Videogamecatgirl

Location of cat: Fur-ball on the bed.

Our father had the unusual, for him, foresight to attain an AMIGA game station in the early 1990s. The foundation for my fascination with gaming lay mostly in my admiration for my older brother and my desire to play with the same toys as he (which is also, in an effort to play with my younger brother, I have an eclectic collection of Ninja Turtles and My Little Pony’s). This love for videogames was cemented one fine sunny day in spring (incidentally it was that very same day I ended my career as a football player) when our family got a Super Nintendo and the tunes for Super Mario World chimed in.

As the gaming technology grew more advanced, so did our collection of gaming stations: from Gameboy, Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advanced, (which kept us entertained through the many summers spent in car-trips along the stretchy coast of Norway) Nintendo DS, Super Nintedo, N64, Nintendo Gamecube, Playstation 2, Xbox, Xbox360. To think about amount of coin we spent on games that now lie and gathering dust under the bed, which my cat favors, makes my wallet churn. I carry a torch for a renaissance in retro-gaming and hope that our 8-16 and 32 pixeled collections may someday bring us a fortune.

I have held on to this tradition of playing video-games, albeit I stay clear
of any involving driving cars around a circular track or killing zombies (killing aliens, monsters and Nazis is perfectly acceptable. I am currently ambivalent about mutants, or zombie-Nazis). What it is about videogames I like, you may wonder. And the truth is: (and here is to hoping there are no psychologists reading this), I like sniping monsters. Preferably in the head or the groin. Puzzle games vexes me with their ability to leave me confounded ( and I am still convinced that cake is a lie) and feeling intellectually inadequate, but my ability to hit a robot in the head across a well-lit storage-room, fills me with a sense of achievement that is only echoed by my cat’s approval of my ability to open the door to let it out (yes, it has trained me well). My cat quite likes it when I play video games, because it sees this as the perfect opportunity to steal my attention away from the mutant/bandit/giant-lizard-dog-thing/alien/harvester that is trying to kill my protagonist.

Yet, the cat is simply too cute to chastise for getting my character killed, (though there is an urban story in my gaming community about a parrot biting the hand of a player, causing his character to jump into a deadly electrical trap and killing the majority of the other players in his party). After all, we can always load a previous save, experienced by our failure and knowledge of how to defeat the monster, but not marred by them in any way. Sometimes, however, you just need to call your brother in to defeat the Fatman on rollerblades who is throwing bombs at you.

This is a feature I dearly would like Real Life to have (the ability to call your brother for aid and reload to earlier points in your life, not the Fatman on rollerblades who throws bombs at you, though I suppose that'd make for an interesting event!)

It is a truth universally acknowledged that most girls, or rather women, will at some point fear that they are turning into a ”cat lady”

It is a truth universally acknowledged that most girls, or rather women, will at some point fear that they are turning into a ”cat lady”, an eccentric creature who is known for her affection, dare I say obsession, with cats and cat-related object.

In the past few days I have been forced to admit that I am looking forward to the British Royal wedding between Kate and William. I fear this might well be another step in my metamorphosis towards becoming a “cat lady,” and I felt it would be advantageous to share my concerns with the world in case there are other souls out there who have the same struggles. Worry not, girls, you are not alone.

Now, before you turn your gaze to your keyboard and prepare your flame-wars, let me stress that I have all respect for men and women who care for and nurture unwanted pets. I regularly donate to animal shelters and RSPCA. Nor is it an attempt to ridicule people who surround themselves with four-legged friends, it is simply, my own musings of the life I live.

In this blog I bid you to follow me as I navigate the treacherous waters of being single, in my mid-twenties with no obvious job prospects and an expensive education (I’m an historian by education) And yes, I do currently live at home. And I have a cat which sleeps in my bed and I talk to it in a silly high-pitched voice usually reserved for babies or kittens.

Before we continue, or rather before I end my first-ever public post, let us see what Wikipedia has to say on the subject:

“In the West, single Women who own cats have long been associated with the concept of sprinsterhood.[4] In more recent decades, the concept of a cat lady has been associated with "romance-challenged (often career-oriented) women who can't find a man.[5] (how starkly that applies to my own situation!)

The term is also used to denote an animal hoarder who keeps large numbers of cats without having the ability to properly house or care for them.[6] “A stereotypical cat lady, or cat woman is a single[1] woman who dotes upon her cat, or multiple cats.[2] The term is considered pejorative.[3]”

As it seems that at least one of the definitions can be applied to me, this will be a daunting affair.(I'll leave it up to decide which one fits the best!)