I feel like I've been stuffed into a meat-sack, bludgeoned hardily with a wooden mallet for twenty-seven minutes, dropped off a bridge into some class-4 rapids, smashed against several large aquatic landmarks, then washed onto a sandy shelf to be removed from my sack by a seventeen-year old pothead with a mullet who considers me for a few seconds, then blows smoke and Miller HighLife aftermath into my face as he rolls my soggy body back into the shallows.

(Downstream, by the way, I drag myself out. But I don't know what it is I'm supposed to feel or do.)

Today our dog Taz died suddenly from a ruptured tumor that caused him to bleed internally. We haven't picked him up yet from the emergency clinic and my mom cried this evening because they had to put him into the freezer before we bury him. All I could think was that frozen or thawed, he's still gone. And I guess it won't take long either way for him to enter the soil.

I found out about T after folding laundry at 'work' today when I called my mother to ask her what brand of beer to pick up from Trader Joes, and I could hear the crack in her voice- my mum near crying on the line- so I had to ask her what happened while standing in front of an enormous pile of cheap gentrified beers. Earlier today I overheard a near-anonymous conversation between her and her business partner from the business partner's end of the phone, so I knew something was up: I hate asking questions I know the answer to but haven't been in the process of, and don't really want to hear.

All I can say in the way of obituary this time is that this late morning before Taz was gone, our silent cat, who was very cute pals with Taz, came out on the porch and meowed and meowed and meowed. Upset by this & nervous, I went out and petted Mizzen and petted him, thinking maybe he was missing Tope. Taz was my walking partner, and Mizzen's pet animal.

Whenever they die, whether Tope or Taz (both rescue loves and members of our daily family), the sadness expressed by my mum and cr always turns to the place where we will bury them, and the plant to place above. Tope is near the pond, in the sun, and that groundcover she ruffled and hid within will eventually ruffle and hide her. Taz, we decided, will be within the berm, where he kept track. I know it's supposed to help, but it really doesn't make me less upset.

then. okay, Um. Taz's death sucks shit, but it sucks shit even more because he was my mom's baby, and my mom had surgery yesterday to remove a malignant mass from her breast, an operation (plus radiation to follow) I was only able to acknowledge a day ago as the medical response to "breast cancer."

Just to be clear, this thing involved really early detection, and my mom is a trooper and is angrily irritated by the slightest sign of fussing (a boundary that demands trespass), so it's easy and positive and real to act like what is happening is small and something to make inappropriate jokes about (like miming how I would carry her from surgery backwards on my back so's to not injure her, post-op). That is, my mother will recover, and recover soon. (wood knocking, superstition and all that, but I don't take it back).

Anyhow, although I'm not even about to be tapped out, my body feels like bludgeoned shit. I don't know what to think, draw, align, say, how to write it, or even whether. These things happen, yaddah, haha, and well, okay. But all in a row?

N-so's to go along, I don't know why this should freak me out, but I just heard that the sis's leaving four days ahead of plan... and for a four years minimum.

Her leaving overall is something to be happy about, by the way, because she's going to a great vet program in Scotland (I watched the video, and aside from the fact that the school is named "The Royal Dick", which allows for endless hours of one-liners:

By the end of her program, A will have explored every inch of the Royal Dick.
A's been accepted with funding by the Royal Dick.
What kind of scientific equipment does the Royal Dick have?
A had her hand up a calf's ass while studying at the Royal Dick.
Etc.,

well, it's a intense program and I'm (we're) very happy for her, for that opportunity, and for the brolaw too, because I think that although the change will be a challenge for him, they are going to have incredible moments there. Really amazing.)

All that said, it seems very far away, and for a very long time. I wonder sometimes if I'm ever going to have as much time with those two as I would like.

Hm.

Nother note: I've sorta started a new very part-time "job" as it were, which this morning I woke up dream-quitting. It's not a horrible job, and it's for an artist whose works I actually admire (which is not, however, necessary for me to enjoy a job), but I'm already well near the end of that tether of self-respect which demands that she not call me "Kiddo" and not blame me for things done well before I was there and that she not call this period of (minimum-wage-)orientation, "Training," which it is not. Which it really is not. She has not "trained" me to do anything other than navigate her filing system, but apparently she doesn't expect me to know how to Copy & Paste at this stage, and according to her, any slowdowns incurred by me going over her 4-page resume and curing it of spelling errors, typos, and design inconsistencies are actually because she's "training" me.

I can't help wishing she'd seen my resume, so's to know I'm not an undergrad or a high-schooler or a dumbshit. & I wish she'd respect what I bring. Or I wish my pride was either smaller or larger, so I could accept any named place in this world, or actually step out and make something of myself. I wish I didn't feel so sensitive about being asked by everyone if I have a job yet, and maybe I wish I didn't feel so hurt about being passed over by academic friends for those folks who are more academic and less MFA-ish.

I've been feeling snubbed by the only one of my teachers I stayed in touch with at the local school - whom I considered a friend more than a member of my 'network' - and yet I'm done defending my beautiful, incredible skill of creative endeavor against those who see it as opposed to pedagogy or bookishness or dedication or something. Anyhow, and so be it if college folks can't see me as capable of more than drawing random lines in the dust. So I say.

By the way: in order to prevent myself from feeling the bitterness towards higher education that soured my father's life, I have limited the hurt feeling to one more week, whether my loyal friendship is recognized or not.

And then:. Well. This has remarkably been the Ok part of the past two-weeks-of-bitchHell, but it still left me pillow-snuffling and processing my own little confusions in the midst of other things that are more important but less particular. I met my old Bville Ex- after she contacted me in a hesitant email (perhaps after reading my Pride-Weekend writing, because uh, um, scccc, we read each other's blogs in a twisted example of, well, psychopathic webcommisercommunication) and told me of a place where I could choose to meet her if I felt up to temporarily discarding my antipathy. I thought about the offer very alone for a few days afterwards, considered without anything more than the input I knew others would put in were they asked (though nobody was), and finally decided that it might be healthy to meet, but unhealthy for me want friendship, or good tidings, or really anything to other than just meeting and being simple, and such.

It wasn't simple though.

And I am still confused, unclear, but stubborn. I don't want to let go of myself and my own experiences/thoughts, and I don't want to trust or hope misplaced again. And I have so many incredible friends that I'm not sure what friendship could offer or mean in this circumstance. And I feel like I'm having to give up the only thing that resulted - a dependable imaginary best enemy to bitch at and love-hate every day - for something that likely is bullshit, and not possible, and unfulfilling. What does a nonfictional absentee person have on the fictional creation you've culled from the afterbirth of a miscarriage because the mess left over is more malleable when nothing shared has ultimately been made? (That was supposed to be nonrhetorical, but it ended up sounding disgusting and convolute). Maybe I'll realize how lonely I am without an imaginary best enemy, maybe I'll realize I'm on a daily basis alone. Or maybe it's the right move towards 'growing up' and solving solitude with some other language, I don't know.

But the meeting overall was a good idea. & we both stopped unexpectedly where we needed to. & her nervous smirk didn't bother me but made me feel better this time, like she was as nervous as me. & I think I felt heard for the first time ever from her.

I still don't imagine me getting over the whole prof-student thing though. From too many positions within that circle.

And I feel like such a selfish git for thinking about myself, my experience alone, right now, with everything around me.

I'm a pulpy schlock though. And everything's a mess: not a mess I'm responsible for having created, but a mess that is really unclear, and mostly needing to be about my family, mostly needing my support. Uncertain, unclear, difficult - xxx./xforNot/knowing - not all bad, occasionally funnyish, but more sad than any sane person would recommend.