My cat is not a Twilight vampire.
The fangs are simply his canine teeth,
which, despite the name,
are part of standard feline anatomy.
And any sparkling you may have noticed
is just the sunlight
reflected off his fur
as he occupies the only sunny spot
on the dark wood floor,
with eyes narrowed into slits
like a cat’s eyes
which,
if you think about it,
is perfectly normal for a cat.
My cat is not drunk
or high on catnip
or under the influence
of any controlled substance
or mood-altering drug.
He has not been diagnosed
with any mental illness
or neurological condition.
He’s simply washing his face
and blinking
at the same time.
My cat is not struggling with depression
or with some crisis of conscience
that leaves him half in the dark
and half in the light.
In fact, the darkness is mostly an illusion,
an artifact of the camera –
he’s really half in moderate light,
half in very bright light.
And the hunched-over posture
is a reflection, not of his emotional state,
but of the fact that he’s just noticed
one of his toy mice
a few feet away on the floor.
My cat is not biting my other cat’s ear off
in a savage act of aggression
reminiscent of an incident
involving Mike Tyson.
It’s actually just a love bite,
which resulted in, at worst,
some momentary annoyance.
No cats were harmed
in the making of this picture.
On a related note, I have a list of overly wordy lolcat captions on McSweeney’s.
Unlikely Explanations 
Oh, great cat post! Great cat photos! Your cat likes having his photo taken, doesn’t he?!
Thanks! Thunder (the tabby in all the pictures) likes the camera — but that means that I mostly wind up with close-ups of his nose. But for some reason, on this day he chose to pose for a bunch of pictures like a professional model. Holly (the calico) generally hates to have her picture taken, but she will tolerate it occasionally.
Catilicoius
great photos
I have to take issue with your use of the term “minor annoyance.” Have you ever been on the business end of one of those “love bites”? Nothing minor about it. Those non-Twilight canine teeth are SHARP, yo!
(Oops. “MOMENTARY annoyance.” It’s not momentary either, though. I was rubbing my nose for HOURS)
It was actually “minor” in the first draft. I think these love bites vary in intensity — the cat that bit you must love you very, very much. :-)
I like the first photo best!
Thanks! That’s my favorite too — not just of these four, but of all the cat pictures I’ve ever taken with a digital camera.
Love all of these. Stumbled the post, btw. I have a picture of my cat Lucky (who looks like your kitty) where he forgot to pull his tongue back in his face. Reminds me of your 2nd one. Cracks me up when I look at it. Dude. Your tongue!
Thanks! I saw your SU comment too, and I think you and I are the only two people in the world who think he looks like he’s laughing in that one — most people seem to think he’s angry (in reality, he’s just in the process of twisting around to groom himself).
I miss my cat. This post was a nice little kitty fix. I wish there was such a thing as tactile-blogo-vision.
Ha, I loved your descriptions. Because, you know, the cat in the first picture could’ve also been a werewolf–due to the shadow on the floor–it looked like a howling wolf.