Attempting Normal (29 page)

After she left me I let Boomer back in at night because he understood my pain and carried me a bit. He was solid. Once too many things became marked with pee he was out again.

Jessica, who lives with me now, built a sweet relationship with Boomer. She would go out on the deck to smoke every day and hang out with him. When we broke up for a while she actually came back to the house when I wasn’t there to spend time with Boomer. It was a little inappropriate but I get it now. I’m not sure whom she liked more, actually. He was just a deep cat. Now that he’s gone she can’t go out on the deck anymore. It’s too sad for her.

Boomer and I went through a lot of shit together. Emotional upheavals, breakups, long periods of time apart, other cats coming and going, women coming and going, but he was always there, out on the deck, with his raspy voice and telling eyes.

I don’t want this to be a downer. I want to dedicate this book to Boomer and to personal growth, to evolving.

Why he vanished just as my life was changing drastically demands interpretation. I am not religious or spiritual, but I am prone to connecting dots in equations so that they defy coincidence.
Someone suggested that maybe this was the end of our journey together, that he had taken me as far as he could and that it was time for him to move on. I like that angle.

Throughout the shoot, beneath acting and showing up and whatever else the job entailed, was a profound sadness but an even more profound hope. When someone or something you love disappears or moves on, it feels negotiable. Maybe we’ll get back together, maybe they’ll come back, maybe they are in a better place for them and I have to accept that there are things out of my control. These are all difficult emotional options, especially the last one. If you are alive and awake, sadness is a fluctuating constant. Hope is fleeting, a decision you make out of faith, desire, or desperation. Cats know more than we can understand. I don’t care about biology and brain size.

I don’t think about what could’ve happened to him too much. The best-case scenario is that he wandered off and found some nice old lady with some sweet wet food and a warm house with no other cats in it to compete with him and he’s living the life. Isn’t that what we all want?

If I find that lady, I will thank her and take my cat back, even if he is happier there. I guess I’m selfish.

Thank you Jessica Sanchez for matching my crazy and loving me. Thanks Mom and Dad for eventually being okay with what is in this book. Thank you Brendan McDonald for cutting things right and keeping it steady. Thank you Amy Gottschalk for your focus and obsession. Thanks Olivia Wingate and Kelly Van Valkenburg for being the part of my brain that keeps things organized. Thanks Daniel Greenberg for getting the good deal. Thanks Chris Jackson and Laura Van der Veer. Holy shit, right? We made a book. Thanks to all the
WTF
ers of all kinds! Boomer lives!

Marc Maron is a stand-up comedian and host of the podcast
WTF with Marc Maron
. He has appeared in his own comedy specials on Comedy Central and HBO, and his sitcom
Maron
airs on IFC. He lives in Los Angeles.