Snow and Cats and Sleep and Solving Problems

The snow has just pummeled the area. I like saying that - pummeled. As I was walking through it last night, I thought of blockbuster movies and thought, "this totally qualifies as a natural disaster." Huge lumps of snow on the sidewalks (what's underneath them?!). Trees hanging low like old mens' balls, heavy with snow. And the occasional stupid lone vehicle dangerously sliding down the street.
Today is different. The aftermath is always depressing to me. I put my head back on the sofa, hoping the tortoise shell cat wouldn't slash my cheek (she's quite mercurial), and looked up at the branches holding the snow against the bright blue sky. They looked like they were holding light fluffy cotton. The brightness of the sky, and the sunshine, sadden me. Nature is making me crazy, mixing messages: Look, it's okay to come out and wander, the sun is shining and the sky is blue. But this is not true! We're actually trapped! If I look down from my apartment, I see that cars are literally surrounded, blocked in by feet of snow. The street has feet of snow too. Mixed messages always make me crazy.

I live in an old brownstone (sometimes I tell people I live in an old gallstone). I like this neighborhood; it's my favorite in this city. When I was in college and graduate school, I lived in this neighborhood; the best memories in my life happened here.
Anyway, I like my apartment. I like the large windows that allow gracious amounts of bright light to bask; the cats like to lay in these swatches - pure bliss for them. I like the crown molding in my bedroom - I like its light blue color. I like the super high ceilings of these old houses. I like my garbage disposal and dishwasher. I like the old black and white tiles in the bathroom. My apartment often gives me a warm feeling.
However, to use the bathroom, one must go through the bedroom. Get that? The bathroom is not separate. So, when I moved in, I put the kitty litter box, which is shaped like a dome, in the bathroom. It just seemed like the right thing to do. I poop in the bathroom, so the cats should as well.
After living here for several months, I realized I was suffering from insomnia. I could not understand why. During the summer and fall months, I would daily walk a good amount, in addition to practicing yoga or Pilates several days a week. I have a caffeine cut-off time. I was working. I was fucking tired at the end of the day. Yes, I have a tendency to experience anxiety, but this was ridiculous. Why could I not sleep?
Then one day, in my classroom, the words came to me like a warm breeze: "The cats."
It was a revelation. Because I think myself so goddamned smart, whenever something obvious hits me, it is coupled with embarrassment.
The cats kept me up all night. Usually, when I got into bed at night, I felt good. After reflecting on my day and all the wonderful things that I did for people, I would read for a bit until I became so sleepy that my hands dropped the book and/or my eyes crossed. The three cats would snuggle up and look just so cute that I would feel gratitude for being alive and having a bed with three magnificent sweet creatures who felt safe enough to be cozy next to me.
I'm not sure when I would first wake up. The tortoise shell cat liked to lie above me, wrapped around my head like a fat tumor. This was sweet, I thought. In addition, I felt scared to move her because, as I have stated, she is mercurial and might slash my face.
The orange cat, too, has no boundaries. He liked to lie on my neck. Had I been able to keep them still, between the two of them I could have kept toasty warm outside during the winter. In any case, I found it difficult to breathe because of the cat on my neck. However, I thought of how lucky I was to have the cats feel safe enough to lie so close to me. Plus, they seemed so comfortable, and I didn't want to disturb them considering they had only slept about 20 hours that day.
Somehow, I would get back to sleep, only to be awakened by a scratching sound and the smell of hot carnivorous feces at some point, usually around 3 or 4 a.m. Cats have the instinct to cover their shit, and my cats certainly try to do this. However, perhaps because of the dome shape of their kitty litter box, they scratch everything but the kitty litter to cover their shit. Not one of the three of the cats can seem to figure out how to cover their shit. It is astounding to me. However, they will spend hours attempting to do this until I do it for them. They will scratch the inside plastic, the outside plastic, the tile floor, the steps of the dome, and probably every square inch of the litter box except for where their shit lies. At this point I would have to get up and cover it for them, stifling my gags.
Perhaps feeling lighter because of his recent bowel movement, the orange cat would then get the crazies. This is the time of night when the cats want to run around meowing and howling and running up walls, ears twitching, fur getting fat like their heads. They think this is fun. All of them like to get involved. And the orange cat's claws are so long, he sounds like he is wearing cha cha heels on the hardwood floors. I knew when he was about to pounce on someone or something because I could hear him speed up:
cha cha cha cha cha cha cha cha chachahchachachachacha
The tortoise shell cat, on the other hand, is the oldest, and I think she has arthritis. So she hobbles. She limps. She sounds like a pirate with a wooden leg when she walks. Hobbley hobbling hobbles.
And the shrill shreiks when one of them attacked another! It was simply blood curdling.
I would scream at them at some point, tell them I hated them, tell them to shut up, tell them they were selfish cats. This was not relaxing either, and then I would lie awake feeling guilty about the mean things I had said to the cats.
When the alarm buzzed the next morning and I felt hungover, the cats meowed happily and seemed to smile "Good morning!" to me. So I had amnesia about the long night. It was cloudy.
So when I realized it was the cats keeping me awake, that was a revelation.
I put the litter box in the living room as an experiment. And, at bedtime, after the fights, and chasing the gray one under the bed, and the tortoise shell one in the corner, and getting scratched by the orange one on the bed because he didn't want to leave the bedroom, I shut the door.
The litter box is in a place between the living room and kitchen. Because of the dome, it doesn't really smell. I clean it out daily. And when they shit, I have to be the one to cover it, anyway. I sleep a lot better now.