You Need More Sleep: Advice from Cats by Francesco Marciuliano
My rating: 4/5 cats
Be adorable and be in charge.
cats – enviable masters of grace, confidence, independence, indifference, grooming…
this book’s convincing assertion is that you can learn all of life’s most valuable lessons from observing cats, and when you apply these feline behaviors to your own life, you are bound to be successful in all of your endeavors.
this is from the same guy that gave us all those books where pets write poems:
I Could Pee on This And Other Poems by Cats
I Could Chew on This: And Other Poems by Dogs
I Knead My Mommy: And Other Poems by Kittens
and those are cute and funny and all that, but this book doesn’t have time to be cute and funny.
How many times have you been stymied by indecision only to watch your cat walk straight up to a glass and slap it to the floor because it’s Tuesday and things have got to get done?
this book is here to help!
here are some sample chapter titles, to give you an idea of the many ways cats (and this book) can inspire you to live a more rewarding life:
–Always Stay at Least 30 Feet from a Loved One
–Keep Changing When and Where You Like to Be Touched
–Personal Space Means Your Space, Not Theirs
–Enter a Room Like You Own It and Everyone Inside It
–Dismiss Everyone Equally
–Everything is Prey. EVERYTHING.
–Be Extremely Independent Until You Need Something
this is self-help gold, my friends!
other chapters include What’s Theirs Is Now Yours, in which you will learn that:
Relationships are about two loving individuals coming together to cram all their things into one studio apartment. That’s why it makes perfect sense to assume your partner’s belongings are now yours, no matter how well or how high they hide them.
and
The more you treat it all as communal property, the more you don’t have to worry about breaking a few things.
how freeing is that?
also Just Because Others Can’t See It Doesn’t Mean You Shouldn’t Chase It, which encourages you to make your own opportunities no matter how outlandish:
Love. Friendship. Success. Ghost mice. If you can picture it in your head then you should pursue it with all your might, sometimes at speeds achieving sonic booms.
done and done!
or how about Rest Assured Someone Else Will Clean Up after You, which reminds you that other people have your back, even when they are not super enthusiastic about it:
…whenever you do make a mess – sometimes figuratively but mostly literally – someone will always appear to clean it for you.
Of course, who these people are and why they keep cursing you out will probably forever remain a mystery. But thanks to these strangers who somehow know your name, you’ll never have to glance back to see what you’ve done or how many paper towels it involves, letting you happily forge ahead to find out what happens when salsa tries to fly.
thanks, strangers! i go live the dream now!
you will also discover the many ways in which your cat is like oscar wilde, except (hopefully) still alive:
–Being in a relationship means being in danger of having a conversation at any moment…
–Do you get annoyed when people talk? Especially about themselves and not enough about when’s food?
–…what every cat already knows – the world in fact does not go on without you.
–Never plead, implore, or ask. That puts all the power with the other person, allowing them to demand something in return, like an indication of gratitude. And who wants to enter that infernal nightmare of a barter system?
not maggie, that’s for sure!
this book provides tips for many different segments of your life, from the business world:
Clear the Desk Every Morning
Inbox. Outbox. To-do list. Pens. Coffee. Phone. Computer. Whatever is made of glass. Start each office day with a clean slate by wiping the workspace clean of any distraction that can be shoved or tilted off the ledge.
This will alert your coworkers that you mean business and that maybe if they paid a little more attention to you then you wouldn’t be smacking all that stuff off their desks in the first place.
Maintain a Schedule Inconsistent with Everyone Else’s
Anyone who’s ever worked in an office can tell you that business isn’t about getting work done. It’s about attending meetings to discuss how much work needs to get done. And that’s a time-suck you can easily avoid by starting your day just as everyone else is going to bed.
Commence work at 1 A.M., making enough noise so that if your coworkers live within a 50-mile radius of the office they’ll know you’re up to something big. Keep working until about 5 A.M., at which point you should start calling fellow employees to make sure they bring your breakfast. In between, do whatever you feel like, remembering to blame any mess on whichever employee brought their dog to work that one day.
Network by Stepping on People’s Crotches
Networking isn’t about making friends. It’s about meeting new contacts, making an impression on possible corporate alliances, and quickly leaving before you realize you hate the whole lot of them.
Hence why whenever business people gather you should leap on the sofa, look purposefully and commandingly straight ahead, and carefully make sure to step on each and everyone’s genitals before exiting the room without making a sound. People will exclaim, “Who WAS that?!” between short gasps of air, ensuring they all know your name as you stride down the hallway, not certain where you are going except towards bigger and better things.
to managing interpersonal relationships:
Keep Sizing People Up
People are a mercurial lot. One day they couldn’t be happier to see you. The next day they’re screaming at you while surrounded by the shredded remains of what they keep calling “My birth certificate! My only birth certificate!”
In other words, you never know where you may stand with anyone. Therefore it’s wise to keep a big distance but a close watch on others at all times, throwing off any suspicion of judgment with an expression of utter boredom that indicates you might yawn should they suddenly burst into flames. After all, even the calmest, happiest person today may be the very one sobbing over six shattered antique vases saying, “It’s like you hate me!” tomorrow.
to matters of self-preservation:
When Proven Guilty, RUN
Sometimes you will do something so wrong your only option is to flee, since staying put will involve their yelling and your insincere apology. That’s when it’s best to reflect on your actions from under a bed, behind a fridge, or wedged between sofa cushions, believing you are now indistinguishable from upholstery.
Then after an hour or five return neither contrite nor comprehending of their anger but radiating the message, “All is forgiven.” They’ll be surprised by your total inability to recognize your own wrongdoing. You’ll be surprised to find someone else living in the house. And it is on this common ground of utter bewilderment that a new relationship can be built.
self-possession:
Wake Up Each Morning As If You Did Absolutely Nothing Wrong the Day Before
If you can get out of bed and walk into a scene of utter destruction that clearly has your prints everywhere on it, if you can look at the very things you dangled from just the prior evening before screws and fastenings gave way, if you can actually climb over someone on their knees, picking up the shattered remains of their once cherished possessions and cheerfully sit expectantly at the table with a beaming smile and a hungry stomach, then yours will be a life without a stress or second guesses.
and the importance of rewarding yourself after you’ve spent all day impressing the world with your badassery:
Make Time to Enjoy Yourself. Thoroughly.
Some days you will run and run and run and run and run and run and run in circles and just stop, never knowing what the hell all that running was about. And you will call those days “weekdays.”
And on those hectic days it’s important to occasionally stop, take a breath, and whip out your hind limb so you can lick yourself like you’re made of ice cream down there. After all, we all have to make our own fun.
but the most important lesson here is perception and presentation – it’s all about the words you use to frame your own narrative. always spin a criticism into an admirable quality and you’ll have them all emulating you (and cats) in no time.
Indecision Shows that You’re Thinking!
You want to stay in. You want to go out. You want to stay in. You want to go out. You want to stay in. You want to put your foot in mayo. You can entertain numerous, often conflicting ideas at the same time because you’re a thinker. You’re an intellectual. And you know the longer you take your time deciding, the longer everything remains a possibility
now i have to go clean up a mess that someone made.
