I’m writing this from exile. Roscoe told me not to come home until I am nice. Yesterday I traveled for sixteen hours. Ten of those hours were spent on a plane. My family’s nickname for me is “Bitey Scratchy” because I’ve been known to behave like a feral cat when I’m jet lagged.

To those of you who have never had the joy of taking in a wild animal, feral cats are nice sometimes, specifically when you are giving them things that they want like food, the rest of the time their hobbies consist of leaving puncture wounds in exposed skin and hissing.

Once when my father was away on a business trip I brought a feral cat into my parent’s house. It seemed like an excellent idea at the time. The cat was crotchety and disagreeable, I was crotchety and disagreeable. We were terrific roommates. And then my parents returned. And I left. The feral cat didn’t.

For the most part Oliver* is a good cat now. She only bites when she’s annoyed which is often but she lets out a low warning growl beforehand. And really she doesn’t bite very hard. Not that it matters, after the first couple of times the whole family got rabies shots.

Anyway, following spending an entire day in transit I behave like Oliver. To add insult to teeth imprinted injury, jet lag also seems to affect my thought patterns. I’ve spent the past two days wandering about pretending to be Andre Leon Talley**.

This is unnerving for two reasons. The first is that no matter how convincingly I stagger around screeching “There’s a FAMINE of beauty. A famine!” or talk about wearing my hand made underpants in Karl Lagerfeld’s vacation house, in no way do I resemble the 6’7 two hundred and fifty pound fashionista.

Try as I might no one has ever mistaken me for this man.  (Photo credit: Museum at FIT)

The second is that my parents have never heard of Andre Leon Talley so they become just a little more concerned with each successive impression. I overheard them talking about Bellevue in the living room and I don’t think they were discussing Diana’s old apartment in Kensington Village. Roscoe who has seen this behaviour in action told me that I’m to stay with my parents until I am normal(ish) again.

So effectively I’ve been exiled. It sounds worse than it really is ; they feed me well here although I do find my parent’s habit of wearing dog catcher’s body padding unnerving.

*Oliver is a girl cat. We like to do that here, give our girl pets boy’s names. There’s just not enough confusion in this world and one should always keep one’s vet on their toes. It’s not enough to simply throw your newly acquired feral cat into the room with an animal care professional and close the door, it’s really best to complicate things by saying “Oh our cat George had kittens last week.”

** Andre Leon Talley is one of the contributing editors to Vogue magazine. I adore watching and listening to him, the only thing larger than his body is his personality. He once filled an entire ballroom with one joke. When I grow up I am going to be Mr. Leon Talley. Or maybe not, because that might make Roscoe Anna Wintour, or would it make him Grace Coddington? Regardless, I don’t think Roscoe would like either of those options.