-paper, when referencing it, can resist using the word nestled.

The catches for this perfect apartment? No pets, shitty kitchen.

I agonized for months (I had months to agonize because my friend, M2, who was offering the rent-stabilized apartment had months before she closed on the sale of her new apartment and I had to convince her landlords I was worthy). My dilemma was this: I had a very old cat with a bad heart--his eyes had been fully dilated for two years. He had (and still has) cardiomyopathy.
And I have a long history of near misses and weird coincidences.

I imagined myself in the future telling the story of the time I didn’t take the rent stabilized apartment because the landlords didn’t take pets and then wouldn’t you know it? My cat died the next day.

For people who don’t live in New York, rent stabilized apartments come around, like, never. And I still feel pretty bad about my Disney-land dad status with my geriatric cat. That said: Achiles is 25% of the inspiration for catnup.

M and Achilles have lived together for the past 18 months. I visit often and stay with him while M is in Sweden or filming a movie in Connecticut about a closeted gay poet and the woman who pines for him (played by M).

Achilles likes it there. I like it here. But I miss him. And I want a dishwasher.

Tags: no pet apartments , nyc-living, rent stabilized apartments