I'm a little unsettled today owing to an incident where a weird cat stared at me. It happened right after I woke up. I looked out the window and saw a weird cat walking up the hill. It had a tail like a bobcat, but it looked like a regular cat. It hid in a drainage ditch, staring at me, with just its eyes and ears peeking out (see illustration).

ILLUSTRATION

See?

You can't see it. Don't humor me and say you can. But he's there. With his staring eyes and non-bobcat-looking ears.

I sent the picture to the Keelhauler, asking for his assessment of what style of cat had stared at me. "It's a bobcat," he said, casually, too casually for me to believe that he had even opened the photo I sent. Because look at that photo--that is some high-quality ...lensmanship, there. I hung up on him, after telling him to call me when he'd taken a close look at the picture.

Ten seconds later, he called back. "It's a LYNX," he said, causing me to hang up on him again.

Because here's the thing: if a cat stares at you--a random cat, not some fuzzer tabby named Mrs. Gimbals or something, who belongs to your neighbor and is totally known to you, you really should be able to identify it. Because if you cannot, you are liable to become unsettled, and have too much sugar, which will lead to hyperactivity and the creation of long, incoherent e-mails and diary entries. I assume.

I assume.

Star of the day. . .Faye Dunaway