C'mon, kiddos, what's the worse that could happen...

Whenever I travel, if for over a week
whether on foot or by thumb or by car, train, or plane
I remember the pull of technology's weak
and playing on computer's are a waste of my brain

A strange endless cycle I'm going to break
a trail of breadcrumbs to leave in my wake

Not hiatus, no, but other places to see
and things to do, and places to pee...

It's like a train wreck, right? I'm horrified, but I can't look away . . .

There are no more rats in my life.

Kingdok, glorious Kingdok, saw her final day yesterday. She gasped quietly to death. She was two and a half years, not bad.

What makes it so remarkable, I suppose, is I've had her since she was barely weaned (or not even weaned, yet), that she survived accidentally getting squished between the coils of the couch seat and its headboard, lived to see roommates come and go, and not die of a horrible, tumorous death, or given away. And, at least for a good long while, she'll be the last.

My rat history is convoluted and full of the joys of companionship and learning to communicate with a new species (my rats were particularly patient), and the horrors of learning certain things the hard way, from ignorance. I've a lot of rat deaths on my hands, three from sheer stupidity and others from things I couldn't understand or control. And more rats I've had to give up due to not having a home and other reasons which are reasons nonetheless, but to me there's never a good reason to give up your pets that doesn't carry guilt, anyway. I wouldn't do it to a child, as far as I know, and a pet is no different. (Except where a pet is considered a "son" or "daughter" or "fur child"...this nomenclature I won't abide. Because they're not my sons or daughters, and I sure as hell am not their mother.)

Kingdok and I have been through a lot together, traveled across the states (legally), and in the last few weeks she was suffering from diarrhea and it was hard recovery for her. She was going strong and adventurous right till that moment, so I couldn't really say it was old age that got to her, but probably made it hard as hell for her to fully pull herself back together. I can't say she was my favorite rat, but she did mean a lot more to me if only because she spent her entire life with me.

So her body sits in the freezer, waiting for me to get a shovel and bury her. In a year, I'll be cleaning up her bones. I had a brief flight of fancy to have her mounted, possibly with a little bindle stick slung over her shoulder, but as much as I like looking at little taxidermy creatures, it seems pretty crude not to put the body back to ground, especially for my pet. (Along the way I found this, which fucking creeps me out.)

The only thing about burying Kingdok's body in our yard, especially the front which is most prime, is that the neighborhood cats have taken to using it as their litterbox. Now I like cats as much as any other feline lover, and I know animals outside will defecate outside, but it's starting to drive me crazy, seeing flies and smelling shit every day when I walk outside. Fresh shit is bad because it stinks and attracts bugs; old shit is worse because I won't realize Pavlov is sniffing at it and eating it until it's too late. I suspect the neighboring raccoons have also been participating in this activity.

Now aside from worrying that they're going to dig her up, I also have to watch where I step...and dig.

Mourning aside, I've spent the entire day cleaning out and reorganizing this little apartment of ours thoroughly (and I mean thoroughly—I started at 8am and am just taking my first break), and the worst part of it is the dust. Which is great for my asthma. Oakland, I've discovered since moving in, is the capitol of dust collection. It doesn't matter how anal you are, it will collect, and continue to collect. You're kind of fucked if you have a mammal for a pet, too. I don't think my mother would survive two days here.

I've just discovered exactly how much yarn I have. And I would never call it too much yarn, but, well, it's a bit. I need to reorganize it, and I need some kind of organizer(s) for my needles and hooks. Which is really an excuse to use this coupon I have at the local fabric store and sew up some needle holders in exciting prints. Or plain canvas I can paint. O-ooor I could use some of this fabric that's been lying around that I'd saved from my grandmother's stash, but I've been wracking my brain over what to make out of their crazy patterns.

There is also this comic I'm working on, and it is progressing, if not infinitely slower than I'd like. At least it is progressing, though, which is better than nothing for me. I need to really, really figure out how to let go of this horrible perfectionist grip I have on myself that deprives me of production.

Work and the job market, I'm not even going to go into. Suffice to say I'm steadily searching, and I still have two weeks left before I really need to worry.

My sister gets married next Saturday.

I left for a week. I left, during what other people experience as Spring Break, to gain a little peace of mind. Perhaps closure. It has certainly been a mess in my head lately. No work, no pets, no house helps put things in perspective. When you have no mirror to encounter in the morning, you start caring more about what's going on around you than the composition of your face.

In the torment of severe winds and not enough sunshine, we smoked cigarette after cigarette, sang songs, read, knit, and watched. There came the sweet cacophony of commuter traffic, the whining and screech of steel cutting over steel. All that was required of us was to watch and wait, and in the study of the rumbling and clanking of cars we learned in the course of four days of ramen and crank radio that there was no train for us yet, no car that would be able to take us where we wanted to go the way we wanted to go.

And priorities rework themselves; as much as one could hold out indefinitely for a ride, there is, at the end of a week of vacation, school and work to return to, and a dog much missed. Now why would anyone give up a life devoid of time limits, if even briefly?

But we did ride the coast line—only, on Amtrak—and it was a beautiful journey down to Santa Barbara, complete with horrifying studies of American society on board and along the beach...but that analysis later. In the sun burning through skylights, I watched the golden grass give way to cliff and sea, and dreamt of watching the same landscape race by merely feet above the rails instead of yards.

In the sun burning on the beach, my face scarred over with red, but well fed and stretched out like smug lions, we soaked up what the city had to offer us.

Sometimes the ground shakes beneath me, a little shiver, and I have to remember again exactly where it is that I live.

I bounced right back. Of ska, Prince Buster is not to be missed. Aside from some songs of repetitive lyrics, he was indeed a forefather of much that is rocksteady and ska, influencing those that followed like a drop that prompts the ripples.

Gustave Doré is an amazing engraver, artist, and goes hand-in-hand quite nicely with Haydn, specifically The Creation. I'm reminded to pore over the things and works that inspire and move me to create myself. And in the past week, believe me, I have been little more than a slug and need that jump start.

It doesn't hurt to have 60 balls of yarn delivered to my door. It does kind of hurt for room in the apartment with that and the addition of a new love seat (Jon and I can sit side-by-side now in the living room, how novel an idea is that?), and a dog that is making use of all the terrier energy he was denied in the past, all of it catching up to him now.

My project is nearing completion at work. Time to plot out a new work path to pick up at the end of the previous, elsewhere, and also for myself.

Regaining calm, never had composure, regaining excitement, steamrolling with perseverance, managing stress.

Sense of humor? Finding bits and pieces of it again.

Putting myself into place. That place is pretty high up there, so it's a bit of work to match the knowledge.

5 seizures in 17 hours, and that they're seizures are confirmed by the neurologists. Phenobarbital and Viagra, my dog should be a canine spokesperson, a poster boy, how lovely the idea of sponsorship sounds. At some point everyone on UC Davis' vet campus will become a fan; emergency services, cardiology, neurology, pulmonary. They do not think that his seizures are at all related to his heart condition, and they're pretty sure it's not epilepsy. And even if I wanted to drop money I can't drop on an MRI and spinal tap, he's no candidate for anesthesia.

But, on the plus side, Pavlov is happy and never realizes he's seized. Sometimes I think his mind spasms, though, as he takes to acting a bit off, sniffing at things in a more confused manner, sometimes ornery.

My grandmother's wake is today. I have not attended a funeral since I was eleven, I believe, and so the protocol of 4 or 5 funerals I've tucked away under my belt is lost to me now.

We have basil and mint and cilantro and parsley and thyme and chives and oregano and peppers growing.

Next Saturday we put my grandmother to ground. Or, what remains of her.

Oh secrets, I've not a one, but a burning desire to outwit a mass of live tissue I don't respect but love. In one instance I could glimpse it all through the eyes of a coyote, isn't it all a cosmic joke? But too often my greater derangement is a wave of disbelief in my capabilities and morals, the fiber of my being.

No matter how convenient, a Swiffer still does shit work in place of broom and mop. And so does the vacuum.

In the future, you will see me working as if in the past. Keep your roombas and your goombas, these choices I can't abide.