my familiar has 3 legs

When Liz and I were talking about this blog, we knew we had to include Greenie as a collaborator in some way. As you might imagine, this is a tricky thing because, well, he's a cat. It'd be way too easy to get precious with the whole thing. He's got a profile, which is cutesy enough, but then how do we represent Greenie's voice? 1st person? Op-ed style? In English sprinkled with meows ala Henrietta Pussycat? All somewhat problematic. Plus, there's the whole issue with furthering lesbian stereotypes...

All that said, he does have a place here because, cheesy or not, he is a big part of the unformed idea behind 3 Bridges and a Tube. He plays as much a part in "keeping" our home as we do— not in the sense of cooking and cleaning, of course (although, the cat has a seriously unnatural interest in watching us prepare food), but in the sense of being a major presence in our homelife. I know that can be said about any pet, really, so maybe it's as simple as that. But, being our pet, he gets to be part of the blog. And, I swear, the little beast truly does have a ton to say.

At this point, I'll just give a brief bio, and in some internetish way, the voice of Greenie will emerge— maybe in posts about cats in the news, maybe in posts about the minutia of living on Eagle Ave., maybe in posts about cooking.

I adopted Greenie 15 years ago when I lived in Palo Alto after graduating from Stanford. In our time together, he's lived in 10 apartments in 5 cities (PA, SF, Brooklyn, Oakland, Alameda) with 3 girlfriends (Dr. Jones, she who shall not be named, Liz [the keeper]), 6 roommates, and 2 co-cats (misunderstood Creeper, RIP, fabulous Stella, RIP). You might say that Greenie is high-maintenance healthwise: his list of allergies, urinary issues, and psychosomatic quirks is too long for this post, and his recent amputation is a story unto itself. Of course, to me, that just makes him more lovable and our relationship more joyfully codependent. Pathetic? Maybe, but he and I have been through quite a bit together (including most of my twenties... yeesh), so who cares? He is my familiar.