We have had my dog Colin since I was in first grade. He is fifteen and a half. I'm losing him tomorrow. He's tired and broken and my dad has to carry him. We've done all we can. Though his heart is strong and he tries so hard to get up and move around, his body is failing him.

I thought I'd come to terms with this already, but I haven't. I just wish I could be there with him. Once my parents figured out the speakerphone I said goodbye, and he seemed to recognize my voice. Rosie did, too, before she had to be put to sleep; when I Skyped from Scotland she rubbed her head on the speaker. I hope the vet can come to the house so Colin doesn't have to endure a car ride. He's gotten carsick since he was a puppy because he stares, as border collies do. Our vet is wonderful and kisses him even though he has bad breath, another of his traits from puppyhood.

I'm going to miss him so much. He's been in most of my life and I don't know how I'm going to deal with life without him. Once, one of my friends told me I was the strongest person he knew, but that strength is getting shaky.

We went on a walk last Sunday while I was home: me, my dad, and the dog, down on the front lawn. Colin frolicked as best a fifteen-and-a-half-year-old dog could, wandered around the pond's edge. He's had a great life and been quite happy, but that thought doesn't make losing him any easier.

The overhead lights in my kitchen and bathroom aren't working. Have tried flipping my circuit breakers but that doesn't work. Instead, I probably just shut off power for elderly people in my building. Awesome. I wish my landlord would call me back. Also I wish I could get a cat. =(

Sooo glad this week is over. The first-years were doing skits/a roast for the last day of classes, which involved some people drinking out of bottles in paper bags and a general party in the big 1L lecture room. Law students = classy. I'm excited that soon there will be a month with no classes, so I can just sit around and do f'all. That's pretty much what I did today, too. Escaped to Whole Paycheck with one of my coworkers (who has the same name as me) and dicked around in my office for most of the afternoon.

I think someone just hit something outside my apartment, lulz.

Because I am a total nerd, it's upsetting to me that my alma mater never successfully published my name as making Dean's List or getting a book award (for a 4.0 my senior year) in my local paper. I would like to show various bitches from high school, etc. that all that time I spent being a loser means that I am a genius. Since I spent a lot more time readin' books than I did having fun, it's kind of a bummer. I tried to tell my mom this and she interpreted my sentiments as regretting my education... which I don't; I just wish I'd struck a better balance and not stressed myself out so much.

Seriously wtf is going on outside my apartment. There are lots of horns beeping. Must go check this out. Huh. There appears to be a truck stopped in the street with its flashers on for no reason. Maybe it did hit something. Naturally, the way every single person who stops behind them thinks the solution is to just beep their horns more, because clearly that's working. And, of course, as soon as I go out of my building there are two slightly sketchy dudes behind me, and then a man muttering to himself with takeout walks by. I thought this was A Desirable Neighborhood. Why can't there be more yuppies with dogs and small children?

Speaking of which, at Whole Paycheck today we say a wooden sushi play set for children. My co-worker says there is a yuppie vortex somewhere in the universe.

Anyway, re: my sad life as a recovering academic, as you can imagine that conversation didn't go too well. I'm feeling okay tonight, and have plans this weekend, but it does get lonely quite a lot. I need to write more, do more, etc. I do have my Christmas tree up though, and it is quaint and exciting. Last night I wrapped my grandparents' present with wrapping paper saved from last year because I totally eco-friendly. I then had to get creative with attaching things to the box because I am terrible at wrapping presents. Perhaps someday I will find out that I am a great creative mind. When I used "cephalopod" in a sentence today my co-worker said I needed to wrap my head in ice before attempting to not go insane at work because of all the dumbass goings-on there. She may be right.

In conclusion, other random thoughts:
1. This and this are stupidly important parts of my life right now. I'm at the point where I just talk to Brand New songs and think, "Man, Jesse Lacey, we are both morose bastards, let's get married." I don't think I'm being too unreasonable.
2. Spooks is VERY DISAPPOINTING. Way to kill off characters I like, or make them sleep with dumbass bitches. It does get points for making Ella from Hex a random meth head in a squat, though.
3. Apparently I am going to see this play & it's supposed to blow my mind.

Well, guys, I've lived here six weeks and just got Internet today. I don't think I'm every going to catch up on my flist. Oh Internet, how I have missed thee!

Have spent all day on the computer, and predictably didn't want to write much. Unpredictably, I did it anyway. NaNoWriMo is going all right; I'm staying on schedule pretty well, and making up for losses. This is very easy to do when you have nothing to do upon getting home from work. The novel is called bookish and I've been working on it since I was like sixteen. It has become part novel, part memoir, however, and I'm trying to play with the author/writer dichotomy and deal with the fictionalization of one's own life in novels. I'm pretty sure a lot of it is shit, but I've come to terms with that being what a first draft is. Better to get it all written, and craft it later. My word count is 35,550, which may be a new record for me at this point in the month. My evenings are surprisingly empty now that I'm a grown-up.

I have a new city with not a lot of friends, and it's hard. For awhile I was going to trivia nights with some other Bowdoin grads, but then everyone else apparently stopped showing up. I've seriously been stood up by a group of ten people on more than one occasion. Last weekend I did go to Fort William with a friend from high school I hadn't seen in like three years, which was awesome. I am utilizing my Flickr account & the set is here. The art museum is free on Fridays, so I went yesterday and couldn't even see it all. I had to leave before I had an attack of Stendhal Syndrome.

Briefly, some things I endorse:
- Bright Star (OMG. obligatory)
- Little Lad's herbal popcorn (I imagine crack is like this)
- Whole Foods taking all my money and me not caring about it
- A Laodicean by Thomas Hardy (it's like he KNEW there would be some fierce bookish bitches wanting to read castley romances in a hundred years)
- The Liar by Stephen Fry (have you ever laughed for the last several chapters of a book? I hadn't, and then this book happened to me)
- Idealist's new movement. I'm tired of being expected to think the status quo is okay. Progress must be constant, and we must desire it and work for it. I'm signed up.
- "Bored to Death" (because I, too, would like to be a writer slash private detective. How twee is Jason Schwartzman on this show.)
- Inglourious Basterds (left me with very different emotions than Bright Star, obviously
- This Entire Tumblr.

I am too Internetted out to have anything interesting to say. My job is all right, but boring as shit most of the time. When I was at my hella expensive alma mater, the professors still did their own photocopying; at my job, the professors can't be bothered to do pretty much anything themselves. I have to restrain myself from massive eyerolling, because I would probably hurt myself and get fired. I never thought I'd miss Special Collections this much.

Now I just want to watch TV on the Internet until Megavideo explodes.

Yesterday was exhausting. Left my house at 9.30 for a noon job interview in Portland, which fortunately went well. I have another one on Friday. I had the ladies who interviewed me laughing, which is always a good sign. I need to stop telling random stories about my life when I'm nervous, though. Afterward, I looked at an apartment that my former boss MQ has in a building she and her Other Half own. It is so cute! & furnished! They're willing to let me crash there for a few months until I get on my feet in P-town. I am anticipating being broke so I am attempting to sell things on eBay and avoiding spending money.

Headed up to Brunswick to continue to be a creepo at Bowdoin. Bought a cool necklace at the consignment shop Estilo, which is amazing & every lady in the state should visit, and got some snacks for my mom at the gluten-free bakery Wildflours. Visited my old job, where apparently misses me a lot. Another of my former bosses says it's weird & there are "all these strange people" working there now. After that, saw LH, HH, and TM, getting Thai food and gelato with the latter two. My car had some issues with the door not latching, leading to me wiping out the door plunger with a tissue in the dark in HH's driveway. Eventually I made it home, watched "Sons of Anarchy" with my parents, and passed out.

Naturally, today I plan on doing not a whole lot. Well, actually I have a lot of plans, but none of them are very exciting. My cat is still missing, which is awful, but I have faith that she will come home. I read that lost cats take on average two weeks to return home or be found, and lost cats have little in common with lost dogs. So I will be looking for the cat today, traipsing through the woods like a crazy person. I'm grateful it's not hunting season yet. I also ought to start packing/cleaning in hopes of actually getting a new place to live. Also, this is the week of the Amnesty International teach-in for Troy Davis, and I'm participating by blogging at my other blog Praeteritio. Don't know what it is, maybe the prospect of not stagnating at home, but I feel very hopeful and motivated this morning. It will not be another day of watching British comedy (but oh gosh the new season of "Peep Show" is amazing, watch it) and lazing about. I will get things done, dammit. First I just need to take a shower.

This journal is going to become increasingly friends-only from here on out, methinks. It already has been headed in that direction for some time now. I'm blogging about more professional, intellectual, and frankly more interesting matters at praeteritio.wordpress.com.

I seriously had half an entry written here and just gave up. In better news, I met a presidential candidate from the seventies today.

I really need something good to happen. Still jobless, though I'm doing everything right and looking in obscure places for employment. If I knew what I wanted to do with my life academically then I'd start planning for grad school but it would be a waste at this point. Just feeling stagnant & cut off from everything. Professional life is at a standstill, as if my writing life. Trying to work on a novel today, I realized it is insipid and nonsensical despite my best attempts.

When I get bored in the basement stacks at work I leaf through the eight-volume set of John Keats' writings. Today I read this absurd and kind of condescending letter he wrote to his friend's sisters, and it was hilarious. This comes to mind. Everything is a test of my "negative capability," as Keats called it; I have to learn to accept the mysteries in life and not understand everything. I am thinking about Bright Star a lot to avoid thinking about the following things: my own life; Iran; (still) the ending to Battlestar Galactica.

Should really go to bed because I didn't get back from the midnight showing of Harry Potter until 3 a.m. and still got up at 8:00 to go to work. I quite enjoyed the movie, though I did not enjoy paying $4.25 for a bottle of water. I'm debating whether I should reread all of the books(or some of them) before the next films come out because I tend to forget plot details and it's more exciting when the movies surprise me a bit.

I'm reading Dune and it is crazy, you guys. Crazy.

I wanted to post a picture of my bookshelf, but have lost the USB cord for my camera because I am a transient.  Last weekend there was a massive book sale for the public library and I scored a lot of books for $14.50 over a couple of days.  It was pretty epic and I take some joy from looking at the 24 volumes I purchased for the price of a new paperback at Borders.

( booklust like whoa )

Despite being sick and upset about everything I am doing my best to stay positive and find a job.  We have been watching a lot of "Spooks" because Richard Armitage is in it.  My new dream job is person in the makeup department who paints tattoos on people for film and television.  My mother tells me I need to get out more often and watch less television, but I find the outside world teeming with disappointment.  I am planning on going to a couple of shows soon, though, so I hope that counts for something.

Finally made it home for a three-day weekend. We're having our house reappraised next week, so it is a flurry of activity. On top of that we have to clean out Kathie's house, as it is going to be sold. I keep thinking my mom has bought a bunch of new things, and then realize they are Kathie's. I put out on my sewing table the tea set she gave me for graduation and sobbed. She had "shrines" all over her house and I guess this is mine to her, and everyone else I've lost.

On top of this, my mom thinks my dog, who is fifteen, isn't doing too well. I keep telling myself that God doesn't give you more than you can handle, but I'm not sure that's true (semester in Edinburgh, case and point). I'm not "dealing" with my grief and don't know how I could handle any more sadness. Each day is one more on the verge of tears.

I know my personality has changed and I'm sullen all the time now. This must be bothering my co-workers but I have trouble caring since I'm still very productive.

I think I'm going to sell my piano. How does one best go about doing that? We got it from my uncle's then-girlfriend's (now-wife's) mother. Since the wife is an evil woman I do associate some bad karma with the piano, or maybe that's just what my mother tells me. For awhile, when I was fourteen and fifteen, I taught myself how to play a few songs on the out-of-tune keys. I can still poke out a few, but since I'm tone-deaf I can only get so far. I always wanted to quote that Amy Hedges song that goes, "Spending time at my piano tonight," but I need to face my lack of musical talent. Seems like the piano is now just a display shelf for pictures and diplomas, and the bench is handy when people come over for dinner. Since I can't find a job I will need the money more than I need a dusty piano. It is sad, because I am sentimental about material objects, but compared to losing people it doesn't matter much.

Tomorrow after boxing things at my aunt's house and maybe going to the cemetery we're going to see my cousin, his fiancee, and the baby. That will be a nice thing. True is so sweet and joyful. My cousin & I have never been close, so visiting is always a little quiet and odd. Kathie really was the glue that held us all together.

I've been vacuuming books in the Bliss room lately. (There is seriously a 3D tour. The antiquities were only there during the art museum renovation and have since been removed, but the heavy furniture and gorgeous books remain.) It is very stuffy but also incredibly beautiful and inspiring. Imagine cleaning a room like a fairy-tale library, knowing that you are alone and everyone else is locked out. It is a sanctuary: one with bad air and a musty old-book smell, but also one teeming with history, literature, and art. It is a bit of comfort.

From Wikipedia:

Gehenna, gehenom, or gehinom (Hebrew: גהנום, Greek γεεννα) are words used in Jewish and Christian writings for the place where evil people go in the afterlife (see Hell).

We have a lot of books from Leonard Baskin's Gehenna Press, and once I looked it up because it was so close to my name. Didn't much like what I found, but now it seems fitting since I've been through hell. Like Dante. These past two weeks have been the hardest of my whole life, my personal Gehenna. My aunt was one of my closest family members, and losing her the way we did was the worst. We're talking about selling her house, and who wants what of her belongings. Her cottage was her sanctuary, and even when she wasn't in it, it felt like a manifestation of her. Dismantling all that feels a bit wrong, but we have to deal with the pieces left behind.

I'd like to have my personality back. I can still joke around a bit, and in grief I've laughed as well as cried whilst exploring memories; yet it's not the same. I'm not the same. Everything has changed, maybe the course of my life has. I don't want to talk, usually. I just want to escape. I've been reading and watching adventure stories--Kathie called just about everything an adventure, come to think of it--and dreaming of an epic life. Escapism at its finest.

I'm house/cat-sitting right now. The cat is not a fan of me being here. I don't know if I like the alone time or not. Sometimes I need to be alone with my thoughts; for the week that I was home, I was hardly ever alone. Yet I also feel lonely and apparently depended on the constant hugs I had during that time. I know that everyone who has ever grieved has felt like this, or worse, but that doesn't make what I'm feeling any less raw or real.

While looking for Kathie's will at her house I found an illustrated book of Yeats poems. "Lake Isle of Innisfree" is in there. She had birthday cards and prayers she'd written down tucked between the pages. Later, at the funeral home, I looked more closely at what she'd written on the rosy stationery and she had copied down the poem again. I had no idea she'd even read the poem when I picked it, and yet here she is, guiding me.

On Wednesday my aunt Kathie went to the hospital, which she does every so often because of her asthma. But this time she didn't make it out. The ambulance driver said when they pulled up to her house she was standing in her driveway with her bag, looking ready to hit someone over the head. But she went into cardiac arrest & they couldn't revive her. I never though I'd get that phone call from my dad.

Kathie was only 52. She was so alive, a bright star, and as one of my relatives noted, you can't mention her without laughing. There are so many funny things she's said and done that make me smile. I had lunch with her, my other aunt, and my cousin on Saturday and she was silly and exuberant as usual. But she had a hard life, I think a lonely life at times.

The worst part is that her grandson will never know her well and she won't get to see him grow up. He is only ten months old and has been the love of her life every second since he was born. She took so much joy from him and it is terrible that they have been separated.

I still can't wrap my head around the fact that I have to go through every day now knowing she won't be around, that I will never see her again. I have lost people before, many times, but never someone so active in my life, so suddenly, without any sort of goodbye or expectation. Everything reminds me of her. I feel numb and cried-out and sleepy; I keep hugging my mom but I'm out of things to say.

I'm going to read this at the funeral: ( The Lake Isle of Innisfree )

Kathie loves Irish things, Celtic music, Gaelic. I think she would appreciate it. Mom found an e. e. cummings poem in a photo album we got her for her birthday in March, one dedicated to the baby. Kathie's friend pointed out that was such a Kathie thing: objects tucked in with others, memories piled together by feelings rather than organized. A lot of love and memory remains for us to sort through, and all the while I can't believe she's gone.