umm....
Yes, I'm still alive.
I've been toying with the following possibilities:
-retiring from personal blogging
- just waiting until the riffraff forget about this blog, and then reappearing, POOF


No conclusions yet, but you'll notice that I've deleted 98% of my archives.
- posted by loosh @ 3:15 PM :: 2 comments

 
about
* I'm watching my weight, trying to get back my girlish figure, and I'm actually being very good about it. I feel less bloated and less out-of-control, and it's only been a few (official) days.

* Henry and I enjoyed the sunshine today.

* Daryl and I are going to see Colin Hay on Easter, and I cannot wait. Also? KT Tunstall. Yeah baby. Daryl heard she was coming back and he was on it.

* Daryl and I went to see Feist during NoisePop, and she was fucking amazing. I also got to see Girlyman in March, and they were the cat's pajamas. I had such a blast.

* I've been reading a lot of children's books for school, and some of them are amazingly good. Criss Cross, for example, I would recommend to any adult who likes good literature.

* I had a nice birthday despite the month of grieving immediately beforehand.

* I went to a show at The Make Out Room, and I literally sold the shirt off my back to a stranger. (I had a see-through shirt on underneath though, so I had to put my jacket back on.)

* I took my first sailing lesson and it wasn't all that fun, but I imagine it will get better each time.

* I started to knit a pair of socks, but it was hard and not fun, so I ripped the stitches out hastily.

* I've seen some good DVDs lately. Buddy, Aberdeen, Goldfish Memories, Scotland PA (again), & You, Me and Everyone We Know. (actually, that last one was quite interesting, but it made me uncomfortable on several fronts.)

* I still like my job, and I really like most of my co-workers. (wow.)

* The cd mixes I made had both my dad and my brother in tears (in their respective homes). And they're really snotty about music. This is an unparalleled success. I can't wait to make more.

* Why do some people ask "why?" if you say you don't have a significant other? Why is coupledom considered the default? I want to say to these people: "Why are you in a relationship? You're not exactly a shining endorsement!" Ditto for the Procreation Fascists. They ask married, childless people "why don't you have kids?" Fuck that shit. That really bothers me. I can't fathom why deciding not to have kids, even if you're great with kids, is not just as understandable as wanting to procreate. Why on earth would one choice be "better" than the other?

* Hey looky at my new sidebar. You can see my ten most recent Pandora stations. Cool, eh? Check out 'Daring Females.' Pretty bad ass!

* I'm going to the dentist next week. For the first time in many years. Yikes! I didn't have insurance for a while there, and I even tried a free clinic and a low-fee clinic, but I just couldn't seem to get any care. I only have 1 cavity so far, but I bet I'll be diagnosed with number 2 next week. I bet you envy me, don't you.

* I still miss Rain a lot, but I don't cry over him all the time any more. Thank you to those of you who checked in on me now and again. Daryl and Kathy, mostly. It meant a lot to me. It was a very bad month. Thanks to everyone who showed any kind of support. (update: oops, I spoke too soon. I scrolled down and saw those precious photos of Rainy-butt and almost lost it again. he was so damn important to me.)
- posted by loosh @ 8:41 PM :: 5 comments

 
things to look forward to?
In twelve hours Rain will be gone from the world. I can't quite fathom it. Maybe I'll tell myself that he's going off to a nice farm, that he'll get to run around outside and climb trees again. And shit in the dirt. He loved relieving himself outside, back in the days when we had a yard.

Here are some things I won't really miss about Rain:

- I get to vacuum again. I haven't vacuumed since he got sick, since he's so scared of the vacuum cleaner. I wanted him to have a peaceful convalescence.

- As great as it was to cuddle with him every night, I'll probably sleep better now that he's not fucking around in bed all the time.

- Plus, all the kneading. I've never been a fan of the kneading.

- Okay, I'll tell it straight. He could be little bastard when he wanted to. If he was pissed at me, usually because he wanted extra food, he would go beat up Henry to get his frustration out.

- He always wanted to be on my lap. It's very sweet, goshdarnit. But I have to work, and I have to do homework. So it was not always do-able to have him in my lap, squeezed between my belly and my laptop.

- He loved plastic grocery bags. I mean he really loved them. He liked lying on them, he liked playing with them. So I left them lying around on the floor, so he could enjoy them any time he wanted. But people, it looks ugly. Even just having one empty plastic bag layin' around on your floor makes you look a little bag-lady.

- He really ran this household. He bossed me and Henry around a lot. We're ready for a new Alpha Cat.

- He's not afraid of fire, so I have to have candles up really high. Otherwise he literally lights himself on fire.

- He's a glutton. Once he couldn't go outside any more and didn't get as much exercise, I had to be very careful about portion control. He got very expensive atkins-esque cat food, and it got measured, and they got fed at 7 pm. If I lost track of time, they let me know. Now that gluttony fattypants is leavin', I think we can go back to a more chill cat food lifestyle.

- During law school, he figured out that books and papers, and especially the little tags that marked up my textbooks, were the most important things to me. (Maybe even more important than (gasp) him!) And all those paper products were fairly easy to destroy, isn't that handy? He was pissy when I was in law school. He wanted more of my attention. (He has always been very affectionate cat. Which is nice until you don't have quite as much time to devote to the fuzz. Then the wrath of god rains down on you as your cat turns into a needy, bitchy stereotype.) During law school he didn't think he got enough of my time, so he took it out on my textbooks. Seriously. He saw how quickly he got my attention when he bit and tore my papers, so he kept on. He even learned to pull my carefully placed tags out of my textbooks, which was the most serious of offenses, so far as I could tell.

- Landlords are prejudiced against two-cat-families. Not that I plan on moving any time soon.

- He was the primary scratcher of the furniture. It's partly my fault. I had a couch for many years that was left behind by the man who worst broke my heart. I was totally fine with Rain scratching the shit out of that thing. Unfortunately, as I suspected, this behavior is not particularly unlearnable. Later furniture suffered.

- Less litter box duty. Half, in fact.

- 88% fewer vomit clean-ups as well.

- Since I won't have my surrogate significant other anymore, and I'll be more lonely and less cuddled....maybe I'll be more reachy-outy towards my many (neglected?) friends and new possible loves?
- posted by loosh @ 10:25 PM :: 0 comments

 
terminal
It's official. He's been diagnosed with cancer. He maybe has a few weeks to live. The hope is that he can spend most of that time fairly comfortable. I'm swinging between being rippingly devastated and somewhat pragmatic about it. Boy, is he gonna have a sweet kitty life until he dies. Chicken livers, anyone? (Or whatever is the bestest, most gourmet cat treat.) No more dieting for The Big Rain Man.
- posted by loosh @ 11:23 PM :: 4 comments

 
better days
           

 
- posted by loosh @ 12:25 PM :: 0 comments

 
suck
UPDATE: Rain's in the hospital, and we're waiting to see what's what. The vet wouldn't look me in the eye when he sent me home to wait. I took that to be kind of a bad sign. Meanwhile I'm working from home, and my auxiliary cat is being super-sweet and lovey. He's not used to being the only child.
************************************************************************

You know what's excruciating?
Watching your best (feline) friend's health falter to the point that it seems clear that his death is imminent. Today I watched him stand up and then do a violent face plant because his legs wouldn't hold him. He's only nine years old. I laid down on the floor with him and cried.
Last night I was sleeping with him in my arms, and I kept jolting awake because it felt like he wasn't breathing. There may be experiences more disconcerting than feeling like the creature you're cuddling is dying in your arms, but at the moment I can't imagine what they are.
Despite the fact that I got to hear some good music and see my buddy Daryl, it's been a pretty shitty weekend. And of course Rain's dramatic loss of faculties is timed perfectly; I have a paper due for grad school and lots of work to do for my job. Life sucks. And the one who would normally be a comfort to me, Rain, has devolved into a vegetable. Fuck.
- posted by loosh @ 12:57 AM :: 4 comments

 
work
     

     

                       
- posted by loosh @ 7:39 PM :: 3 comments

 
words on pages

The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls.
This memoir was really good, one of the best books I've read in a while. Right up there with The Time Traveler's Wife as the best books of the last year or more. It was definitely not a breezy read, though. During the first chapter or so I was psyched to read about a childhood that was actually more troubling than my own. I would read a section and go: WOW, that's quite troubling! And much worse than what I went through! That feeling fell away as I came to recognize some striking similarities between the author's family and my own. It's a fascinating read, and marvelously written. Go Ms. Walls, go.
- posted by loosh @ 10:45 PM :: 0 comments

 
the wobble that changed everything
This morning we had a kitty health reality check, which was a real bummer. As I was getting ready for work, I noticed that Rain (my significant other) had a funny look on his face. I watched him for a sec while I sipped my protein shake, and he vomited. Not too strange... but then he wobbled. A serious wobble. He staggered left, he staggered right. His facial expression was priceless; he looked like the stereotypical drunk guy in a saloon. He fell over gracelessly onto his side, and then with dilating pupils, looked up at me like, what the fuck is happening to me? I had a similar look on my face, and I thought (dramatically) ohhhh....everything is changing...right at this moment.

When he got up to try to walk it off, his hind legs wouldn't work. I thought maybe he had had a stroke or a seizure. This is definitely the weirdest/sickest I've ever seen him. He's a hearty guy. I got on the horn to our vet, who said that they were booked. She asked for his symptoms, after which she urged me to bring him in immediately. That urgency didn't do anything to calm my nerves. All the way to the vet's I talked to him, trying to calm him and soothe him. I postulated aloud that this was all just a bad case of dehydration, and that we'd laugh at my urgency later.

It wasn't dehydration. The vet thinks it was a seizure, and I await his call to tell me what the blood tests may or may not have told him about the cause. I can't tell if Rain's still wobbly or not because now every move his hind legs make seems strange to me, but he's in good spirits. He's sharing my lap with my laptop right now, as he usually does. He's got his kitty valium/anti-seizure meds, and he's got his concerned kittymomma at his beck and call. I'm so glad that I'm working full-time now, because when the vet hands you an expensive bill, you don't wanna be thinking about how many weeks of groceries are sprinting out of your wallet. You wanna be thinking: Bring it. Bring the hundred-dollar blood tests. Fix my baby, because money truly means nothing.

I really don't feel like I can live without him, and it felt like I might lose him this morning. Say what you will; I know cat ladies aren't revered in our culture. Especially single, childless cat ladies. But I am one, and I want my baby to be healthy and happy. Just yesterday I told him and his little nephew/boyfriend that coming home to them is the best part of my day. Every day.
That was such a weird feeling this morning, that feeling you get when someone you love is sick/unconscious and their body is failing them. They go blank for a bit, their "spirit" isn't there, and you remember with a jolt that they're just a collection of cells. That body that contains everything that you hold dear is just meat.

Which reminds me of a funny dead-cat story.
When I was 25 my best (feline) friend died. I had been with her since I was ten. She had seen me through things I literally never thought I would live through. I was, needless to say, distraught. I stayed home from work, I cried for days. She died in my arms at the vet's (on valentine's day, no less), and I couldn't afford the burial process 'til my next paycheck, so the vet, who I was loving more every minute, said she'd let me store my cat in the freezer. With her dog. Her dog had just died too, and she had to put him on ice until she could take him out and bury him. These are the weird little details of life. You can't usually bury your loved ones immediately after they die, so you have to fucking refrigerate their precious bodies until you have a plot and a shovel (and/or the cash). In the end I took my kitty in a Playmate cooler and buried her in the New Mexico mountains, with the best view I've ever seen.

But a couple days after she died my brother paid me a visit to see how I was doing. I was pretty flat, and when I mentioned offhandedly that my cat was being stored in the freezer, he blanched. I, being under the weather, didn't notice his shock. My brother thought I meant that I was keeping my cat in my own personal freezer. Like, next to the frozen peas and the orange juice canisters. I've always been of very sound emotional health and quite together in the face of trauma, and my poor bro thought that I had finally lost it. Cashed in my chips and put that pet I couldn't say farewell to right in the freezer, safe and sound. You can imagine how relieved he looked after he politely inquired further and found out that she was in an industrial vet freezer, meant for just this kind of storage.
- posted by loosh @ 7:35 PM :: 2 comments