So, I'm getting stuff ready for the big move.
Yes, it's stressful. I haven't moved in a long time and I've accumulated a lot of stuff. A surprisingly large amount of it is being tossed.
I have a new address, new phone number, and I'm working on getting my cable service moved, so that's out of the way. I spent an awful lot of money today on other things, today, like new mattresses, new phones, and some other stuff. Most of it will remain in the boxes it came in until I'm in the new place. I will be using the new mattresses, though--the ones I've been using are shot all to hell.
I actually find myself looking forward to it, in a way. Mostly looking forward to being done with it.
I still miss Atari. I dreamt about him last night. I still miss him, especially early in the mornings and in the early evenings, when we usually went for our walks. Last night I dozed off on the couch and I could swear for a moment he was standing there next to me, like he used to do when he wanted me to take him outside. I got his ashes from Banfield and they are on the dresser near his usual spot in the bedroom, where he spent most of his time. I reach up and touch the box when I'm back there, and talk to him like I used to. Maybe it's silly but it helps.
I just need to keep moving, keep that forward momentum, as hard as it is. One day, one day, the pain will fade, and I can remember the good things without the pain of the loss rushing back.
Sorry. I promised myself I would shut up about this, but I just can't. I do apologize. I know you understand.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Post trip randomocity
Just got in from a trip to my soon-to-be new hometown.
It was okay. Hopefully I have a new apartment. Also checked out the new office and my new desk. It's going to take some getting used to.
I still have a ton of crap to do at my current residence. I've been tossing some useless stuff--my goal is to get rid of as much as I can. Some of it--like my stereo, for instance--isn't really junk, but it's stuff I never use.
Then when I got back to town I went by Banfield to get Atari's ashes. They're in a nice little wooden box. I put them near his usual place in the back bedroom.
The good news from this week is Talyan, my goddaughter, is going to appear in two more episodes of Two and a Half Men--they shoot over the next couple of weeks. Her character name is Ava.
I'm exhausted but I can't seem to relax. Hopefully I'm just still wound up from the road. Maybe I can relax now. We'll see.
In the mean time I'm going to watch a few episodes of The Big Bang Theory. That always seems to help me get past these moods I get into.
It was okay. Hopefully I have a new apartment. Also checked out the new office and my new desk. It's going to take some getting used to.
I still have a ton of crap to do at my current residence. I've been tossing some useless stuff--my goal is to get rid of as much as I can. Some of it--like my stereo, for instance--isn't really junk, but it's stuff I never use.
Then when I got back to town I went by Banfield to get Atari's ashes. They're in a nice little wooden box. I put them near his usual place in the back bedroom.
The good news from this week is Talyan, my goddaughter, is going to appear in two more episodes of Two and a Half Men--they shoot over the next couple of weeks. Her character name is Ava.
I'm exhausted but I can't seem to relax. Hopefully I'm just still wound up from the road. Maybe I can relax now. We'll see.
In the mean time I'm going to watch a few episodes of The Big Bang Theory. That always seems to help me get past these moods I get into.
Monday, February 20, 2012
I miss my dog
It's been about 24 hours since Atari was put to sleep and I think I miss him more now than I did yesterday.
I keep being reminded of him at the damnedest times. Yesterday at around 4:00 I just felt this overwhelming urge to take a walk--I realized about half-way into it that this was about the usual time I walked Atari.
This morning I didn't go outside until mid-morning and it just felt wrong--because I used to walk him first thing in the morning, before I made breakfast. When I get out of bed I always check the floor first because he would come into the bedroom during the night and sleep on the floor next to the bed and I'd step on him sometimes when I got up.
Even resetting the alarm on my clock brought back some of the pain--I started getting up a half-hour earlier when he came to live with me, eight and a half years ago, so I'd have time to walk him before getting ready for work.
All day long I find myself allowing for him in my plans for the day--when should I start making dinner? When should I run errands? Planning to be around for him when he needed to go walkies.
Now I don't have to do that any more. I can cook when I want, I can come and go when I want, I don't have to worry about leaving him alone.
It's a freedom I do not want. I love you, Atari. I miss you, you big silly dog.
I keep being reminded of him at the damnedest times. Yesterday at around 4:00 I just felt this overwhelming urge to take a walk--I realized about half-way into it that this was about the usual time I walked Atari.
This morning I didn't go outside until mid-morning and it just felt wrong--because I used to walk him first thing in the morning, before I made breakfast. When I get out of bed I always check the floor first because he would come into the bedroom during the night and sleep on the floor next to the bed and I'd step on him sometimes when I got up.
Even resetting the alarm on my clock brought back some of the pain--I started getting up a half-hour earlier when he came to live with me, eight and a half years ago, so I'd have time to walk him before getting ready for work.
All day long I find myself allowing for him in my plans for the day--when should I start making dinner? When should I run errands? Planning to be around for him when he needed to go walkies.
Now I don't have to do that any more. I can cook when I want, I can come and go when I want, I don't have to worry about leaving him alone.
It's a freedom I do not want. I love you, Atari. I miss you, you big silly dog.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
RIP Atari
I just had my dog put to sleep.
I blogged about his troubles with arthritis earlier and that's what ultimately led to me making this decision. He was barely able to walk. Some days he could get around okay but it was becoming increasingly common for him to struggle to stand up. He was already taking the strongest medication he could take short of steroids--he couldn't take steroids because they would trash his immune system and with his bladder stone giving him perpetual bladder infections that would not be a good thing.
The vet's assistants took him in the back where they put a catheter on him, then brought him back into the room with me. I'd brought one of his beds, too, and he laid down on that--I sat on the floor to pet him and hug him and talk to him and kiss him. The vet finally came in with the sedative and the drug that stopped his heart. He fought against the injection of the sedative for just a second, then he laid his head down while the doc injected the second drug.
He literally just went to sleep. He didn't spasm or indicate he was in any pain at all. The only one feeling pain was me. I had no idea I could cry this much.
This apartment is so empty now. I could always sort of detect his prescence, even when he was out of sight, in the bedroom sleeping. Now I don't feel anything like that.
One day I'll get over this pain and remember all the good times. One day I think I'll be able to talk about him without developing a catch in my throat and tears starting in my eyes.
That day is a long time off. My best friend, my roommate, my child, is gone.
I blogged about his troubles with arthritis earlier and that's what ultimately led to me making this decision. He was barely able to walk. Some days he could get around okay but it was becoming increasingly common for him to struggle to stand up. He was already taking the strongest medication he could take short of steroids--he couldn't take steroids because they would trash his immune system and with his bladder stone giving him perpetual bladder infections that would not be a good thing.
The vet's assistants took him in the back where they put a catheter on him, then brought him back into the room with me. I'd brought one of his beds, too, and he laid down on that--I sat on the floor to pet him and hug him and talk to him and kiss him. The vet finally came in with the sedative and the drug that stopped his heart. He fought against the injection of the sedative for just a second, then he laid his head down while the doc injected the second drug.
He literally just went to sleep. He didn't spasm or indicate he was in any pain at all. The only one feeling pain was me. I had no idea I could cry this much.
This apartment is so empty now. I could always sort of detect his prescence, even when he was out of sight, in the bedroom sleeping. Now I don't feel anything like that.
One day I'll get over this pain and remember all the good times. One day I think I'll be able to talk about him without developing a catch in my throat and tears starting in my eyes.
That day is a long time off. My best friend, my roommate, my child, is gone.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Sick dog and Sunday morning randomocity
Atari's sick.
He had a serious bladder infection. He's been on antibiotics for almost a week and that looks to be cleared up now, for the most part--until yesterday it looked like he was peeing grape juice. Now his pee looks nice and clear.
Unfortunately this is because he's on really powerful antibiotics, which means when I get home from work there's usually a surprise or two or three hiding somewhere in my apartment.
There's another thing, though, and that's his arthritis. It's getting really bad, really fast--yesterday he couldn't make it up the stairs without my help. He can barely walk.
He goes back to the vet late this week for a follow up and they'll probably x-ray him, and I'm pretty sure it'll be time for his vet and I to have that talk. I think it's almost time to have him put down.
Hopefully I"m just being dramatic but I'm preparing myself. If this does happen I'm not sure how I'll handle it.
Whitney Houston died last night--I was chatting with a friend who is a huge fan of hers when the news came out. My friend is grief-stricken. I never listened to her music, myself--it's not my bag--but I understand those who are in serious mourning. Bon Scott and John Lennon helped me to make it through my adolescence and they both died within a month or so of each other. It was a brutal time in my life. So, even though I'm not all that affected by Whitney Houston's death, I understand those who are, and my thoughts are with her fans and her friends and family.
So, this morning, much love for everyone reading this. Peace.
He had a serious bladder infection. He's been on antibiotics for almost a week and that looks to be cleared up now, for the most part--until yesterday it looked like he was peeing grape juice. Now his pee looks nice and clear.
Unfortunately this is because he's on really powerful antibiotics, which means when I get home from work there's usually a surprise or two or three hiding somewhere in my apartment.
There's another thing, though, and that's his arthritis. It's getting really bad, really fast--yesterday he couldn't make it up the stairs without my help. He can barely walk.
He goes back to the vet late this week for a follow up and they'll probably x-ray him, and I'm pretty sure it'll be time for his vet and I to have that talk. I think it's almost time to have him put down.
Hopefully I"m just being dramatic but I'm preparing myself. If this does happen I'm not sure how I'll handle it.
Whitney Houston died last night--I was chatting with a friend who is a huge fan of hers when the news came out. My friend is grief-stricken. I never listened to her music, myself--it's not my bag--but I understand those who are in serious mourning. Bon Scott and John Lennon helped me to make it through my adolescence and they both died within a month or so of each other. It was a brutal time in my life. So, even though I'm not all that affected by Whitney Houston's death, I understand those who are, and my thoughts are with her fans and her friends and family.
So, this morning, much love for everyone reading this. Peace.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Philosophical musings brought on by The Thing, and a gentle reminder
I'm a big fan of John Carpenter's 1982 classic horror/science fiction film, The Thing--and if you haven't seen it you really need to. It hasn't aged a day--there won't be any scenes where you'll feel like it's a film that's around thirty years old.
I dug the 2011 prequel, too.
The basic premise is the discovery of a spaceship that crashed in Antartica a couple hundred thousand years ago. It's buried under several feet of ice. Eventually it's found by a team of Norwegian scientists who also find the occupant frozen a few feet away. They take this creature back to their compound to thaw it out and take a look.
Unfortuantely, it ain't dead.
What this Thing does is mimic other creatures. This is how it feeds. What it prefers to do is grap hold of something or someone and swallow them, sort of running them through it's digestive system until it spits out a creature that is an exact duplicate, but is actually a Thing in and of itself.
Thing is (pun unintended this time), a few cells will also do it. It'll just take longer. They'll work like a virus, grabbing ahold of individual cells, injecting them with its own DNA which will take over that cell, making it into an exact duplicate but which will then seek out other cells, etc., etc., until the host is composed entirely of the alien cells. Since the duplicate cells are indistinguishable from alien cells, the body's immune system wouldn't attack them.
So, even if you were only slightly infected, eventually you would become a Thing.
In the films people who were infected acted just like they always did--until they sprouted tentacles and started killing their comrades, that is. Until that happened no-one was sure who was infected and who wasn't--its mimicry was that good. Which sort of leads me to think that it has access to memories and the personality of the host.
My wondering is this: supposed I get infected with a few cells without even knowing it and these things run wild, eventually replacing all of my cells with alien cells. But apparently my memories and the things that make me me are intact. So, would I know that I was no longer me? Would I in fact no longer be me? If all of my cells have been replaced by identical alien cells but I still look and act like I always do, how would I know?
There's actually a scene in the Carpenter film that I believe uses this. One of the scientists has chest pains and passes out--he had a heart attack. During attempts to revive him, it's discovered that he's actually a Thing. I really thing the guy didn't even know it.
Anyways, this is the type of stuff I wonder about sometimes. There's a story in there somewhere, I just know it. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. And yes, I'm aware of Democritus's speculation about the boat that is completely rebuilt and that this is sort of the same thing. Doesn't mean it isn't an interesting question.
Now, to the reminder portion. If you're in the US, mark your calendar to watch tomorrow night's episode of Two And A Half Men, guest starring my beautiful and talented little goddaughter, Talyan Wright. Her character name is Ava, and she's seven, soon to be eight years old. America is about to have a new sweetheart.
I know you'll be watching!
I dug the 2011 prequel, too.
The basic premise is the discovery of a spaceship that crashed in Antartica a couple hundred thousand years ago. It's buried under several feet of ice. Eventually it's found by a team of Norwegian scientists who also find the occupant frozen a few feet away. They take this creature back to their compound to thaw it out and take a look.
Unfortuantely, it ain't dead.
What this Thing does is mimic other creatures. This is how it feeds. What it prefers to do is grap hold of something or someone and swallow them, sort of running them through it's digestive system until it spits out a creature that is an exact duplicate, but is actually a Thing in and of itself.
Thing is (pun unintended this time), a few cells will also do it. It'll just take longer. They'll work like a virus, grabbing ahold of individual cells, injecting them with its own DNA which will take over that cell, making it into an exact duplicate but which will then seek out other cells, etc., etc., until the host is composed entirely of the alien cells. Since the duplicate cells are indistinguishable from alien cells, the body's immune system wouldn't attack them.
So, even if you were only slightly infected, eventually you would become a Thing.
In the films people who were infected acted just like they always did--until they sprouted tentacles and started killing their comrades, that is. Until that happened no-one was sure who was infected and who wasn't--its mimicry was that good. Which sort of leads me to think that it has access to memories and the personality of the host.
My wondering is this: supposed I get infected with a few cells without even knowing it and these things run wild, eventually replacing all of my cells with alien cells. But apparently my memories and the things that make me me are intact. So, would I know that I was no longer me? Would I in fact no longer be me? If all of my cells have been replaced by identical alien cells but I still look and act like I always do, how would I know?
There's actually a scene in the Carpenter film that I believe uses this. One of the scientists has chest pains and passes out--he had a heart attack. During attempts to revive him, it's discovered that he's actually a Thing. I really thing the guy didn't even know it.
Anyways, this is the type of stuff I wonder about sometimes. There's a story in there somewhere, I just know it. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. And yes, I'm aware of Democritus's speculation about the boat that is completely rebuilt and that this is sort of the same thing. Doesn't mean it isn't an interesting question.
Now, to the reminder portion. If you're in the US, mark your calendar to watch tomorrow night's episode of Two And A Half Men, guest starring my beautiful and talented little goddaughter, Talyan Wright. Her character name is Ava, and she's seven, soon to be eight years old. America is about to have a new sweetheart.
I know you'll be watching!
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