The Year in Review

Everything sucks (except my cat)

Every time we say goodbye, I die a little.

Yesterday I took our cat Baloo to the vet to have more teeth removed – the third dental extraction he’s had in the nine years since we adopted him. Cats with FIV are prone to gingivitis, which previously felled five of his teeth, but this time, the culprit is a condition called feline odontoclastic resorptive lesions, which is just as weird and painful as those words sound.

Cats are good at hiding their pain. The vet said it’s because although cats are predators, they’re also prey, so when they’re injured, their best bet is to keep quiet and lay low. But a mother knows. And as Baloo’s mother, it was obvious something wasn’t right. He was quiet and sedentary, even lazier than usual, and drooling a lot. So back to the operating table he went.

I would like to take a moment to appreciate the Medivet logo, a triumph of modern veterinary graphic design.

Baloo is uninsurable, because of the FIV. The operation cost £690. We can afford it. But it did occur to me that there may come a time where we can’t afford the treatment Baloo needs, and we’ll arrive at a literal price for Baloo’s life. He could – no, he almost definitely will develop an illness or condition that’s far more grave, something that can be remedied, but not so easily as a few gnarly gnashers. How much might it cost to save him? Thousands, potentially. Can we afford it? Is it worth it? Is Baloo – our lovely, precious, perfect little boy – worth the money?

The question itself is surreal. There is no logic to it. It’s like asking if a rainbow is worth a sack of beans. You can’t assign a monetary value to a cat’s life and well-being – the very premise makes no sense. And yet, here we are.

One of the funny things about getting an operation for your cat is that the vet gently tries to upsell you when they do it. For another £175 you can have their full bloodwork done; for £115 they’ll check Baloo’s anal glands (?). It’s like when you get your car serviced and they try to convince you to buy new brake pads you don’t actually need.

And then the vet has you sign a form that says: oh by the way, just so you know, your cat might die. With all of these bolt-ons and bonuses they were offering, I kind of expected them to say, “But don’t worry – if we kill your cat, the procedure is free!”

La la la la la…

But the even crazier thing I realized is that in the USA, this kind of cold, crass capitalism is applied to medical care for human beings as well. Even James Van Der Beek now has to sell Dawson’s Creek memorabilia in order to pay for his cancer treatment. And this is happening in the UK, too. One of the reasons discussions about food and health outcomes annoy me so much is because they often fail to recognize how wealthier people can simply pay money, and set aside more time, to take better care of themselves.¹

Of course the life of a cat (and James Van Der Beek) has a price, because everything does, including basic necessities: food, water, shelter, medicine. But anyone who points out the absurdity or the straight-up barbarism of this gets called a communist. When people advocate for better social welfare or UBI the response is always well who’s going to pay for all of this? and it’s like… you’re missing the point. The point is that making people pay for it in the first place is fucked up!

Well, yes, Max Cherry. It kind of is.

I started this here blog because I didn’t know what to do with the realization that my country was the villain in this story all along. This is something that was already obvious to other people, of course, but for me it took the emergence of a malignant orange pustule named Donald to diagnose the disease within. At the time, I thought the disease was terminal. In fact, I thought America was already dead. And that made things easier, in a way, because it provided a sense of closure. I could simply walk away from the burning wreckage and never look back.²

But it’s gotten harder over the past year as I’ve realized oh shit, America is still alive, and if it is dying, it’s dying a horribly slow and painful death.³ All my friends and family and all of their friends and families are still there, struggling, and their only hope for salvation is Zohran Mamdani. And here I am, reclining comfortably on my Southeast London sofa, as America slips deeper and more rapidly into military autocracy. I feel like the dog in the “this is fine” meme.

Millions of people in the US – not to mention Gaza, Sudan, Burma, London, and everywhere else in the world – are suffering. And then there’s me, wondering if I should pay extra to give Baloo a full service tune-up while he’s undergoing dental surgery. Squeaky wheels, everywhere, and yet it’s my cat’s anal glands that might get the grease (so to speak).

It all feels so ridiculous. I feel ridiculous, and disgustingly privileged. I’ve got a sick sense that when the revolution comes, it’ll be my neck in the guillotine, and as I bleed Townsend Farm single-varietal apple juice they’ll dump my body into an unmarked grave, along with all the symbols of my bourgeois depravity, my precious plastic bottles of niche Mediterranean soft drinks and my copy of The Monocle Book of Japan. For what have I done, ever, to dismantle the machinery that’s constructed this hell on earth? Worse still: what have I done to go along with it, to add fuel to the fire?

But what can I do? Especially when I am not physically there, in the US – what can I do? This isn’t a rhetorical question. I’m actually asking, and all suggestions are welcome. It’s not that I’ve done literally nothing; it’s just that what I have done feels so insignificant. But I also have to tell myself that this way of thinking is too defeatist, and I have to keep doing what I can even if it’s not enough, even if doesn’t seem to be changing anything.

The other purpose of this Substack has been a modest fundraising endeavor. And if you’ve paid for a subscription over the past year, thank you so much – it’s raised almost £500 for political campaigns and disaster relief, to charities in the US, the UK, Ukraine, Palestine and Jamaica. That’s not nothing. And it’s encouraging to recognize that!

The other thing I’ve learned over the past few years is that you have to focus on what you can change, nurture, and protect in your daily lives. I have learned this from people who embody that spirit, people who have taught me what it means to be active in a community: people like Jenny Lau, MiMi Aye, my own parents, and my neighbors who volunteer for the PFSA at our school. This stuff matters. There’s that old bumper sticker cliche: think globally, act locally. It’s easy to dismiss, but what is global but a million little locals?

So look after the people closest to you. Look after your friends, your colleagues, your family, your cat. We are all we have.

1. In my case: psychotherapy, a gym membership, and occasional purchases of organic Japanese vegetables.

2. Cool guys don’t look at explosions.

3. It must be said that this realization has largely been prompted by working on Pit with Anna and a full roster of excellent writers, many of whom told truly inspiring stories of optimism and resilience.