some may live in the fireplace

Posted August 3rd, 2006 by Michelle

Ian’s blogs often tempt me to write blogs of my own, but I rarely have the wherewithal or the time to actually make it happen. The last few days, his blog about missing alcohol has been buzzing around my brain, making me miss all kinds of unmentionables. Well. Who am I kidding- I mention everything. But then his blog today, with little Lucy quite literally buttering her own toes, made me laugh so hard at work that my colleagues came in to check on me. I think I like the sound of Ian and Tessa laughing really hard as much as I like the sight of La Luce methodically slathering her own toes with butter.

But I digress.

I used to actively misspend my youth; or, at least, I actively tried to misspend it, killing brain cells for want of a third tequila shot, leaving the house with plans of how, and with whom (vaguely) I would return, having yet another beer even though I had to work in less than six hours. I’ll be honest. I cherish those times. Say what you will, but I never laughed more freely, never felt the weight of the world that I do now. And it’s not about getting older- it’s about actually accepting responsibility. And the hangovers are much worse than they used to be, but they’ve always been bad for me and don’t actually act as a deterrent. (If anyone still believes that jail time or the death penalty is enough to keep would-be criminals off the street, think again. It just doesn’t work that way.) I’ve been missing some of the friendships I’ve had that were built on mutal wants and needs and a fair piece of booze. Those were good times. And now I live in a community so small that anonymity is impossible, and cutting loose – in even the smallest sense of the words – is fodder for gossip for the whole community.

But ah, do I long, for a week, or even just a weekend, without a care. Just a few days to do what I want, when I want, without the approval of a committee or the commentary of anyone. I often think I’ll drive to the coast for a day, but the world is so quiet there and often I just feel lonely when I attempt those kinds of trips. So instead, I immerse myself in work, and in the sweet circles I’ve created, and dream of a time when I could walk out my door in the East Village and go find whatever I happened to be looking for. I long for change, for adventure, for things to be hard in a way that makes sense. I also long for a life that is more physically challenging, not one that causes whispers of carpal tunnel syndrome in my wrists or tweaks in my lower back from sitting too long. This is not from whence I come, and there will be a point when I break and simply must do whatever it is I’m called to do. I do not know what it will be, but something tells me that one year from now, on August 3, 2007, I will not be sitting where I am now. I will be somewhere different, where the washing is not put out, nor the fire, nor the mistress.

Ah, me, looks like I have to quote the whole thing. Good Thoreau is always there when I need him:

I sometimes dream of a larger and more populous house, standing in agolden age, of enduring materials, and without gingerbread work, which shall still consist of only one room, a vast, rude, substantial, primitive hall, without ceiling or plastering, with bare rafters and purlins supporting a sort of lower heaven over one’s head-useful to keep off rain and snow, where the king and queen posts stand out to receive your homage, when you have done reverence to the prostrate Saturn of an older dynasty on stepping over the sill; a cavernous house, wherein you must reach up a torch upon a pole to see theroof; where some may live in the fireplace, some in the recess of a window, and some on settles, some at one end of the hall, some at another, and some aloft on rafters with the spiders, if they choose; a house which you have got into when you have opened the outside door, and the ceremony is over; where the weary traveller may wash, and eat, and converse, and sleep, without further journey; such a shelter as you would be glad to reach in a tempestuous night, containing all the essentials of a house, and nothing for house-keeping; where you can see all the treasures of the house at one view, and everything hangs upon its peg, that a man should use; at once kitchen, pantry, parlor, chamber, storehouse, and garret; where you can see so necessary a thin, as a barrel or a ladder, so convenient a thing as a cupboard, and hear the pot boil, and pay your respects to the fire that cooks your dinner, and the oven that bakes your bread, and the necessary furniture and utensils are the chief ornaments; where the washing is not put out, nor the fire, nor the mistress, and perhaps you are sometimes requested to move from off the trapdoor, when the cook would descend into the cellar, and so learn whether the ground is solid or hollow beneath you without stamping. A house whose inside is as open and manifest as a bird’s nest, and you cannot go in at the front door and out at the back without seeing some of its inhabitants; where to be a guest is to be presented with the freedom of the house, and not to be carefully excluded from seven eighths of it, shut up in a particular cell, and told to make yourself at home therein solitary confinement. Nowadays the host does not admit you to his hearth, but has got the mason to build one for yourself somewhere in his alley, and hospitality is the art of keeping you at the greatest distance. There is as much secrecy about the cooking as if he had a design to poison you. I am aware that I have been on many a man’s premises, and might have been legally ordered off, but I am not aware that I have been in many men’s houses. I might visit in my old clothes a king and queen who lived simply in such a house as I have described, if I were going their way; but backing out of a modern palace will be all that I shall desire to learn, if ever I am caught in one.

melting

Posted July 22nd, 2006 by Michelle

I finally had the wherewithal to take the kitty litter and canned turkey back to Trader Joe’s yesterday. The checkout woman started crying after I told her the reason for the return- apparently she had just gone through the same thing. Yeesh. It’s a difficult thing, and I still keep thinking I hear him at night or see him from the corner of my eye on one of the chairs. I really miss him. And it probably doesn’t help that everything is a little left of center right now. But I really miss him.

At the same time, maybe he knew to just take off in time to miss this heat wave. He was never a big fan of this kind of heat. A few summers ago, when I was living with my friend Hayley in New York, and I was out on a date, she was home alone watching a movie (with both Fezzik and Zooey) and she realized they were panting. It was one of those horrifically hot & humid New York nights, and they were clearly suffering. So she went to the corner bodega and got three blocks of ice. When she got home, she lay them all on the floor and placed Fezzik on one, Zooey on the second, and she sat on the third. And from all reports, everyone was much happier.

There is a relationship in my life that is very much in transition, and it is leaving me very unsettled. Not a romantic relationship, but a significant relationship nonetheless, and this uncertainty – and a pulling away by both parties – makes me wonder what is possible. I think both of us know each other a little better, and I’m not sure either of us likes what we see. And I’m not sure what that means. There was a kind of magic and now, I think, for both of us, it’s mostly disappointment. Or- grief, or something, I don’t know, but I need to find a way to make peace with it.

In fact, I could say that many of my relationships, important relationships, particularly professional, are in transition, and so the loss of my cat is perhaps all the more difficult. I no longer know where my foundation is, my emotional center; I no longer know who all is on my team. But maybe this will help me build a stronger team. It’s strange, though, to think you have trust, and then after a good period of time to find out otherwise. One thing I do know at this moment, though, and it scares me a little bit: I’m losing heart. I am deeply questioning what I am doing. And I don’t know what I want to do.

my sweet little one

Posted July 11th, 2006 by Michelle

Some people talk about going out and “choosing” or “finding” their pets; my pets have always chosen me. From Zooey, who bounded over to me from a litter of thirteen kittens in Arcadia, California, to Violet, who grabbed onto my foot in a parking lot in St Louis, Missouri, to my sweet Fezzik, who called to me from the cage in Iowa City, Iowa. I was in a pet store, certainly not looking for another cat- I just liked to frequent the stores and talk to the critters, telling them I hoped they found good homes. Fezzik was in a cage by himself, a beautiful Siamese-marked rescued farm kitten. Across his face was an almost perfect black mask of fur, with a beauty mark just below the left side of his nose. He was little and lean and he cried out to me. Breaching protocol, I unhinged his cage, lifted him out, and he curled up around my shoulder.

The teenager working the store came up to me and said, “He’s not for sale- he hasn’t had any of his shots, and we haven’t de-wormed him.” And I said, “How much do you want for him?” And he said, “He’s not for sale yet.” And I said, “He’s coming home with me- what do you want?” In the end, I crossed the pimply-faced youth’s palm with a crumpled ten-dollar bill and a promise not to return if Fezzik had any kitty diseases.

Fezzik lived in Iowa with me, and then Decatur, IL; Chicago, IL; Kansas City, MO; Los Angeles, CA; New York City, and then finally, Napa Valley, California. In that time he became infamous in my family for his lack of social skills. It was true that he really only wanted to be around me, and occasionally, other women. But mostly all he wanted in life was to sit in my lap or lay across my back and sleep. Over the years, I became accustomed to looking down when I’d been writing for some time and realizing that Fezzik had crept up on my lap, curled up, and gone fast to sleep. For fourteen years, I’ve made him breakfast, kept him rich in Pounce kitty treats, found other folks to love him when I had to travel, and made every choice- from the apartments I took to the men I dated- based on whether or not he would be welcome. In return, he loved me, so purely, so deeply, so simply, that all it would take is me coming home for him to purr for hours on end. He followed me around the house to talk to me, curled in my lap when I cried, stretched out next to me when I read, spooned with me at any opportunity. He gave me somewhere to focus all the love I have to give, and he was the only worthy male not blood to me to ask for that love in all the time I knew him.

He’s been sick. His kidneys decided that they don’t so much like to process waste anymore, and so my vet and I tried everything- subcutaneous fluids every day, antibiotics, a diet of turkey baby food (man, does that stuff stink), Metamucil, and Pepcid AC were a part of his daily regimen. But we thought that we could make him happy and comfortable for a good amount of time- after all, he was only 14.

This morning I woke up in my usual waking pose- I call it my “practicing for my cruxifiction pose”- arms splayed out, on my back. Fezzik was asleep on the pillow next to my head, curled into the circle of my neck and shoulder. Everything was wet. The pillow, the sheets, the bed, and it didn’t smell. It was just water. His kidneys weren’t failing- they had quit. The water he was drinking was passing right through. I got up, and he barely opened his eyes- it had happened in his sleep. And, it had happened in various places around my home. I locked him in the bathroom for the day, with food and water and a litterbox, thinking I’d do lots of laundry tonight and get him to the vet to figure out what we could do. But all day I felt like throwing up.

I finally rushed home after a day filled with meetings and scooped him up to get to the vet on time. When I got there, the vet was setting a broken kitty leg, so I waited. I took Fezzik out of his carrier and tried to hold myself together. My vet came in, and after we talked for a bit, she said to me, “Months ago you told me you had waited too long when it was Zooey’s time. I know you don’t want to do that now. Fezzik doesn’t look ready to go to you, but he is hours, maybe days away from being miserable. Right now, he doesn’t know just how sick he is. If you want to give him the gift of passing while he still feels okay, today would be a good day.”

She left to go get an aide and the injection. I picked Fezzik up and sat down with him on my lap and he looked up at me, still so himself. I’ve bawled many, many times with him laying across my lap, and I’m sure he figured this was just another one of those times. My vet returned, and asked me to talk to him and have him look at me while they swabbed his leg with alcohol and inserted the needle. He cried out once, looking at the needle, and then at me, and then he died.

I laid my head against the table and sobbed. The vet left to give me a little time, and I tried to tell Fezzik to go find Zooey, who’d been waiting for him for a few years now, and Kije. And I told him I loved him very much, and then I fled the room because I couldn’t bear petting his lifeless body and because he was long gone and it was my decision that took his life away.

And now I’m home, in my empty house, and I feel terrible. I hope my decision wasn’t selfish. I hope that if the situation was reversed, that if I was the cat who was slowly falling apart and he the human I’d lived with for fourteen years, that he would have made the same decision for me. It doesn’t seem like a gift, it seems like an awful ripping apart long before it was time.

Fezzik, you were a wonderful cat, and I’m so, so, so sorry. I miss you horribly. Please come back and choose me again someday.

I just can’t do it

Posted June 22nd, 2006 by Michelle

There’s this guy. And, you know, I’m trying really hard this time to not write him off immediately. It is so very easy to rule someone out very quickly, even if he thinks you are the best thing since spice racks. This guy in particular is reasonably enlightened, reasonably smart, reasonably many things, but he also lays claim to these things but still calls the waiter a “fucking idiot” in all seriousness when all the waiter is is busy. And I can’t imagine that a comment like that shouldn’t rule a person out. Also, newsflash, folks, I really am more than big tits and a big smile. I mean, as it stands right now, I’m substantially more than that just in body, but my days of being cavalier are long gone and I want someone who thinks I’m hot AND a good writer, or whatever.

I think I know what I want, but then I am presented with exactly what I thought I wanted, and it’s just not it. I think I really need to get it through my thick skull that I don’t actually know what I want (beyond a non-smoking non-Republican). In fact, those are going to be my only two indicators for this next period of time. I think I want someone older, and instead I find someone totally set in his ways. I think I want someone fun and I get someone who lacks depth. I think I want someone in the arts and I get someone who is a narcissistic flake. So, I officially clear my mind, and seek whatever it is that is out there seeking me. We’ll find each other eventually, or we won’t.

As an aside, I saw a Motown cover band tonight called Pride and Joy, and they were really good, you know, if you like Motown, but the one thing I did appreciate is the universality of the song “Shout” from the movie Animal House. I am willing to be that fully half of that audience has never seen Animal House, but somehow it is hard-wired in our DNA to throw our hands up at the appropriate times in that song. We, as a species, cannot help ourselves. I like that.

I do not like that it is well over 100 degrees here in the land of wine. It’s 10:20 at night, and the thermometer in my house, that only goes up to 90, is laying wilted on its side, way past that particular heat mark. Needless to say, Fezzik is not pleased. A few years ago when we were in New York, my dear roommate Hayley went and bought blocks of ice and laid both Fezzik and the late Zooey across the top of them, because they couldn’t stop panting. When I got home tonight, lacking a block of ice, I briefly considered sticking Fez in the fridge for a minute or two.

And that’s the news from Napa Valley.

I think this is hilarious

Posted June 20th, 2006 by Michelle

In the life times of my cat Fezzik, it only gets more expensive and more exhausting as I have to, every day, give him subcu fluids, talk him into eating, and then clean up his barf. But he still is reasonably entertaining, so I think I’ll keep doing it for a while.

When it came time to take a dear friend to a “paint-your-own-pottery” shop, I decided that the only thing I could truly use was another bowl to house the food that will, eventually, just end up on my carpet anyway, but why not at least begin auspiciously. So I chose to paint a wee kitty bowl.

Now, this is a picture of Fezzik with a toy that his Aunt Anastasia sent him.

You might notice that his left ear looks a little funny. So funny, in fact, that when people meet him, they instantly say, “What happened to him?” to which I defensively reply “NOTHING”. (What really happened is he got a hemotoma that had to be drained, which then filled again, and had to be drained, and the ear was never the same.) But Aunt Anastasia started referring to little Fez as “One Ear”, and it stuck. Now we all call him “One Ear”. And I thought, to celebrate his uniqueness rather than shame him for his deformity, I’d honor him- and his ear- on the food bowl.

I think it’s a pretty good likeness.

chee-rist

Posted June 16th, 2006 by Michelle

Is there a polite way to tell my new neighbor’s son, who doesn’t live here but is here miraculously every time I’m outside reading a book or watering my plants and he drools his forking cigarette smoke all over me, that not only is he playing his music too loud, but that it *sucks*?

every girl loves

Posted June 14th, 2006 by Michelle

I live in a treehouse now. Out of every window, all I see are fluttering leaves, branches, sky, and last night, a great blue heron made quite a racket when he crash-landed on a too-small branch.

But that is not what this blog is about. This blog is about my new cowboy boots.

When I was thirteen years old, and my family was shattering, some of us- I can’t remember everyone who was there- had Christmas at my brother Kent’s house in Iowa City, Iowa. I remember that my nephew Sean Patrick had just been born. He was still a baby, a tiny infant, and my sis-in-law Melissa quietly led me into his room and we peered into his crib. He was laying half on his side, half on his stomach. “I think that was his favorite position in the womb,” she whispered. He was the sweetest, softest little child.

I, however, was neither sweet, nor soft. I was already a bit of a mess, having suffered through the awakening that all was not remotely right with my family. It was a really hard time- puberty had come a’calling about a year earlier, and I was already dreaming of liberation, of having some control over my own life. I was vaguely furious with just about everything and everyone. But Christmas morning came and with it, a small envelope from my brother Steve and his girlfriend Holly. Inside was a gift certificate for lessons at the riding stable that was just across from our condo in Basking Ridge, New Jersey. Along with it was a note saying they would also get me riding boots.

It was, and is, one of the most thoughtful gifts I’ve ever received. You know how something like 98% of girls love horses, and about 97% of them grow out of it? Not me. All through my childhood I’d collected those Breyer horses… you know, like the
quarter horses…

and the Apaloosas (I was particularly fond of this foal)

and of course the mighty Clydesdales.

When I was very young, I’d put one of these horses (by the end, I must have had 20 or 25 of them) in the middle of my bedroom and then I’d turn my back and pray and pray and pray that he would turn into a real horse, so we could run away.

I never fell out of love with horses, and the fact that my brother and his girlfriend wanted to unite me with the real deal was extremely meaningful to me. The sucky part of the story is that we got home, and everything fell apart even more, and I just couldn’t be bothered to take the lessons, and I never pursued buying the boots. They would have been English boots, and I wanted to ride Western, and I think that may have been one of the ways I rationalized giving up the dream. But more than that, I was consumed with finding acceptance at my new school, obsessed with worming my way into a group of friends that actually already quite liked me, and some of them might still be friends today if I hadn’t gone overboard. It seems as though every free minute of that particuar year was spent worrying about whether or not I was still “in” with them. Clearly, things like “going to school” or “doing homework” were NOT priorities. What was a priority was finding a group of people who loved me, who thought I was great and cool, and who would stick around.

Fast forward twenty years. A couple of weeks ago I walked into a shop called “Western Wear” or something like that. There were blankets and saddles and reins and spurs and easily a hundred different kinds of those Breyer horses. I tried on several pairs of boots, helped by a sweet young lady who, when she smelled the poverty on me, offered to give me 15% off a particularly beautiful pair. I slipped them on, pulled my jeans over the tops, walked around for a bit, and handed over my credit card. And a week later, I went to a dear friend’s house to climb on the back of a beautiful bay for a ride through the vineyards.

I don’t know how often I’ll get to ride, but if it’s once a month, I’ll be delighted. And someday, someday, dammit, I will have my own horse. And a husband and two little ones. And when I’m done writing for the day, I’ll walk down to the barn and throw the saddle over the back of my gorgeous palomino, hoist myself up, and do my riding for the day. And I’ll still be wearing these boots.

enough

Posted May 21st, 2006 by Michelle

It is pouring outside, shuddering rain slamming into the hot earth that seems to have dried out just days ago from the months of flooding. Many folks around town are upset, thinking that we’ve had enough of this. I’m thrilled. I love the rain, when it doesn’t fall every day for weeks. I love a sudden storm, the fury of the thunder and lightning and the smell of everything as it soaks clean. But Fezzik- my cat- is terrified of it, which speaks to his incredibly short attention span. The rains only stopped a couple of weeks ago. I don’t think I’ll feel so badly next time I leave him for the weekend.

I think one of the reasons I’m enjoying this storm is it makes me feel a little less bad about lying around all day. Not that I have a choice. I had violent, exceedingly painful, explosive, horrific food poisoning on Thursday, with the ugliness lasting throughout the whole night. I had no idea that my body contained that much, well, stuff, that it so desperately wanted to eject, in any way it could. The third or fourth time my body was gearing up for another one of these episodes- must have been 3 or 4 AM- I really wondered if I could die. I knew I was in danger of passing out, and if that happened, would the violence continue, without me awake to watch over it? It was crazy. And since, I’ve not been able to put enough calories in my body to function. I started very slowly Friday afternoon, with the requisite crackers and Jello, and by last night ate a piece of bread and some grapes. Today I had a smoothie, on my mom’s advice, which made me feel stellar for about 2.3 minutes (during which my dad called and got to hear me speak as a human for the first time in days). But that has worn off, and I wonder if I’ve eaten 1000 calories since Thursday night. I went to the grocery store to pick up whatever sounded remotely appealing, walked out with a bag and a bunch of flowers, and then wandered the parking lot for 20 minutes, since I had exactly no idea where I’d parked.

But I think the worst part- besides the actual losing of my lunch- was the pain on Friday. Every ounce of me ached. Every surface of my body that touched another surface was so uncomfortable, so painful, that I couldn’t sleep. I can’t imagine anything that I could consciously do to my body- workouts or otherwise- that could cause that kind of soreness. Finally, around evening time on Friday, I had enough crackers in my body to risk a few Tylenol, but the edge of pain did not simmer down until two Tylenol PMs at 8 PM and eleven hours of sleep. I suppose the pain makes sense, considering the exertions of the night before, the instant soaking of sweat that happened right before every, um, episode, speaks to just how hard my body was working to rid me of all it contained.

Three colleagues had the same meal I did. One didn’t feel so hot on Friday, but the other two were unphased. This is what my body does when it decides I’m being a total moron. This is my body’s version of saying, simply, “Enough.” It’s happened to me a couple of times before- one memorable weekend spent wrapped ’round my loo in Covina, California, after three weeks of touring in Eastern Europe, eating nothing but bread and Coke, and performing a zillion times a day, and suffering the abuses of my peforming troupe. My body said “enough” quite clearly then, and I quit the troupe the next day.

I can’t quit what I am doing, not yet. But I’ve been pressuring myself more than anyone ever ought to do a fantastic job, because so many people, I feel, are counting on me. I’ve stuck my neck way above the crowd and I’m dancing faster than I am able in order to try to keep folks from taking pot shots. It sucks, and I’m not having fun anymore. But I’ve got a job to do, and at least one more month to do it in, and what I’ve got to do is find a way to do it that is reasonable, healthy, and fun. My body has been begging me for months to change my life, and while I’ve heard it, I’ve done nothing- nothing concrete- to truly make some changes. But, boy howdy, I’m gonna change things now. I don’t know how, not at this moment, but that’s because I’m still eating crackers and lying around with my sweet cat on my chest and reading a novel a day.

Next week will be three and 1/2 days of work, and then I’m off to the Jartacular in upstate New York. And then I’ll come back, and I’ll figure out how to do this differently. In the meantime, I’m going to take another nap.

capacity

Posted May 9th, 2006 by Michelle

I left work today at 5:24. I know this because it was such an anomaly. I came home, did some prep for dinner, and then took a book and a beer out to the creek and tucked in for an hour of reading on a reclining lawn chair. The slightly crazy cat lady from down the block was wandering through my yard, calling “Charlie, Charlie!” Apparently one of her cats, who has never stepped foot outdoors in ten years, escaped, and she was beside herself. I came in, made dinner, and did one of my most favorite pastimes: putzed. I have a deep love of putzing, of doing small things to put my house in order.

I thought about working on my puzzle, but it was started by the guy I stopped seeing a few weeks ago and its appeal has waned. Instead, I curled up on the couch, and my cat curled up on me, and I read.

This all may sound terribly boring, but for me, it was long and lovely. I usually do not leave work until 6 or 7, sometimes even as late as 8 or 9, which means I work, roughly, ten hour days- and that does not count the work I continue to do via email when I come home.

My point is this: my professional life is going gangbusters. But it is doing so at the expense of my personal life. I met a very nice young man this weekend, and as we spent a full day talking and sharing about our lives, he kept commenting on how busy I seem to be. I think he was trying to feel out if there was any space in my life for the likes of him. I, too, wonder exactly the same thing. Do I work so much and so hard because it is the main love in my life right now? What would it look like to love my job, AND love a life partner? How good could I be at both? And what would happen if, even if just for a short time, I gave my personal life the focus I give my work life? And I don’t just mean romantic relationships; I mean friendships, relationships in my family, relationships with my neighbors and colleagues.

I have a coach in my life right now who continually amazes me with her capacity to love. Sometimes I feel saturated, overwhelmed with the numbers and depth of the issues and people who I believe need my focus, everyone from local artists to refugees in Darfur. My coach, however, has what feels like this ever-expanding heart. When I am with her, she is so totally focused on me, even though there are literally hundreds of other people in her life who depend on her for so much. And I watch her be the same way with every person she cares about. It’s inspiring, and humbling, because there have been times that I’ve literally thrown up my hands in protection and said, “No! Don’t tell me! I can’t take on one more thing!”

But now I realize that the same thing, in a small way, is happening to me. The more I creak open my life to fit in another person, or even just an hour with someone I’ve not connected with recently, the more I feel able to let in another, and another. I’m glad to be out of my last mini-relationship, but it taught me that I do actually want that in my life. And I wonder what it would look like if, just for, say, two weeks, I said “yes” to every invitation, as well as “yes” to every person who truly needed me, even if just a little bit.

Maybe I don’t yet know what I really want in my life. But maybe, for the first time, I finally want to know.

Posted May 6th, 2006 by Michelle

After over $400 in tests and a fair amount of heartache and scratches on my arms, the vet has determined that Fezzik, my sweet little 14-year-old cat, is in the beginning stages of kidney failure. He’s now on antibiotics and a potassium supplement, but the worst part is the subcutaneous fluids I have to give him once a day.

I used to have this terrible fear not of needles, but of people sticking needles in me. There are a number of terrific stories around my passing out whenever a needle pierced my skin (including the time I passed out with my pants down after getting an antibiotic shot in the rear to cure strep throat) but when I applied to Peace Corps, I decided I’d get over the fear. And I did, with lots of yoga and therapy and deep breathing. The last time they took blood for the last bout of tests, I even chatted with the guy while he was doing it. But this doesn’t mean I’m fond of needles. So yesterday, when for the first time I had to push that little piece of metal into my dear cat’s skin, I almost threw up. And he was so patient and sweet- I was the one squirming and battling the urge to run and hide under the bed.

Kidney failure does not “get better”. It only gets worse. And it seems like not nearly enough time has passed since I went through the same kind of thing with Zooey (http://www.mlwms.com/blog/arch/2003_09_21_index.html). Zooey had been with me since high school; Fezzik been my travel companion since early college. He’s lived in Cedar Rapids, IA, Los Angeles, Chicago, Kansas City, New York City, Brooklyn, Napa Valley, and a number of smaller places in between. I only have one close friend who I’ve known longer than I’ve known Fezzik. And I don’t know what is worse- thinking about his death, or watchiing him live uncomfortably.

I know I’m going to be faced with some difficult decisions: how can I possibly afford the $300 ultrasound they say he needs? How am I going to pay both his vet bills, and the many hundreds of dollars I owe for my recent string of UTIs? How will I know if what I am doing for him is working? And when will I know that it is “time”?

Ian and Tessa had a terrific vet that said that pets should be “happy happy happy dead”. I agree with this, but it’s possible that with Zooey, I waited a little too long. I think there was at least a few days that I was thinking about my own “happy” rather than his. I don’t want to do that with Fezzik.

But for now, at least once a day, he is still purring. Indeed, he woke me up this morning to be petted, and that means that there is still a lot of life left in him. I think that will be the litmus that I use: as long as Fezzik still needs and responds to love, it means he wants to stick around. I’ll just take it a day at a time.