Sometimes real stories are the strangest. And of course some people seem to think furries are just really weird anyway. Months ago I started writing down little stories about my weird early experiences. To some people furry is just an art style or a subculture or a bunch of people who are way too much into cartoons. For me it's been a bit more. I've always felt 'furry' one way or another as long as I can remember and long before I knew what it meant. I've identified with being feline for as long as I've known what a cat is.

Earlier today after having to haul out my kayak and head home because of severe thunderstorms I thought a bit about these little stories and decided to make some images to go with them. The first one here is about the phantom tail I've always had. But when I opened the text file to grab what I'd written about it I discovered that I hadn't written anything about it. So here's a little writeup I just did to go with this tale of the tail.

For as long as I can remember I've had a phantom tail. I remember trying to see it when I was very small. At one time there was a floor-length mirror in the hallway of the house where I grew up. I kept looking at myself and turning around and around in front of the mirror and trying to see my tail but couldn't. It was a great mystery to me. I could feel it there. It didn't seem to have any weight or impinge on solid objects but I could feel it. To this day I tend to go through doors in a slightly odd way. I turn my body around the door as I go through and swish my tail around to avoid it getting trapped in the door. It doesn't make much sense to do that. It doesn't make much sense to get in and out of chairs in ways that might seem a little odd either. The tail is just a phantom with no solid substance. But it's still a part of my body image and always has been. Why, I don't know.

As I got older I generally noticed it less but it didn't go away. It's still back there swishing around and effortlessly passing through solid objects. Sometimes I forget to draw a tail on other critters but not when I draw myself. I'm more likely to forget to draw a hand or foot or ear. They're easier to forget and somehow less primary.