Sometimes my cat makes a sound like a goat and because of this I call him Goat Baby even though perhaps if a cat is capable of making a goat sound then the sound is not exclusively caprine. He has fish breath and I call him Fish Face, in spite of his quintessential feline features. And sometimes he gives me this knowing look and he says “meow”—not “meow,” precisely, because cats never actually say “meow,” but he says something to me in the language of cats— and whatever he says, even though it’s Cattish, gives me the feeling that he’s more human than cat and for my sake I have to remind him that he’s a cat. “You’re a cat,” I tell him. “Did you know this?” He often responds with a purr, or otherwise rolls onto his back, which means he kind of wants me to pet him but he also kind of wants to bite me. In about thirty seconds, he forgets he’s a cat, which is good, I suppose, because if he remembered, he probably would not be a cat.