Waiting for My Cats to Die: A Morbid Memoir Book + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

Waiting for My Cats to Die: A Morbid Memoir Book

She'd cringe at the comparison, but Stacy Horn is a real-life Bridget Jones. Except, of course, that Stacy's situation is worse: she's fortysomething, not thirtysomething, and already lives with two cats. What's even worse is that her cats--who aren't related, by the way--are both diabetic. She's having a midlife crisis, watches too much TV ("Look, I'm not saying it's ideal, but I would call watching TV a life"), and is obsessed with death: I keep coming back to death the same way I can't stop touching a sore tooth with my tongue to see if it still hurts. Death. Still terrifying? Yes. How about now? Yes. And now? Yes. She spends her days drumming with a samba group, pulling weeds in graveyards, praying to dead relatives, caring for her diabetic cats, crafting detailed fantasies, and running EchoNYC, the online community that she created. Why on earth would anyone want to read about that? Because it's funny; sometimes, even laugh-out-loud-then-feel-sheepish-because-you're-on-the-bus funny. Stacy's shocked realization that she is in the unconscious habit of shouting out her cats' nicknames while she walks down the street ("Munches!" "Boo!" "Belly!") is worth the price of the book alone: So it hit me: I am one of those crazy people who talks to herself on the street, one of the ones who makes you wonder where she came from and how she got to this sorry state. Great. How did I get to this sorry state, yelling to cats who are not there? Waiting for My Cats to Die also can be heartbreaking, however, as in some of the brief interviews that she conducts with elderly people, or when she reveals her fears that she'll spend the rest of her life alone, or when one of her cats does indeed die. In the end, however, Stacy is hopeful, past her midlife crisis, and resolved that, in the absence of "one true love," she will "fall in love with everyone and everything a little." Tama Janowitz describes reading the book as being "like getting to hang out with a wonderful friend." We should all be so lucky to have friends as genuine, and funny, as Stacy Horn. --Sunny DelaneyRead More

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  • Product Description

    You've passed forty. You're single, deeply addicted to watching television, and obsessed by the past. Your business seems to be failing. You're hopelessly devoted to two diabetic cats, whose dietary and medical regimens dictate your schedule. Not only are you informed your apartment is haunted, you're actually starting to believe it may be true. This is a life?

    Waiting for My Cats to Die is Stacy Horn's heartbreakingly honest and achingly funny reply to her own question. Here is a memoir that goes straight to the indignities and preoccupations of midlife: what happens the moment we realize that life has a distinctly downward pull to it, and that death is more than simply some theoretical possibility.

    Stacy decides dying is not something she's going to take lying down. Having polled subscribers on echonyc.com, the online service she founded, for advice, she concludes that the best strategy in the battle against aging is a frontal assault. We're all going to end up in graveyards? Fine. Let's make them as homey and welcoming as we can. She clears away underbrush from abandoned cemeteries, wipes cobwebs from forgotten crypts, looks for gems amid the clutter of storage rooms and basements, tracks down precious records of long-dead relatives, interviews the elderly for the wisdom of their age, and pores over local archives, seeking the identity of her ghostly roommate (and hoping to learn why it seems to have nothing better to do than hang around a small one-bedroom apartment in the West Village of Manhattan).

    As this wonderful, courageous, and irresistible memoir shows, acting out can be both survival strategy and affirmation. There's no avoiding the day when the credits will roll on your life, so accumulate as many credits as you can (that way, they'll take longer to unroll). Stacy seizes her days with fierce passion: she learns to drum, sings with a choir, writes treatments for TV shows, somehow manages to keep her business on an even keel, and freely embraces all the fantasies and denials that sustain every one of us. And those poor afflicted cats? Their furry, stubborn will to live provides reason enough to celebrate. Waiting for My Cats to Die will make you weep, laugh, commiserate, and fall back in love with life.

  • 0312266928
  • 9780312266929
  • Stacy Horn
  • 1 February 2001
  • St. Martin's Press
  • Hardcover (Book)
  • 288
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