I talk a lot about my cats. I also, to the delight or chagrin of my Facebook friends, share a lot of photos of them. I've included some of my favorites in the gallery below. Enjoy! 
 

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I adopted Edgar Allen ("Eddy", left) in 2012, when I began my B.A. at West Virginia University. My folks call him my "miracle kitty." At nine weeks old, his heart stopped under anesthesia. The surgeons, incredibly, managed to resuscitate him–but not before he'd gone whole minutes without oxygen. The initial brain damage was severe. Eddy had gone completely blind, and had lost almost all control of his back limbs. But thanks to my mom, who stayed home with him, and some seriously awesome neuroplasticity, he began day by day to recover. Within a week, he could walk. Now, several years later, he can run and jump just like the other two – though he doesn't always land on his feet. He has also regained much of his vision. While he still has some blindspots, he can definitely see a laser.

 

I adopted Eliot (right) in 2015, the year before I graduated from college. He is a very sweet, very talkative, very high-maintenance cat. His favorite place to sit is on top of my keyboard, and he is constantly inventing new ways to make noise. (Oh, and if you've ever doubted that cats engage in instrumental reasoning – they definitely do. Eddy's not nearly as good at it.)

 

Eddy and Eliot moved with me to Los Angeles in 2016. I did not expect to adopt another cat while I was in graduate school. But then, in November 2018, along came Pharaoh ("Rho", center). A friend of mine had rescued some kittens from an abandoned junkyard, and he needed help caring for them. I have since learned the expression "foster fail." Rho's a bit of a rascal, and has the loudest purr of any cat I've met. Once he made himself at home, there was just no way he wasn't staying.