April twenty fifth, Mojo's last night alive. Not sure anything ever loved me quite so unconditionally (maybe outside of my parents), even after I stopped being the one who fed you each day. 20 years though, that's an eternity for a cat isn't it? I dunno if I could have survived being a teenager without you. So many days sitting out in the back yard with you, talking, laughing, crying, enduring your endless head bumps! Really there was no enduring, I loved each and every one. You taught me how to be a cat, a thing or two about fighting, and definitely how to show affection, and some of those things I got off my chest with you, I dunno if I could have ever talked to anyone else about them...
Its been hard watching you grow so frail and lose so many of your senses, maybe its for the best you can finally rest those old bones and not have to worry about what that next gust of wind might be.
I'll always remember how you'd come running to greet me when I'd return home after weeks, months sometimes, to the rents house. You there, waiting at my door for me as I'd step out of the car. Sorry I had to go and change cars on you and screw that all up. I'll never forget what you were to me and I hope you enjoyed the life my parents and I helped to give you while you were with us. I can't imagine a better companion to grow up with.
The last time I set my feet upon this beach I was with a girl. I believe I'm ready to write again, I'm definitely ready for an end to this hellish year.
What a weekend. I got a lot of things off my chest and I feel so much better. I filled my parents in on a lot of whats wrong with me, hopefully now my mom will stop worrying I'm gonna hurt myself. That's been kind of annoying. I slept two nights in a row soundly for the first time in quite a while. I had a good solid weekend taking care of myself.
For the first time in a couple months I can say I'm looking forward to the week ahead of me. There's a downer of a funeral tomorrow (my dying Uncle previously mentioned passed away earlier this week, I think it was probably for the best, what with all his problems) but I'm gonna try and salvage it by stopping off in Modesto to visit Jaime who I haven't seen in about a year! Then there's a job interview and fingers crossed a new job on the other side of it waiting for me. Maybe I finally can even go back to saving money again! And to top it off, I've made not one but 3 new friends, 2 of which I might already have plans this week with! Oh and a friend-date with Mulysa for the post secret show! I'm gonna be a busy one.
I'm hoping that I'm starting to see the sun through the storm. Only time will tell though. I feel much more centered and ready for whatever is coming than I have for a long time. I hope it lasts a while.
mulysa (10:35:25 AM): wanna go to post secret exhibit next tuesday morningish? (i checked the giants schedule before asking :-) ) me (10:35:37 AM): hahaha me (10:35:40 AM): yes I do mulysa (10:35:50 AM): lol...well i thought about it yesterday and then realized the season was starting me (10:35:56 AM): I only have tickets to the opening series mulysa (10:36:10 AM): (i don't know what that means) mulysa (10:36:16 AM): hahahhaha
That was good for a nice laugh. Plans to see the Postsecret exhibit next week, random lines, maybe a burrito.
Update on my Uncle, over the weekend the medical staff in Bakersfield was telling us his brain aneurysm may be repairable. After more in depth examination today they decided that there was no surgery option as the aneurysm is in a place that isn't reachable. His doctors told my other Uncle, the one who lives closer and has been dealing more with this day to day than my parents have, that he could live 2 hours or he could live 2 years, point being that the aneurysm in his brain could burst anytime. On top of this no one really knows what the swelling in his brain will do to his already diminished brain function he had from the dementia. My Uncle and Aunt, the still healthy ones, are looking for a full time nursing home for Jerry now, as opposed to the dementia center he'd been in, though no one seems to think he'll be there long.
My Dad asked me to go with him tomorrow to the funeral home in Atwater where Jerry's wife was buried in the fall of 07. The plot next to hers is already there and waiting for Jerry, we just need to go pick out a casket, service, and finalize arrangements as to who will pick up his body and how it'll be handled etc to get him there. Cheery stuff eh? Yeah, you may be able to tell how forward I'm looking to tomorrow.
I'll have just enough time after the funeral home trip to try and make my face into stone and go to work where I'll do my best to pretend like I'm not at all bothered by the drinking and laughing and good times being had around me.
Today my Uncle, the one with dementia who's wife died a couple years back, was discovered to have pneumonia in his lungs, kidneys failing, and a burst brain aneurysm causing his brain to swell. In addition there was hardly any oxygen in his blood to measure. He's currently in a hospital in Bakersfield, he was moved there today from Visalia after the Visalia hospital discharged him yesterday as being fine.
I have a feeling my weekend will be given away to going to Bakersfield with my parents.
I found this all out tonight. I really don't know what to say.
Lately I really haven't been sleeping well. I find it hard to actually go to sleep, I need to distract myself from my own thoughts to trick my mind into not thinking. When I get stuck thinking all I do is toss and turn awake. I sleep best on Monday mornings usually because on Sunday nights they've been playing the Planet Earth series on the Discover Channel. Something about the narrator's voice is very soothing to me. Combine that with the imagery and I can get lost in it all and just sort of drift off to sleep before I know it. Last night I almost slept well, the trick worked like a charm but, something woke me up around 5am and for another 2 hours I tried to just drift back to sleep but instead I had nightmares. I think I cried out at one point, I know tears came, more I'd rather not mention. I'm not looking forward to this week if my Monday morning went so badly. I'm feeling really drained today, haunted almost, I feel like a ghost. Wait, no I don't. That's just silly.
The rest of the week I only have a book to get me to sleep, I typically have to read til my eyes start to blur, I often fall asleep book in hand still and find myself clutching it in the morning, or else its been thrown around my bed. Despite these tricks I still don't really sleep all that well more often than not. There isn't enough time or there just isn't enough peace in me yet. That sounds better, maybe.
Despite my drained mind I got myself motivated and hiked about 5 miles today. I found another new trail. I got this sensation hiking this unknown trail today I can't liken it to too many things. Maybe really good sex and pushing a fast car to its absolute limits. As the forest closes in around you until there is almost no link to the real world you came from, it comes with these unique sounds, smells, sights, sensations, your senses are all on high alert. Everything you sense seems amplified in a way, your mind races processing it all. The smells, sights, sounds and sensations are all unique for each of those activities but I feel that there is an element of danger in each that is where my mind has made the connection. With each you never quite know if you're chasing the danger or if its you who's being chased by it. Its there either way and there's something exhilarating about the whole thing.
The dangers in this urban forest are probably not as great as I can imagine them when my senses are filled with nothing but that forest. There are some skunks, I've encountered 4 so far in the past few weeks, or at least their smell, never quite spotted the actual animal, the scent was always coming with the wind. There may be a very small number of mountain lions but I would lay the odds of coming across one lower than being hit by lightning. The most dangerous thing you can run across besides slipping and falling somewhere would probably be another person and I would say 99.(a bunch more 9's)% of the people you come across have no intent to harm you. Still you have to be on your toes and paying attention to where you make turns, where you've been, how to get back.
I came across someones attempt to mark a trail every once and a while with what looked like flour or some sort of other fine white/beige powder. I thought of Hansel and Gretel and laughed at how easily their trail could disappear. I chose not to mark my trail as I went on and off the actual trails other than the normal things you do by moving through dense woods, breaking fallen branches and twigs as you walk, footprints etc. I came across a fallen tree that went across a little valley maybe 15 feet below. It feel between a bend in the mountainside. On my way up I made note of it and hiked on on the trail. I chose to push my danger by walking back across it on my way down. I could have been in some bad shape if I'd slipped off it, I was hiking alone, it wasn't a huge fall but I could have easily twisted or sprained something in the fall, there would also have been poison oak to get out of and some thorny looking bushes (some offshoot of manzanita I'd guess). I thought of all these possibilities before I decided to cross the log and I think I made my choice in spite of them.
Lately I've been feeling like the force that moves fate, whatever it may be has been throwing whatever it can at me, almost like I was being punished. I've been feeling sorry for myself, I've been upset, angry even, at circumstance and the world I'm in, at the people in my life, about the people no longer in my life. I've felt unable to affect any of these things I see and can't stand. I fully believe that as individuals we have the ability to affect our circumstance more often than not but I would say in most of the past year I've felt like I've lost a lot of my control over the course I've been on. My choices have been few and all keep coming up wrong when I make them, the failure has been eating away at my consciousness til I can hardly stand to even think about making a new choice. Its been maddening. I say I pushed my luck on that log because as I made that choice I feel like I was standing up to circumstance, I knew it was dumb and somewhat dangerous. I'm not the most agile or graceful person but I believed in my abilities none the less to cross that log, maintaining my balance and grip without falling. I feel like I was staring fate down with my decision, daring it to try and throw something more at me. I was a little triumphant upon reaching the other side that I had made it and stood my ground without backing down.
I'm not sure any of this makes much sense. These are some of the thoughts that occupy my mind currently though and I'm tired of keeping them inside.
