Free Attempting Normal by Marc Maron Page A

flight.
    Things were going pretty smoothly. I was waiting on the security line and was about to put the cat box on the belt to go through the machine when a Transportation Security Administration guysaid, “You’re going to have to take the cat out of the box and walk it through.”
    I said, “What? There’s no way that is going to happen.”
    “Well, then you can’t go through,” he said.
    “Do you know what I’ve been through? Look at my hands, look at my arms, look at my face! There’s no way I’m taking that cat out of that box!”
    I was yelling, waving my arms at the TSA dude.
    People were looking at me, some shocked, others just perturbed. I was that guy. I was a crazy cat lady guy.
    My biggest fear was that I would get her out of the case and she would jump out of my arms and my life would become a Disney comedy. I pictured a montage of me running after a cat on jet-ways, down the aisles of planes, in the middle of a runway, on aircraft wings, behind ticket counters, on a baggage claim.
    I had made such a scene that when I went to take LaFonda out of the box the TSA guy said, “Okay, everyone stand back.” Like I was defusing a bomb. I lifted little LaFonda out of the crate and she was more frightened than I was, but not much. I walked her quickly through the metal detector and then started screaming, “Where’s the box!”
    I didn’t know at the time that all she would want to do was get back in the box. The airport was just a big blur of sights and sounds that were alien to her. The box, she understood.
    I got her back in, sheepishly apologized to the agent and gawking passengers, and skulked away toward my gate.
    We made it home and now my cats are free.
    I lost a job, a marriage, and several pints of blood in the process, but they’ve won. They started in the garbage in Astoria, Queens, and now live in the hills of Highland Park, California. This is a cat success story.

  8  
Petty Lifting
    I was back living in New York when I heard that Mishna, my second ex-wife, was living there with her new man. The divorce was still fresh and I had not been able to pull myself together for months. I knew that I would eventually run into her. I just didn’t know when. How would it unfold? Would I be on the train? At a show? Carrying a cat in a cage? Holding a yoga mat? Would I yell, cry, avoid her? All of those? Would she be with her man? Would I hit him, yell at him, or cry at him? Maybe I would just yell at both of them. No. All the scenarios that I played out in my mind amplified the shame and sadness of my position. There was no winning because I had already lost, and at the center of any of the situations I imagined would be me, holding my own ass, which she had handed me.
    I dreaded and hoped that I would run into my ex. Every day was an involuntary search to connect with her. It was the hidden agenda of my heart. I couldn’t really focus on much else. I felt like I needed closure. I needed to be punched in the heart with thereality of the situation. That is what emotional connection is to me sometimes. Pain makes me know I am alive. Joy and comfort are awkward and make me want to die. I needed to see in her eyes that she didn’t care about me and I had no power over her. Of course, I was hedging my bets. Some part of me hoped we would once again lock into that shared emotional frequency that undeniably connected us. I thought that connection was indelible, no matter what happened between us, even if it was like a tattoo that seemed like the right thing to do at the time but is now just a fading green mistake.
    Worse than the feeling of loss that comes with a breakup is the feeling of losing. Loss is a state of emotional injury that you can get past; losing is a feeling of humiliation and defeat that stays fresh. The latter causes most of the problems in the world. If there is another man involved, it is almost impossible not to judge yourself as a failure and see him as an enemy.
    Technology