Trooping through the Grass

I am not sure why I have been so tired lately, or why I have needed to take a nap in the middle of the day. Perhaps sleeping is my reaction to stress. I've been feeling the sort of existential disconnect that make great novels, and of course, it is all connected to considering my place in the world and the state of affairs it (and I) am currently in.

It seems that my biggest challenge during this stage of my life is learning to be happy in the face of everything that seems to be headed in the wrong direction. I wish society was nicer, more concerned about the true and beneficial growth of the individual, less concerned with the material selfishness of getting ahead, less focused on contention and pain, and committed to taking care of those who are less fortunate. When I say all of that though, I realize how far away that I am from fulfilling those conditions personally. Evidence of the disconnect I mentioned earlier perhaps. But enough of being vague.

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During my afternoon nap, I had a dream that I was at Woodstock '69 listening to a concert being given by a lesser known musician. She was on stage playing her guitar. She was very beautiful, but did not seem especially connected to the crowd. She had some sort of weird face jewelery that I could not make out entirely, but it was interesting and stylish. Eventually though, as the crowd surged and morphed around the stage, I found myself wandering out into the nearby fields of tall and sunlit grasses.

As I stood looking out toward the horizon, I noticed a small troop of hippie children walking down the sloping hill in front of me. They had long hair and happy faces. They were playing a sort of game. I sat upon the ground and watched as they walked almost single file through the tall grasses, laughing and talking. They seemed to have a single minded purpose to their play, but what that was, I did not have a clue. I watched as they filed passed me. I considered taking a photograph of the stripling in front and the older children behind him. The kid in front was a happy-enough child leader who had a long and wild tumble of curly hair falling about his shoulders. They did not take much notice of me. I turned to watch them go and edge themselves along the garden behind me. The afternoon sun was warm and friendly.

And then I woke up. I really don't know what the dream symbolized if anything, but I remember a sort of wistfulness about it that stuck with me for an hour or two. I think part of me felt like I was being "passed by" in life in general, that I was missing something. But I did not (and do not) know what.

For most of my life, I think I have felt like an outsider looking in on things. An observer who can see how some of the puzzle pieces fit together, come to an insightful conclusion that others can be impressed with, but the price of having knowledge that others do not is the isolation that it imposes. It is a shame. I am trying to participate more in my own life, be an active leader of it and directing it to where I want it to go. But I do not think that I am having much luck with that. I go between wanting to steer my life in satisfying direction and figuring out how to cope with the things one must face in life that can not be changed, or live up to the serious consequences of decisions that seemed frivolous at the time. (One of my greatest frustrations is how a seemingly innocent and inconsequential choice that I believe will lead to some small measure of happiness turns out to have serious long term and unhappy consequences for the future. If only I had the ability to predict this better, maybe I would not feel so trapped in the future.)

The Sting of Pain

Just this afternoon, I got a call from a sad friend who is having a bad time lately. And I offered as much hope and support as I could for anyone in a difficult circumstance. I think I did a pretty good job, but perhaps that is because my struggles with depression has given me some hard won experience about how to comfort a sad person. I tried to say all of kinds of things I wished someone would say to me when I am feeling down.

But at the end of the conversation, when my friend was feeling slightly better, I began to experience a kind of malaise or emotional slump. I had all of this work that I wanted to do, but instead, I was side-tracked into thinking what was wrong about me. Why, for example, I am nearly a forty-year-old man with no decent prospects of a comfortable job, nice house, family, etc? Have I ruined my life already? Did I have a string of bad luck? Did I ever really have a decent chance? I think I just want the classic American dream sort of stuff. I am not a teenager, so the fantasies about being rich and famous have mellowed down into a comfortable life with people who I love in a place that is secure enough from financial disaster that I won't have to worry about losing my job or a place to live. Security is my biggest dream, and I dread losing it. Maybe the American dream is dead, and now exists as some sort of phantom haunting people who still believe in it, or maybe being exploited by people with power and money to keep the masses pliant and full of hope for a better life while being ripped off by people with power and money.

I am trapped by my desires for both security and a ridiculously romantic and deeply emotional relationship from an attentive and attractive woman. The first is something that eludes my grasp, and the second, as ugly as it is to say, is sort of dependent on the first. Most of the women in our society are not going to want to have a romantic relationship with a man who has no money, no job, and no prospects of climbing out of the staggering debts he accumulated at University. Universities may have once been avenues for getting ahead and attaining that sort of social mobility that would make me happy, but now it seems they are shells of what they once were. They have become enablers of foolish hope. They will earnestly feed you lines about how they will make you life better, get you a job where you earn a middle class pay, and charge you exorbitant fees in the mean-time. When you graduate, and those things do not materialize, you feel cheated. You see many, many others bitter and depressed about their college experience, and you slowly begin to feel like a giant chump.

I would write more about my own frustrations about this life and the things that once seemed possible but no longer are. But at the moment, I find myself in a position to where my most immediate desire is to figure out a way to remove the sting of pain from the heart of someone else. I am not sure that I can, but I really wish I could.

The Monster

Life has been more painful than usual lately. I could elaborate on the details, but then that would only cause more pain to others and wisdom is more often found in silence. So, the breath of speech is held, and the invisible fingers of mist wind slowly around my neck. Clasped over my throat, those fingers massage the pain into an increasing strangle. I will not share that with anyone more than is absolutely necessary for me to try and get rid of it. So, you won't know what it is that is bothering me, or the confused mess I feel myself in.

Details aside, I will say that my depression is in full form. I have personified in the past as a hulking monster, yet seemingly-affable, that sits beside you on a low stool and whispers in your ear from behind how much it loves you. This is the monster that eats your horrified shadow while you watch, powerless to resist. And once having had your shadow eaten, you become part monster yourself, inured to the good feelings the same way you were before, emotionally numb with only the hints of a dull cold shock of pain glazing over your eyes to indicate that anything might be really wrong. You are zombie. You are ghost.

I have wrestled with this monster before. I wish him on no one because he is truly an evil that has no hope of redemption. Even the hands of compassion are withered and decayed when they reach out to it in the hopes of soothing him. But, his is a nature that cannot be soothed, a devouring fire that burns and sears mens' hearts. The villagers of happy life have selected me, the warrior against the monster of depression, to venture into the dark and chilly bogs of pain and prevent him invading their town. They trust that I can do it, even if they do not see the scars of horror that gets branded on my own soul. My shield is nearly broken and my sword is chipped from a million constant skirmishes, but it is my duty to face it. I have been selected. And it is much my fate to be banished from the town and fight this monster in order that others will not have to face him on their own. I will not share him. The monster, part my own creation anyway, is solely my responsibility. As a traveler, hunter of this frigid beast, I can see the outskirts of the town of happiness, peer at the huts, watch the men hold their children and express love for their wives and the people they care about. But, I know they will also never see me. I am hidden in a thicket of brambles, lost in an envelope of a million shadows. I venture further into to the shadows to face him again. He will never see the town as I have. I know I can stop him from that, but it won't be easy. The mortal dangers of the battle are frighteningly real so it is imperative that I do not lose to him.

Abstractions

Just going to note here how long it has been since I last posted on my blog, but I am not going to say too much more about it. I was pretty busy last term, and thinking about topics for blogging that don't reveal too much personal things about myself or other people is hard. I can see how the really "honest" writers, as they would depict themselves, wind up making a lot of enemies because of their willingness to mine their personal lives and interactions with other people as source of material for their writing. I am not the sort of person to do that. I'm much more private, which probably means that I don't take as many risks as I should or is necessary for improvement of my writing, but I am not willing to potentially upset many people.

It turns out, as far as I can see, that most people live somewhat complicated lives that are filled with partial secrets. What do I mean by that? Okay, well -- just for a minute think about how multi-faceted people and their interactions with others are. I behave one way with my friends at school, and their perception of me is shaped by this behavior and the collection of previous experiences with me when we interact. I make "claims," stated and unstated (as we all do), about my life. And so, they wind up with a "perception" of me. I, in turn, interact with my friends at school based on my "perception" of them, as well as the "perception" of myself when we're interacting together. However, I behave in a slightly different way with my sisters based on a similar process of interaction and the collection of experiences they have had with me in the past. All of which might lead them to see me in a way that appears contradictory to the way my friends see me.

It is a differential kind of definition of one self. These perceptions of me and the way they modulate together together are all true, and yet, never complete. So, I am not defined as a person in the absolute, but in they ways my temporal interactions are perceived by myself and other people. No one can ever say with 100% certitude that I am "quiet guy," because sometimes I am and sometimes I am not. That definition also depends on your experience and interaction with me, which because no-one is with anyone except themselves all of the time, is only part of the picture.

Why am I bringing all of this up at the moment and being so vague about talking about other people. I suppose the real reason is that I am frustrated by my own lack of close interactions with the people I currently have some daily experience with. I want to be emotionally closer to certain people, but the collection of traits and attributes that define me to those people (perhaps true insofar as any statement about people can be true) seem to prevent that. They might say to themselves, "oh, that zhaf, he's a real card!" Or they might say "zhaf is a pretty quiet guy." Or they might say, "I like zhaf, but he kind of weirds me out." Or they might say, "what is that guy's deal?"

As I walked into campus the other day, I passed by the bus stop. I am nearly a forty year old man with and unconventional (but not inappropriate) manner of dress. I would say that I look a little like an old hippie. I was raised by hippies, so this isn't all that unusual to me. Since the bus is just about to arrive to pick people up and drop them off, thirty people are standing there. Some are sitting in the bus shelter alcove on the bench, most are standing in a loose group together with lots of personal space between them. They each have their own personality quirks. I particularly note the one guy with the unusually large beard. Almost without exception, they stare at me as I walk by. Each seems to be noticing my unusual appearance, probably especially the two long braids hanging along the side of my face. I feel like an outsider even though, to my mind, I am expressing who I am. My hair is the one area of personal expression to the outside world that is totally in my control. Maybe I would be a snappier dresser if I had the money for nice clothes and a stylist or fashion consultant.

Another thing that I am realizing as time goes on is that poverty, and the daily experience of it, especially as an adult, has shaped me and my thoughts more than I would really care for it to. I am less likely to feel that life is going to be fair than I was when I was younger. So, yes. I know. I know. The old cliche, right? The one that says "life isn't fair." I always knew that, and so did you. But the stronger belief in our culture is one that says the opposite, but not explicitly so. This other belief is that if you want something, and work hard for it, it will eventually happen for you. This is the counterpoint to the "life isn't fair" cliche: "hard work will be rewarded." Perhaps one reason that it is not explicitly stated in a similar cliche is that when it is explicitly expressed, most people will realize that it isn't true. So, it does it work underneath the surface of yourself. And in my case, I am realizing that in the war between the poverty experience of "life isn't fair," and the middle class value of "hard work pays off with rewards," the "life isn't fair" side is winning.

I am trying to improve my lot in life with school, with self-improvement, with minor (outward) image adjustments, and the occasional realization or two. And yet, the whole process can be a frustrating experience, maybe because I am at the middle of my life and I still don't have a lot to show for work I have done. I feel like sometimes I am condemned to be trapped by difficult circumstances, and when I finally work my way out of them, it will be too late to achieve the kinds of things I would have wanted to achieve. It's complicated, and sometimes, it feels like a fresh disappointment is waiting around the corner. For example, the new one is a regret about not being more social in high school. Yes, I had other issues going on at that time that helped prevent that, but I think - what if? Anyway, enough of this kind of self-analysis for now.

The Cat and the Colecovision

School has been really busy lately. There are a million little things that I could be doing at any one moment, but for the last two days, I think I ran out of steam. I am definitely going to be picking back up tonight, and then of course, for the rest of the week. The plus side of everything is that I have not yet fallen behind on my major projects, but then again, it's only a beginning so far. I have to print out some things and consult with my instructors about the progress of the projects that I have been working on.

One of the projects is for a phony catalog for a fake company that we make up on our own. I chose a classic videogame company as my company because I happened to have a lot of the items left over from my past. It did not reuqire me going out and spending a bunch of money, although, truth be told. I did manage to spend a chunk of change on the center piece of the catalog, a working classic atari game system with several cartridges. The colecovision that I have left over is my own, but years of neglect and poor care have made it a little ugly. I spent more time cleaning these silly things than I did photographing them. Another issue that I will need to address at some point is my lighting. I need about another light, maybe some white gauze for a phony soft box and a reflector. Unfortunately, I only have two hands, so I can't hold four things at once while I click the shutter button and hope everything comes out right. The cat picture above is a representation of what I have been working on, minus the cat of course. I think I need to work on having more confidence with my vision for this thing. I know have an interesting idea; I just wish I could feel better about my ability to execute it. Also for this project, I drew a bunch of gophers, for the company logo.

Overall, I think things have been going well. I am on a better schedule, school is going pretty good so far (even as busy as I have been), and for social life stuff, I decided to really jump on board with the whole facebook thing. Not the quizzes and games as much as the ability to reconnect with old friends. I know that some people are already sick of it, but I am not sure if I am going to give it up as easily. I jumped on the whole personal blog bandwagon when it was popular many years ago, and even though the blog fad has worn off to a large degree, I am still plugging away at it. I feel like I should post more, but if I manage a post at least once a month, I think I am doing good.

My Break

School has started once again, and Monday will be the beginning of the second week. Perhaps the most surprising thing about this term is how I am already very busy. There are a million little things that need to be done just about each day, and it is hard not to get too overwhelmed by them. Fortunately, I think I am still on top of it. I have not turned in anything late so far, and that is always a good thing.

On the downside, I knew last term was going to be a bit of a bear because I was playing catch up from a terrible last year, but I thought I had one class nailed down well enough to get an A. It turns out I did not. The last two major projects did not meet the instructor's expectations, and that might be a result of my not consulting with her frequently about it. And that, my friends, is a hard thing for me to do, for a lot of reasons. One of them is that I feel like I am almost always am bothering someone with my issues if I end up talking to them about myself for more than two minutes. I know that there are some students who would have no problem parking themselves in the instructors office for a half hour or more monopolizing their time, but I am not that student. I guess I am the exact opposite: the student who the instructor never hears from unless there is a problem that needs to be worked out, but even then only for a minute and a half.

It will be an interesting tomorrow. I hope I have managed my time well enough to where I will not be too overburdened with work during the middle of the week.

So, catching up on personal news for a moment, I spent most of the winter break housebound. I seriously did not get out of the house except on maybe two or three occasions. I sat in my room and played games or watched television. I even took to standing outside in the cold sunlight just to feel air on my skin again. And, I suppose it goes without saying that I spent a lot of time on the internet. I did manage to draw one or two things, but I did not feel like I had the energy to work hard on my art like I thought I was going to. Fortunately, a day before school started, my sister loaned me her car for several months so I at least can finish this term with transportation. The term after that might be slightly more problematic. Getting out of the house has been nice too. (The drawback to being out and about though is spending money, something which I try very hard not to do since I hardly have any.)

One bad habit that I got on winter break was that I stayed up until 2 or 3 am in the morning and woke up at 10 am or later. This meant that my first week of school has been difficult to adjust to because my schedule has been off. It's my own fault for making that mistake of course, but I am hoping to change that soon. Today, I took a nap in the middle of the afternoon, and tonight I will go to bed at a decent hour. This, I hope, will reset my internal clock a little bit so that getting up at 6 or 7 am on Tuesdays will not present as much of a struggle as it did last week.

I did read more like I wanted to during the break, but I did not finish the book I started. I also intend on buying a notebook so I can write more often offline when the mood strikes. My overarching goal is try to be more creative and artistically accomplished with my art and various school assignments. I have two more terms to really knock this stuff out, and then it is on to finding real work at an actual job. We shall see how it goes in the next few weeks.

Finally Finals

I somehow managed to come out of my latest depression. I think getting back on a steady medication schedule, as well as being really busy with school for the last week, really helped me pull out of it. I almost did not finish my courses this term and was(am) still worried about both my ability to complete the school year, or hold a full-time job when I get out. The economy is so bad right now that finding work seems really difficult. But, finals are finally over and if I don't think about much of anything, I have at least a couple of weeks to relax and catch up on sleep.

The biggest event as of late was that my car died. I really wish it hadn't, but to be honest, it was a long time in coming. It was an elderly car, 20 years old, and had 300,000 miles on it. I guess cars aren't meant to last too much longer than that. The specific cause of the car's death was the broken timing belt. It threw the engine out of time, and that caused the engine to run poorly and bend a valve. Someone (who knows these things) said that the broken timing belt likely caused other problems that would not be discovered until they opened the engine and looked inside. It was becoming ever more clear that the problems my car had were going to cost a lot of money to fix, more money than it was worth to fix. I suppose I could have tried to get the repair shop to fix those problems, but the money I would have spent on repairs would be better allocated towards a new(er) car.

My friend from way back called me last night to see how things were going. It was interesting to hear about his life: a job, a family, a house. Three things I don't have yet, and now that I am reaching the center of middle-age, these things seem even more unlikely. I am at a point where those thoughts are not as depressing as they might seem. It is just a different set of realities.

The weather has been overwhelmingly cold lately, and tonight, the local stations were predicting a little snow, and a lot of freezing rain. If the power goes out, it will be very inconvenient. Life will get a lot slower and a lot colder. However, I have already chosen a book I am going to read as a way to entertain myself if that happens: Charles Dicken's "Hard Times." One of these days, I am going to go back to Bleak House and read that, but I found it a little hard to focus on it, especially when I was so busy with design work. I hope the power stays on and the temperatures get above freezing again, but in case it doesn't, I've got a flashlight, a few blankets, and a book to read.

Magic Stop Watches

If I had a magic stop-watch, I think I would probably use it every other day. Click!, and time would be frozen. Just for maybe a day or two, so I could get my bearings, sort some personal emotions out, steel myself for the inevitable unpleasantness that would await me when time began again. Living time out of synch would be more of an alignment for me, since as it is, time always seems to be marching ahead before I am ready for it.

There were only a thousand things that I should have done over the weekend, but by Monday, there were a million. And all I could do was lie in bed all day. I couldn't even muster enough courage to eat dinner. I will try and face the music tomorrow. I am contemplating a long discussion with both my instructors about the nature of my depression this time, but frankly, even though it might be necessary to do have these talks to salvage my grades and my term, I would rather do almost anything else: push a marble around with my nose for a few hours maybe.

Every day that I experience a struggle with my depression, I find myself trying to cope with the fact of its disabling reality. Depression, for me, is not merely a set of circumstances that come together in a poor or awkward way to make me feel bad. I feel bad because of a chemical imbalance in my brain that is akin to a broken bone in my leg. A broken bone is not a perception; it is a fact, an existent reality that is indifferent to all opinions. You do not say, "if I just pretended my leg was not broken, I could walk on it without a crutch or a cast." You would not tell other people with broken legs that, "it's all in your head, your leg is not really broken. You just don't have the proper strength of character to walk around like a 'normal' person."

Another one of the various things that I am finding about depression is this: in order to try and live a normal life I have to do a couple of things. The first is perhaps the easiest: take my medication every day. I used to be resistant to it thinking that I could "will" myself to be better, but having been on the right medication for the last couple of months, I am finding that the difference it makes is hard to deny. Taking medication, while the easiest of the various tasks depression demands of you, is not always easy. If you don't have money for medications, you have to scrounge money for it, get free samples, or pray you get on a patient assistance program. For instance, I ran out of the free samples of medication I got from my doctor the other day and did without for about a week. He gave me a prescription for the pill form of the medicine, but it took a day or so to fill it, and then it still cost nearly 40 bucks or so, even with a discount. In the mean time, I had "titrated" off the medicine. That sort of yo-yo'ing on and off medicine makes you more resistant to it, not something that I want or need to have happen.

Depression also seems to be requiring me to talk to people about it when it affects my life negatively, and not always the people I want to discuss it with, and the people I do discuss it with may not always understand. Depression has a stigma (even in 2009, even though it seems like the whole world has it these days). And, I find that among certain people, depression is equivalent to weakness. I can't change minds like those or expect much sympathy or understanding, even if the law, school attorneys, or anyone else for that matter, might require those in authority to have a sympathetic response. You can see the dissonance in their eyes as they look at you warily. In any event, the talk with my instructors that I am contemplating having might go something like this:

"Hello, Mr. H----? Yes, hi. I am just wanted to talk to about my school work. I haven't been able to complete our most recent project lately because I have been experiencing a heavy bout of depression, partially due to the illness I had last week, which in turn caused me to fall behind on things. I know I should have called yesterday to inform you about my absence, but it took all of my courage to eat breakfast and take a shower. I am so sorry if this causes any trouble. I am hoping to get things completed by the end of the term, especially for your classes. I know that there may not be much that you can do to help me out with my projects and their tardiness, but if there is something, I would appreciate it more than you can imagine. Once again, I apologise."

I would then try to explain how my depression affects me, or even what it is again in terms of brain chemistry. I might even go so far as to show him the medications that I am using. I had a letter from the disability office at school about my depression and perhaps need for my time, but it is largely a symbolic agreement of goodwill between the student and the instructor, a paper tiger. As far as I know, there is nothing where the instructor would be "required" to grant me more time without penalty.

I do happen to think that most of my instructors are sympathetic people, but I also worry that they don't understand. Maybe they see me as complaining too much, as an ineffectual weirdo who can't get his act together on any given day of the week. I have seen those internet post from instructors complaining about one difficult student or another. Having been a college instructor (okay, graduate teaching assistant), I know that a lot of students have problems. So, it would stand to reason, some instructors might be completely inured to lot of pleading from students. I've met a couple. I may say depression cripples my life sometimes, but I worry that all instructors actually hear is a feeble excuse along the lines of "the dog ate my homework."

I would write much more about all of this, but it is time for bed. I really, really, need to pull it together, face the music, take my lumps, and move on with school and the rest of this term. I hope that I can salvage some of it. Even if I can, I will still have a lot of work to do, and I am hoping that maybe when I get into the lab, and start making progress on my work, the thin and whispery tendrils of hope will creep in again and I will pull out of my emotional nose-dive.

Cold Fire

The other night I had a dream of sorts that was really quite amazing. It wasn't about images, except maybe geometric shapes forming a circle. The the inside of a temple dome perhaps. In any event, the real substance of the dream was an emotion of an intense happiness that radiated to the core of my being. It was just a little unreal, and felt almost too happy, at least more than what should seem normal in real life. I tried to hold on to the feeling in the dream but, just like that, it slipped away.

Tonight, that dream seems ironic because I am fairly certain I am really depressed at the moment. I am worried about my long term ability to support myself and pay my already accumulated debts, which are substantial (at least to me.) The anxiety I feel about the future is the spark that ignites a cold fire that burns through my confidence, my hope for myself, and my sense of security. Medication helps, but my supply was interrupted for a bit because the doctor's office ran out of free samples. The various people I talk to during a day would say my depression is a natural result of not having medication for a few days, but I can't help but think the medication is actually masking my problems, which are real and "out there," not just internal. My problems have a substance that is unaffected by whatever attitude or emotion I happen to feeling at that moment.

If I had the opportunity to make other choices over again, I would. Graduate school would be one of those things I wouldn't do. Too much money and not enough return. I think my hopes were exploited for money by colleges that were willing to promise brighter tomorrows. Maybe if I were from the middle classes I aspired to, I would have been able to navigate grad. school better, been able to reap the rewards of familiarity from professional colleagues that so often helps people get ahead.

Right now, it is the middle of the night (4:00am.) I have class in 12 hours, and at two over-due projects still to do. I should have spent the last four days working on them but, except for a marathon homework session on Wednesday, I spent most of the time in bed doing not much of anything in particular.

I would try talking to other people about it more--people who have special meaning in my life--but to them, it just seems like I am complaining about things I can't really change. In that regard, they are right, except I would say lamenting or grieving instead of complaining. The responses from others that I seem to get are either along the lines of "me too," or "fake it until you make it." "Somehow things always work out for the best," they say.

But, I feel that I am too educated to believe that is always the case. Yes, maybe things aren't as dire as they seem, but then again the world can be very cruel and no amount of wishful thinking is going to change difficult circumstances. I've always disliked those philosophies that say that internal positive thinking creates an outward positive reality, an emotional telekinesis that says you can manipulate your mind to attract (when they often mean force) good, and typically material, benefits. The universe is turned into your personal butler, and all you have to do is to learn the trick to get it to do your bidding. Want 500 dollars? Send positive energy into the Universe to get it. Seems highly dishonest to me, even offensive.

I think that the honest acknowledgment of the seriousness and reality of my problems would help reassure me that my perceptions are real and not irretrievably distorted by depression. And, that, for some reason I don't clearly understand, would make me feel better.

Perhaps, a big part of why I would feel better might be that I'd feel reassured that my grip on reality has not slipped, that my judgment is still intact. And then, if that were the case, I would have the firm hope that since I knew the problem as objectively as I possibly could know it, I might be able to find a way to adapt, or even (dare to hope) find a solution.

I've lost at least 10 pounds in the last couple of weeks. I hardly eat breakfast anymore. I am behind in my work. My car is getting more unreliable. I have no money. I am not where I want to be with my art. I feel like a fraud much of the time. I haven't been able to take a shower since Friday. I still cough up phlegm more than a week later, even though the main symptoms of the virus I had have gone away. At times, I really don't like myself very much and can't see why anyone else would either.

Still, for all of that, I will go to school in the morning (six hours from now maybe), and I will try to work on my projects as best as I am able. Sometimes, after the last class is over for that given day, the anxiety surfaces and I feel it best to flee for home and get in bed again.

Yeah, I do try to fight it. The thing about it now, as opposed to three or four years ago, is that, even though I am more aware about the depression I have and its physical causes, I am less able to force myself through it as I was when I was a young man. Ignorance about my depression gave me the strength of will to blunder through daily activities with a tenacity that usually carried me pretty far. Nowadays, I feel like the fighting I did back then to push through did more harm than good. It was futile. So often, during my weaker moments, I find myself back in bed, doing my best to forget about my problems. And trying to forget takes up a lot of energy, almost to the point where I can't really do much else.

Busy week

This week has been pretty busy, with the end of result of my being sick. I slept most of the day today, but now, I am up at 1:00 a.m. and it feels like my eyeballs are going to explode. I just took some Nyquil, so let's see what happens. I am really hoping that I feel better by Sunday at least, because being sick really stinks.

So, it has been constantly raining for the last couple of weeks, and I mean constantly. And yet, when I woke up on Tuesday, I saw daylight and was told that it was going to be sunny until later in the afternoon. Now, here's the thing. I have a brochure project due in class in a week or two, and the project is supposed to advertise a local town as a vacation destination, but due to the rain, I haven't gotten the photos I needed. I had to make an executive decision. After a moment of thought, I called up my instructors and told them that I wasn't going to class that day. I then spent the next six hours or so taking landscape and architecture pictures of the given town. I got a handful of strange looks from the locals, especially since I was using my tripod to get the photos I needed, but looking back, I am glad I took that day off from school because the rain started up again and hasn't really stopped since.

Wednesday was Veteran's day, so I had that day off from school too. I spent the majority of my time that day reviewing the photos I took and color correcting them as best I could. I probably could use another photo session of the town, but I don't really want to drive out there again -- four separate trips should be enough.

Thursday, our class went to the major art museum in the biggest urban town of our state. I have to say, I wasn't all that impressed with the exhibit we went up there to see specifically. Yes, it was interesting, but it wasn't all that different from things I have seen before. Some of the items on display could easily be found as reproductions for sale on internet sites. However, after the official class tour was over, I decided that I would stick around and see the rest of what the museum had to offer and that part was much more interesting. I met up with the foreign exchange student and we took a leisurely walk through the rest of the exhibits. It was nice to have a companion as we walked past famous, and not so famous, works of art. I liked the Kenny Scharf and the Basquiat works, but the classical impressionist stuff was pretty cool too.

And, of course, on the next day, I got sick. My head is killing me, and the chills I had earlier in the night have been replaced by a fever and the sweats. I really hope I feel better soon. I have too much work to do to be sick for very long.

Famous Designer

Designer Presentation

Tonight, I went to a presentation given by a famous designer about her work. You might be able to tell from the image who it was, especially if you're familiar with the work she's displaying, but then again, you might not. I am not going to say who it was just because this is my personal blog, and I wouldn't want keyword searches on her name directing people here. I am still not sure if I care if that happens or not. Whatever. For the time being, in my uncertainty, she'll remain a mystery (unless you already know.)

So, at the beginning of school term, the instructor in my layout class mentioned that the famous designer you see in my photo here would be appearing in our state in two places: one place in the state's biggest city, and one at the state university about forty minutes away from where I live. I'm intrigued by successful people, so I knew that I wanted to go, and the state university one sounded like my best option.

Normally, I have another class that meets at the time when I should be getting in my increasingly elderly car to drive the forty minutes to this presentation. And this other class is about forty minutes in the totally other direction. It seemed crazy to drive forty minutes to class only to spend a half hour there before having to leave to go to the presentation that would now be eighty minutes away. Staying home from school seemed like the only sane choice.

In my typical fashion, I wasn't sure where I needed to go, so at the last minute, I called this other school's library. A student worker answered the phone and introduced her self with an unusual name. Although I had already thought about the question I had planned to ask her, I was thrown off. My question came out in chunks, and finally I stopped in mid-sentence. I stammered, "excuse, me. I am sorry. What is your name?" She repeated it, and I replied in what I hope was a friendly tone, "wow, that's an interesting name." It was very stupid thing for me to say because I should have said "nice" or "beautiful name" because interesting is what people say to be polite when they actually hate something. Of course, I didn't hate her name, I was genuinely impressed by it. It was totally out of my character to ask people personal questions like these, but for some reason, I did it. She was very friendly and answered the questions I needed to ask.

Even though I had planned to leave much earlier that I did and visit the art gallery, I only managed to get out of town with just enough time to get to the presentation a few minutes late. My first problem was that I took too much time getting dressed, and my second problem was the unexpected difficulties with parking. The school was packed with cars, and navigating on these gigantic campuses are always trouble merely for the sheer amount of student pedestrians and cyclists milling around and in the streets.

The venue in which the famous designer was presenting was entirely inappropriate for her for the simple fact that the room could not hold everyone who wanted to attend. I had overheard from another person that she was visiting from yet a third college. There must have been many other people, like me, who had come in from other places. I stood in the hallway in the back and strained to hear what the famous designer was saying. It seemed like she was presenting her works and talking about the concepts that they represented.

I had hoped that she would have talked about her background and creative process much more, rather than her somewhat mechanical cataloging of her work. While it was interesting to hear her representation of the subjects of her work and what she intended their thematic meanings to be, it wasn't as insightful as I had hoped.

The thing about works of art, any work of art, is that interpretation is such a personal thing that anyone can come to their own conclusions fairly easily (if they are thoughtful and rigorous thinkers.) The work, to each of us in its own way, speaks for itself.

As a student of design, it would have been more helpful to hear about her approaches to her subjects, how she tackles the visual problems and themes she encounters, or how she solves the problem of typography in her work. I felt that her presentation was essentially like looking at the vacation photos of another family. Yes, I am sure it was a nice trip, but can you give me any advice about how to go on my own adventure?

After the last slide, the lights in the room came on, and a representative of the college, a balding professorial man in an argyle sweater, announced that there were refreshments in the lobby and that the famous designer would be signing copies of her portfolio. The portfolio cost fifteen dollars more than I had with me, and I did not have a checkbook. Nevertheless, I intended to stick around and ask her a question or two if I could. I met up with some of my fellow students in the lobby who, like me, had driven from far away to get there. I was surprised to see one of the students who had graduated from the program a year earlier there. I nodded hello to him, and while standing behind a crush of people milling around both the designer and the snack table, we made polite conversation.

I was confused about whether or not he was going to this state college or had graduated from it years earlier. I tried to ask him about it, and he said yes to something, but I wasn't sure what he was referring to.

Moments before I had gone over to talk to him, he asked the famous designer if she could sign one of her posters with a phrase to the effect of "Go [College Mascot]!" It was silly request, and the designer expressed her reluctance to sign the silly phrase on the poster he chosen, one supposed to raise consciousness about the horror of war. He told her he had chosen it because it had the school's colors. I was little shocked at the frivolity and audaciousness of the request, but then again, that was his personality all over. She had told him that she would "think about it," and suggested that he stick around. I think her artistic sensibility was offended. I imagined someone during the renaissance asking DaVinci to sign the Mona Lisa with the phrase "Hot Chicks Rule!" Wasn't this the same thing?

While he was waiting for her to agree to his silly request, I chatted him up about his life after the school's program. He said that he was freelancing and earning enough money to pay his bills, something I found impressive. He said that he was steadily building up a group of clients. Laughing, he explained that he begins his first client meeting by quoting them a fee for work that is hugely exorbitant. But, as a special favor for them, he would make it cost only a third of that. It was an ingenious way of disarming client's objections about costs before they could even have them. The fact that he had clients with which to pay his bills only a few months after college actually made sense to me because he has an approachable personality that makes it easy for him to talk to anyone about almost anything. He puts people immediately to ease with his disarming, if frivolous, manner. If anyone ever could get the famous designer to compromise her artistic integrity and sign the poster with his silly phrase, it would be him.

We chatted for a handful of minutes more before I noticed that the line to talk to the famous designer had gotten rather short. I excused myself to stand in line. The woman ahead of me was asking the famous designer what software she used to lay out her type on the computer. "Adobe's InDesign" was the answer of course, and again, I was a little shocked. It would be like asking Herman Melville what type of pen he wrote with, hoping if one bought that same type of pen, they'd be able to write a famous novel too. Aside from the fact that any first year design student already knows that InDesign is pretty much the industry standard for this sort of thing, the question is so absurd as to be entirely beside the point. And yet, the famous designer was patiently and politely answering the question, appearing very professorial in her own right. I could imagine her teaching a freshman design course and having to say essentially the same things over and over again.

Then it was my turn. I always feel awkward in moments like these, partly because I feel that my odd appearance puts some people off. I am a bit of weirdo with an awkward manner, almost the complete opposite of the student who I had just been talking to a few moments before. And yet, I didn't feel my question itself was stupid. I first thanked the famous designer for an excellent talk, and then asked "what is your basic approach to typography?" She answered that, for her, she does a lot of hand rendering, something that was already apparent from even a casual review of her work. She also explained that she prefers type to communicate simply and be readable, too many fancy tricks are unnecessary at best and can ruin your work at worst.

I was a little unsatisfied with the answer even as I nodded obsequiously in an effort to appear graciously understanding. I consciously was trying to play the role of earnest student. Her answer was essentially the "text-book" answer I could literally find in most books about typography. Maybe she assumed I was just another idiot asking a stupid question. I had not yet figured out that I wanted to ask about her process.

I quickly followed up by asking what was the one thing, the one "bottom-line" thing, that she thought design students should know about typogrpahy. I said I wanted to know if she had any gems of wisdom about type and type design. She answered that it was important to work with it for a long time. She compared type to jewelry on your dress, the jewelry has to be the perfect complement. On a similar token, a bad piece of jewelry can ruin the whole outfit. It was at this point, I noted that the remaining stragglers in the room with us had stopped talking among themselves and were listening intently. As she explained her answer more fully, she began to address her comments to them as much as me.

At this point, I felt that asking any more questions would have been impertinent and excessive, so after she finished talking, I again thanked her for her answer and talk as a whole, and moved on. After getting a little lemonade from the snack table, I told the other students goodbye and walked out into the dark with them towards the parking lot. That one guy was still hanging around trying to get her to sign his silly phrase one his poster about war.

I had had a serious sense of deja-vu when I first drove on to campus. It made walking around in the dark after the presentation feel exotic and strange. I had a sense of wistfulness about my lost graduate school career in English literature, but I also remembered that the money I had spent chasing after it was looming ahead of me threatening financial disaster for years to come. I could not afford any more second chances.

Of course, there was the parking ticket pinned to my windshield that I half expected to see on my car when I got back. The talk went longer than the hour I put in the meter, and I did not want to leave to fill it up again and miss something important.

Fifteen bucks.

I could barely afford it, but it seemed somewhat reasonable for all of this. I imagined that if I had to pay for the famous designer's talk at the big city tomorrow, fifteen bucks would be a reasonable admission. After stopping at Burger King for the fattening burgers that I seemed to be eating too much of these days, I drove back home into to the dark, listening to the radio.

At some point, I need to take serious inventory of my life and get everything in order. If I try to look at myself from an outward perspective, it seems to me my life is in a mess. Thanks to medication, my emotions are not mired in the big blue trenches of depression as much as they used to be. Still, while my internal thoughts are not as oppressive as they were a few months ago, my outward circumstances are still in as big mess as they ever were. I suppose it is time I start trying to sort that all out.

Not Enough Sleep

I am walking through the park towards the end of summer. While the park feels remote as it is in the hills and surrounding by trees, brush, and lush grasses, it is not too far away from the town where I went to college to get my undergraduate degree. I am looking at the creek down in a small gully as I pass over an asphalt bridge marked for bicycles, when a car drives slowly by.

A man in the car asks me for directions. I tell him what he needs to know, but then he asks for a big favor. He seems pretty desperate in a polite sort of way, so I tell him that I would be glad to help him out. I get in his car, and he takes a short drive to his house. He is a heavy set man, with cropped dusty blond hair and a bushy beard. He seems to carry around a plodding sadness with him, but I take that as evidence of his persistence and earnestness. He seems like he is a hard worker from who life occasionally demands too much. He says his name is Osbritch.

He explains that he and his wife have just moved out to the west coast from the mid-west. They are obviously mid-westerners as his house is decorated in that mid-west country style and his politeness seems genuinely habitual. He has two babies and he needs help feeding them. He struggles to get each into their high chairs, and it is obvious that he hasn't done this too much as he nearly drops one of squirmy babies out on to the floor. With a reaching strength, he manages to juggle the baby back into a stable hold, and we set about feeding the children.

Once fed, I look around at his house from my seat at the kitchen table. This home is attached to his farm business. The babies happily eat their snacks at the table as I watch him get up and start doing a little inventory at a few of the displays. He's over worked, but doesn't say anything about it.

At this point his wife comes home. Her personality is the opposite of his. While they're both friendly, she seems full of energy, talkative, and bright. He lives his life under the gloomy grey cloud of responsibility; she lives her live in the full, almost carefee, sunlight. Her name is Saija. Again, both of them are mid-westerners, and their Scandinavian ancestry is suddenly and obviously apparent. If he comes from the grainy farm lands of Kansas, she must come from the cold snowy north of Minnesota.

I immediately take a liking to Saija. She introduces herself as Osbritch goes about his business. She explains that she and her husband have moved out here to go to college. I ask which one, and she explains that it is the same one that I went to nearby those few years earlier. "No kidding," I say. I ask her what her major is, and she says "English," the same major I had in college. I explain all of this to her, and we share the common bond of the same interest. I offer my experiences as a source of wisdom about her future path. I tell her who I thought the best instructors were and how I think it best to navigate through the administrative bureaucracy. I offer my general wishes of good luck to her as way of support. I talk all about my experience in the graduate program at grad school, eventually explaining that I am currently studying design. She says she plans to become an English teacher. I really like Saija.

Osbritch comes back into the kitchen and sits down at the end of the breakfast bar. I ask him his name again, and how to pronounce it, as I want to make sure I got it right. I have made two new friends that I don't want to forget. "Osbritch and Saija," he says. I repeat them, but I can't get the handle on the exact Scandinavian pronunciation. He smiles and says it doesn't matter, even after I repeat their names a third time trying to get it right.

And then I wake up.

From a Tuesday Nap

It's the g-d d--m zombie apocalypse. Four men, paramilitary types, are being attacked by another group of people. The men have retreated into an enclosed courtyard in the bad section of town. They hide behind concrete barriers, burned out cars, and assorted city junk. The people attacking them appear to be normal looking in every way. They don't act like zombies, at least not yet. They zombies are alert, intelligent, and persistent. The way the men know something is definitely wrong about them is that they can be shot many, many times before going down. The zombies attack the men with their own guns while getting overhead direction from a helicopter gunship.

The human men are under siege, but fight back hard. Gary, the leader of this group of four, shoots at the helicopter with his AK-47. He stands up from behind his cover, yells as he shoots, and the helicopter eventually goes down spinning. Still the zombies are coming. The men shoot one zombie twenty or more times, but he still advances with murderous menace.

Gary calls for a retreat as more zombies-who-don't-look-like-zombies pour into the courtyard. They retreat into an area of stacked container cargo boxes next to a railroad car which is buried partially into a hill. They quickly set up barbwire and booby traps. As the zombies enter the enclosed space, the men shoot them down in a hail of metal.

One of the zombies drops an odd looking device. It looks like a metal green drinking glass with a needle like point in the center. It has a rugged plastic bottom that can twist into a locked position. The men soon discover that this is a type of grenade. When it explodes, it releases an intense blue light that is somehow more harmful to the zombies than to themselves. They recover a few of these grenades from the zombie bodies, and using them, they stop the seemingly endless zombie advance. Relaxing as much as they dare to, they fall asleep from their entrenched position.

They are awakened by a group of five men and women. They point the guns at this group. Mike, an imposing black man of considerable height and muscle, and the leader of this new group, convinces Gary that he and his friends are humans and not zombies. Mike explains that, actually, the zombies are not people either, but they are an invading force of aliens. If the aliens do not get their nutrients by drinking some kind of milk, they start to act like brainless zombies. It is something about the earth environment that causes them to act this way. Hence, the confusion. Gary and his group of four men have been isolated for a long time since the fighting began. He hasn't gotten much news and this new information makes as much sense as anything.

Mike and Gary become an alien fighting team. They learn how to navigate through a world of zombie-like aliens, even as the aliens adapt to their new environment. Several months pass as Gary, Mike, and their band fight the invaders. The aliens have developed into a significant invasion force, entrenching themselves in the cities and building up considerable support resources.

The aliens can only appear like normal human beings for three or four days, after which they become the brainless aggressive types seeking to kill any human they come across. For some reason, the noise emitted by vacuum cleaners will placate the alien zombie aggression, like music soothing the savage beast. They brainlessly push their vacuum cleaners around until more clear-headed aliens come along and feed them their milk nutrient to restore them to clarity.

Mike and Gary discover this odd fact. After killing one of the vacuum cleaning aliens, they grab its vacuum and push their way into the city. The come across a zombie/alien super market. One of the clear-headed aliens, a sergeant-major type, impatiently directs Mike and Gary, who are faking the brainless shuffle of a zombie, into the store after giving them passes. Mike and Gary come to the center of the store where there are large shelves filled with foodstuffs, including the new milk nutrient mixture that is more effective at staving off the zombie effect on the aliens. They grab a couple of three-gallon sized jugs of it, planning on studying what it is about the nutrient mixture that the aliens need. They are in some significant danger by being this brazen with their raid. They know that as they begin to shuffle out of the store and back out onto the darkened streets.

And then I wake up.

Airball

Another dream. I'm playing basketball for a team with national recognition in a large sports arena. It's my big chance and, against all odds, I'm blowing it. The other team has almost completely fouled out and have given up hope of winning. They are all on the verge of going home and some of them have already gotten dressed in their street clothes. For some reason, most of my team mates are not able to be on the court, but they are cheering for me.

I get the ball and shoot for a basket. It bounces off the backboard and out of bounds. Disappointment begins to creep over me and my team like a cold fog. The other team begins to perk up at this point. One guy, one of the ones who is already dressed in street clothes in an outrageous club style that looks ridiculous on the court, comes out on to the court to play opposite me. He has on a long white coat edged in white fur and wears a white, old fashioned, hat. He is not really offering any defense. He is merely there to distract and maybe rebound the ball. I shoot again. This time the ball goes wide and misses the hoop and the backboard completely. The crowd laughs. The street clothes guy deftly recovers the ball and bounces it, delighted to see that I have messed up again so completely. I have one more shot, and to my team's utter shock and dismay, I mess that up too. We are defeated. Or rather, I am defeated. Entirely. The other team, delighted as only sports teams can be in such moments, rushes out on to the court, jumping up and down with glee and abandon, hugging each other.

All of this means that I am going to become homeless. I, of course, get fired from the basketball team. I have blown my big chance and will no longer be earning a paycheck. I can pinpoint the cause of my homelessness to the exact moment I missed that critical shot. It is humiliating in an expected way. I think to myself, "Of course I screwed up. For me, there isn't any real chance of success. Ever. Failure will always be my destiny." Metaphorically, I wear failure like a worn bathrobe, an easy fit that feels familiar.

In reality, I am wearing a black jacket with the hood down behind my shoulders. I shuffle through my old neighborhood. It is a poor neighborhood, but I used to own a house here. I am consciously trying to learn how to be homeless. There is a culture to it. If I don't learn what is expected of me as a homeless person, if I am not aware of my surroundings, I will get attacked I am sure. Thugs looking for an easy target will take advantage of me as a source of thrills and use me as a punching bag. I see other people with their hands in their coat pockets, so I consciously put my hands in mine. A few people still recognize me from the days when I was on the team. That protects me a little, but also brings up my shame again in a mild form.

I walk through people's backyards, ignoring the bits of trash blown into the grass, lifting the latches on dilapidated gates on rusty fences. Back on the sidewalk, I approach my old house. There is a new family living there. I can see a few kids' toys in the front yard. That's how I know it's a family. It looks like they fixed the porch where the railing was broken. They have made a few improvements, sturdy improvements meant to last for a long time.

I feel a mild jealously that this isn't my house anymore. I want to look inside, and when I get closer to the back stairs leading into the basement, I lean to peek in. All of my things have been packed into broken down steamer trunks of various sizes. One trunk is smashed into bits as to be useless. It is obvious they are clearing me out. Of course, if they saw me standing there, they would not know who I was until I told them. But, I wouldn't tell them. That would scare them. They would probably wonder if I wanted to take the house back, if I was going to cause trouble. I wouldn't cause trouble. I do want the house, but there is nothing I could really do about it. I have no job, no money, and no hope of getting either. Certainly never enough to reclaim what I have lost.

I shuffle off again, away from their basement, and I begin to think about where I might sleep. I think about crawl spaces underneath outside porches. Places where I would be hidden from view. Small spaces that would take some effort to crawl into. Places where I might be hidden and forgotten about. Hidden even maybe from myself. Asleep so no thoughts about failure could bother me again.

And then I wake up.

Spirits

It has been awhile since I posted last. For the most part, I have been busier than I was, but it has been hard to find the motivation to write as well. I am not sure why exactly, especially since I have been generally feeling better. School has started again. I am already into the second week of classes. It's nice to be back in a solid routine, but I've been tired when I finally get home in the evening, and maybe that's why I haven't felt like posting these past few weeks.

I probably would not have posted today except for the dream I had last night. I wanted to get it down before I forgot it. It is brief and perhaps not interesting, but it was pretty vivid. I am on a new medication and bizarre and vivid dreams might be one side-effect. In any event, here it is:

I am sitting in a tiny field with a few cats that I know. These cats start acting strangely, as if they all heard the same thing and were drawn to it. Slowly they begin walking towards the invisible call that they heard. As they walk, more cats--cats I don't know--gradually join the procession. It is a tribe of cats. They are low to the ground, still walking, but also almost stalking this hidden call. Finally, they come to the edge of a grove of trees. In unison, all of the cats begin to wave a single paw in the air as if they were trying to catch something. I sit still and watch.

Soon, I feel a presence behind me. There is a ghost cat, an ancient apparition that appears to the group. This cat looks almost demon-like. It has a smaller head, a jaguar like body exaggerated by lean skinny muscles, the eyes are burning bright yellow and blue. The cat's face is twisted into a permanent growl, a permanent scowl that almost looks like a hungry smile. Tiny beads are twisted into its fur around its neck. There is a tribal ear ring dangling from one of its huge ears. I know that this is an ancient cat, the cat of tribes and shadows, a spirit cat that has been a spirit for thousands of years. I cannot hear what it might be saying to the assembled cats around it, but these other cats are transfixed, silently communing with the spirit cat, listening to its inaudible sermon.

I strain to hear it. It is saying we must attack someone who, through carelessness (but not malevolence), harmed the society of cats in some way. We must teach this person a lesson. I know the person the spirit cat wants to attack. He is a friend of mine. I know he is motivated primarily by his love of money, but he is not an evil man. I am somewhat alarmed.

The cats begin to march in the direction of their target. And the spirit cat has transformed itself into a human covered in tattoos, wearing much of the same tribal jewelry, carrying a spear. His face is powerful. He glowers. His thighs, his sides, his ears have been blackened by war. He lopes toward the target with the assemblage of cats.

I try to talk him out of it. Speaking about the careless man, I ask "what if I could change his ways?" I ask, "what if I could get him to stop his harming cats out of his ignorance, make him aware of his wrong-doings?" The cat-man ignores me. I know that if I am to stop this attack, I must try this anyway.

Then I wake up.

I am not sure what the significance (if there is any) of this dream might be. I know that the vision of the spirit-cat was pretty intense. If I ever been as accomplished with my art as I want to be, I would do my best to capture what I saw somehow. Words are good, but they just can't quite catch it.

Sick Cat : Part Two

Monday morning. I woke up after a fitful sleep with barely enough time to get the cat to her appointment to the vet. I was groggy and not full awake when the phone rang. It was the vet. He said he had "terrible news." I sighed. I knew that this was one of the possible outcomes of the blood work tests he had performed on Saturday. I had just allowed myself to hope that the vet would be able to perform the miracle I wanted and stop the cat's pain and make her feel better.

I listened to the vet rattle off a series of numbers that proved that the cat's kidneys had been irreparably damaged by some sort of chemical she presumably ingested, but after the phrase "terrible news," I really wasn't paying any more attention. I thought about my experiences with the cat outside, feeding her, watching her lounge in the farmyard, hearing her meow at me. When I became aware that the vet had stopped talking, I asked him what he thought would cause such a thing to happen. He said that it was more than likely anti-freeze. The cat needed to be put down. Anything else would prolong her suffering. He said that he could euthanize her any time I brought her down to the animal hospital.

I hung up the phone, and despite feeling groggy, got dressed and located the cat. She was resting in the hallway. During the past 48 hours, the hallway had become her favorite place to rest. I knew that because I had been checking up on her several times during those two days. She seemed to have more energy, and was eating a bit more, and drinking a lot more. The vet later told me that this might be a result of the fluids he had given her during our last visit. I felt overwhelmingly bad, but lacking a miracle kidney repair spell, what else could I do? I picked her up and held her close to my chest for as long as she could stand it.

I put the cat in my car while I searched again for the cat carrier I couldn't find before. This time I was luckier. I found it in the barn hidden under a plastic bag that I had not noticed before. I managed to fish the cat out of the backseat of my car and put her in the carrier with a threadbare towel for comfort. She was compliant enough, and was even purring as I placed her insider the carrier and then put the carrier on the passenger seat of my car.

The trip to the vet took a little too long because there was road work being done on street to the vet. My car was stopped by a young flagger with a long beard. I wasn't sure if he could see the carrier through the windshield of my car. The cat was becoming a little restless inside her carrier. I poked my fingers inside the gate screen to comfort her, and she obliged the offer by rubbing her face against them.

During this time, I was in a sort of denial. I thought that there might be a chance that the cat could recover somehow. Maybe if I gave her more attention, fed her more rigorously, gave her more time to rest, the cat just might be able to recover. This cat had been nearly as strong as an ox in her healthier days, so I reasoned that if there was any cat that could overcome this problem, it would be her. The possibility of the cat's recovery was all I could think off during our drive to the animal hospital.

The wait in the lobby was short as we were the first patients of the day. The vet tech led me into the examining room and told me that the vet would be in shortly. I let the cat out onto the examining table and began to pet her. She was purring. It was frustratingly sad to have to do this, and I couldn't help shake my head. The cat explored the table, and at one point even wanted to jump down to the floor. Instead of letting her jump, I put her on the floor so she could walk around down there.

The vet came in and I asked my questions about her possible recovery. The answer, explained in a wave of jargon, was no. If she was a human being, she would need regular kidney dialysis treatments, but they did not do that for cats. He said that the best he could do would be to put off the inevitable for several more days by giving the cat another fluid shot. But, in either case, the cat was going to die.

Not the answer I wanted to hear.

I held the cat again, and made the difficult decision. He brought in a blanket and gave her a shot of sedatives. When she was asleep, he came back in and gave her the final shot.

I told him that I would be taking her back with me so I could bury her behind the barn, essentially her home for the last couple of years. Whenever I thought of her, inevitably it was at or near the barn.

I placed her body in the towel, put it in the carrier, and drove it back. I found the shovel and walked out into the pasture and the morning's rising sun. I did not want to be doing this. It seemed like such an unnecessary shame. A younger cat, only about a year old, followed me through the field and sat in the tall grass as I dug a whole in a hard and dry ground. It was tough work, but eventually, I had a hole deep enough for her to lay in. I gently wrapped her body in the towel she had been sleeping on and buried her.

After I filled the hole, I sat with the other cat for several minutes and thought about mortality. As I get older, I find that life is over far too quickly. It feels deeply unfair, and this particular death seemed especially unfair. The cat died before her time. I hope that I get my own life sorted out to a reasonable sense of emotional equilibrium and financial stability before I have to leave this world. Leave this world like we all must do at some point. A point, that, as far as I am concerned, is very much in the distant future.

Sick Cat

Every morning has it rituals, even if your life, like mine, is in a kind of disorder. One of my morning rituals is to take a little walk on the back walkway, which would essentially be a porch in any other home, but as this home is a confabulation of lower class architectural styles, it defies easy categorization. It is a brief walk, but comforting for its familiarity. Over there, for example, is the same barn, same little fence, same stand of trees, etc. Some people have their morning coffee; I have this little walk.

However, it was during Saturday morning's walk that my eyes fell on a cat that looked like it had crawled out from underneathe a rock. Its fur had lost its luster, its eyes had a rheumy non-focus, and its walk had the deliberate uncertainty of creature trying very hard not to fall over. I had seen this cat during the past week, and even then, I noted it looked like it was ill. Yet, this particular morning was something else altogether. The cat appeared to be deteriorating quickly. When another cat, an animal that, if it were human, could easily be described as a real jerk, lunged at the sick cat in the opening move of an attack, the ill cat did not react. It continued its sad walk towards the food bowl in the backyard with the singular focus of someone who is very ill. The attacking cat was confused for the non-reaction and sat suddenly still trying to puzzle the situation out for itself.

I had earlier debated about whether or not the sick cat needed to visit the vet. The thing that held me back was the cost. As a poor person, my money might be better spent on food and healthcare for myself rather than the cat. I had hoped my attention, a fresh can of cat food, and some rest would be all the cat needed to recover. However, looking at the cat that morning removed all doubt. This cat was dying, and I couldn't face myself if I ignored her plight. It seemed immoral to not help out.

I knew there was a strong chance that if I took her to the vet that morning, the vet might tell me that she was dying and there was nothing he could do for her, and oh by the way, that will be fifty bucks. However, if there was a chance he could lessen her pain, then it was worth a shot.

I scooped the animal up and put her in my car. I could not find the cat carrier for the life of me, and as this was Saturday, if waited any longer, the vet would close and I would have to wait a weekend that the cat may not have. The drive further convinced me that I was making the right choice. If this cat were healthy, she would have climbed all around the cab of the car, on the dashboard, into the back seat, probably even in my lap or by the pedals at my feet. As it was, she curled up in a little ball in the passenger's seat and lay there for the entire trip.

Her biggest reaction during all of this was in the lobby of the vet's office, where a dog the size of a pony happily barked at us. The cat, using claws sharpened from frequent outdoor use of course, tried desperately to climb out of my arms and onto the safe space on my shoulders directly behind my head. The dog owner, taking note of my painful problem, fortunately directed his son to take the dog outside so the cat could calm down. Once the dog was outside, she settled down into my lap as we waited our turn for the vet to call us into the examining room.

The visit with the vet was brief enough. He confirmed her dire condition to me, and while he was not ready to diagnose her without having blood work done first, he gave her a shot and some fluids before sending her home with me. She has another visit with the vet on Monday morning. All of twenty minutes later, I was $170 dollars poorer.

Fortunately, for the rest of Saturday and all of Sunday, the cat seems to be doing better. She is still very skinny, but her appetite seems to be returning, and she has been drinking plenty of water, something I hadn't noticed her doing before. Tomorrow will be part two of the sick cat saga that at some point I might document here in this blog.

Even though it is still possible that I will have spent over 200 dollars on a cat that will die anyway, I think, at least for the benefit of my conscience, I did the right thing. The animal was suffering and it was in my power to do something about it. The cat has a nice personality and is way too young to be dying of so-called natural causes. And, someday, I hope to have enough money in my bank account to not have to worry about whether I can afford to do the right thing. Apparently, one of the lessons in life is that doing the right thing is not always in our control.

Sleeping Wrong

I am not sleeping the way I should be. I go to sleep around 1 a.m. most nights, wake up at 10 a.m., and then take a nap in the middle of the afternoon. The nap is a recent occurrence of the past two days. You would think that nine hours of sleep would be enough, but then again, those nine hours are pretty restless. One night, I woke up at least ten times, tossing and turning. Other nights, I am awoken by the cat around four a.m. because she needs to be let outside.

Today was hot, at least 90 degrees, which made my afternoon nap more unpleasant than refreshing. I did wake up with more energy, but I had a metallic taste in my mouth and was very thirsty. I need to eat and exercise better to improve my health, but my mood makes finding the motivation to do either very hard. On the other hand, I have not being feeling 100% physically aside from the problems I just mentioned. I had a weird phlegmy cough that made me think that on top of everything else, I might be coming down with a cold or something.

But all of this: the not eating right, the not feeling well, the not getting things done is just a sideshow to the thoughts about college and my future. Of course, I am talking about two futures, the imagined one of five years ago, and the real one. The first future is the failed one. I had imagined that I would be successful as an English Professor and that, by now, I would be well on the way to publishing papers in literary journals, grading freshman essays, and doing my best to achieve the financial security I imagined for myself. The reality is that I am back in school trying for another career path that has a lot of similarities to the other failed one, except this time I am questioning my ability to achieve the new one in light of my past failures.

I had been telling myself that the reason I did not become an English Professor was largely a combination of circumstances and bad luck. If I made a few decisions that slightly altered things as they were, I would be in an office, pouring over those essays. But now, the benefit of experience, combined with my ill mood, makes me think the problem lies "not in the stars," so to speak, but in myself. Maybe it is a defect in my ambition. I seem to want more than I can realistically achieve. Therefore, I over-extend myself emotionally and financially, only to collapse into a heap of failure, paralyzing my will or ability to get on my feet again. Maybe there really is a physical source to my issues. Maybe, due to brain chemistry, I am not as equipped or able to gracefully navigate the world of social interactions the way a "normal" person might. I don't know.

I spend most of the day either thinking about such things or trying not to think of them. The latest worry is a form of concern about getting older. My youth is fading and that is becoming daily more apparent. I can appreciate the wisdom of age, but sometimes, that is cold comfort in our culture, where youth is sometimes seen as the highest moral virtue.

Daily Frustrations

Today was much like the day before. I did not post yesterday like I had planned, but I already can't remember what I did yesterday, so posting about it now would be pretty pointless. I helped my mom out today around dinner time. Dad isn't here and she gets a little lost without him. Dad is taking a vacation on the east coast to visit family, so I am doing some of the things that he normally does: loading the dishwasher, corralling the pets, getting the mail, etc.

I still need to clean up my place. There is a bunch of clutter lying around that makes it harder to get all of the work I planning to do done.

I know that I should write more here about what I did during my day, and while there are a few things that I could talk about--like my trip to walmart or the grocery store--I really can't seem to justify the purpose of doing so. There isn't an artistic meaning to what I do during the day. Mostly, I try not to think too hard about things, hoping that, somehow, the mystery of life and the whirlwinds of unbidden thought will suggest to me a new way of thinking that will provide the renewed spirit I guess I am seeking. If I think about the larger questions in my life and look at my actions as if I was an outsider to myself, it feels as if I was moving underwater.

I am frustrated with things without a logical reason for being frustrated. I am told that my issues are essentially a question of brain chemistry and DNA, and therefore, it seems a little fated. If I am made that way, what hope is there for permanent change? I can take pills, but there are permanent issues with that too. There are things that are unchangeable about my physiology.

Part of the answer for me might lie with reading more literature, as in the classic English literature sense. Yes, this might be escapism. But it is one of the few things that gives my mind something interesting to think about, and because each work has an artistic purpose, it makes the thinking seem worthwhile.

I don't know what else to say here. I am tired again. I still need to do several things in the next few days: check the school schedule for the details on my fall classes, fold my laundry, work on those photos, get my hair cut, and clean up this cluttered room.

Tired Again

Since I posted this morning, I'm not going to spend a lot of time posting tonight. I spent much of the day on the computer again, and in that digital world, I made some progress that made the game a bit less stale than before.

In the real world, I think I am coming down with an illness of some kind. My joints and head ache, and I've been coughing occasionally. I am not sure what I have yet, and I can't be convinced that whatever I have is a result of my junk food diet. Perhaps, I only have a case of the physical blahs.

The biggest point of progress I made today was, aside from visiting with my family members, I did some laundry. I'm out of clean clothes at the moment, so a fresh batch of clothes is a bit necessary. I turned off the television for the majority of the evening, and I found that the night passed a little more slowly. I was feeling tired by nine thirty or so. I should have went to be at 10:00 p.m., but some habits are hard to break.

I will try to get more accomplished tomorrow, including those pictures that are dogging me. The barrier at this point is money, but I think I can overcome it to a degree. Tomorrow, my dad gets ready to leave for his trip to the east coast. He will spend a week and half there, so I will need to help my mom out with a lot of things including keeping all of the cats fed. That's all I can think of right now. I am too tired to keep writing at the moment.