photography.believemagic.com

I’m now well into the quarter here at UC. And here’s what I can tell you for certain:

You know how you can feel really skinny if you stand between two really fat people? Same concept works in reverse. Stand between two thin people and you feel really fat.

I’ve surrounded myself with the brightest minds in criminal justice in the country. UC is the number one research university for criminal justice in the US. In short, the professors are smart. Brilliant, in fact. And because of that, I’m surrounded by the brightest CJ grad students in the country.

So I feel dumb a good bit of the time.

That’s not necessarily bad. It’s good to not feel like the smartest person in the room sometimes. Keeps me humble. But it’s not very pleasant.

A few funny things from around the new neighborhood.

This was a banner near the top of a building, seen during the recent “Harvest Home Fair” parade. The parade is something the folks in Cheviot (pronounced “Chevyit") do every year.

Where I come from, “cornhole” must have a different meaning than it does around here.

Here’s a bench advertisement that immediately caught Carrie’s eye:

Should I be worried that she noticed it was $300 cheaper to prepare for my death than for divorce?

There are times when I’m damned glad that Carrie bought a domain name and is using a great webhost (DreamHost.com). This is one of those times.

Turns out I’ve had more problems with Time Warner Cable and Road Runner high speed internet in the past 7 days than I had with Comcast in nearly 7 years. No wonder Comcast is kicking TWC’s ass nationwide.

Both RR and TWC appear to suck. RR’s web site has an error on its “about our services” page, which I take as a sign of general incompetence. Not to mention that it took 45 minutes and actually installing some bastard piece of software just to get a fucking email account set up. A lot of that time was spent trying to avoid installing their software.

On the cable side, our first digital cable box didn’t play video on demand. It just refused. Our second box, installed a few days later, gave us noticable dropped sound in the audio. It’s a lot like dropped voice on a digital cell call - you just miss a word or two. Our third cable box appears to be doing the same thing. We might have it localized to digital audio only, but that’s bullshit. I pay entirely too much for digital cable to not have reliable digital audio come out of the frigging box. And in any event, the cable box simply outputs nothing via its digital output on analog channels. That sort of makes sense, but the first cable box didn’t exhibit that behavior. The audio also appears to get out of sync with the video sometimes.

We’re having enough trouble with it that I’m seriously considering buying a dish for the first time in my life. Nuts.

After five days, I finally have internet access again.

Technically, I’ve had it since day one, but I’ve just now installed my routers and wireless gear.

The majority of our stuff is unpacked, finally. A quick recap of events:

The move itself sucked. I don’t know if it’s because we’re four years older than we were the last time, or that we were going up one flight of stairs, or that we have a shit load of stuff. Likely, it was all three.

The apartment is in a state of utter disarray. It’s taking us much longer than anticipated to unpack. I’d underestimated the time by days. We should have the bulk of it licked by tomorrow afternoon, though.

So far, Cincinnati itself is fairly nice. We’re in the Westwood/Cheviot area.

More later.

I’m moving today. It sucks. I’ll let you know how much when I get to Cincinnati.

So I’m like, married now.

People keep asking if it feels any different.

Uh, no. No it doesn’t.

The wedding went well, no major calamities, other than having about twice as much food as we really needed. Much of what was left was donated to a community kitchen near Bloomington for us by a friend of Carrie’s, the rest was taken home by everyone.

Everyone had a good time. At least that’s what they keep telling us. I doubt that they’d say, “Wow, that really sucked” even if it did, though.

So there we go. One less thing to do. Now we just need to pack, move, and get me a PhD. No sweat.

What is with the obsession with twins in porn? I’m on a mailing list of porn catalogs and the most recent catalog has a set of twins on the front who apparently did a slew of porn movies together.

There’s no denying that they’re attractive but if they’re a package deal, isn’t that incest? I can’t be the only person who finds that a little creepy instead of hot.

One of the things on my to do list today is to make arrangements for disconnecting utilities here and connecting them at the new place.

When Carrie and I were talking about this last night, we sorta had a miscommunication over a few of the details. That’s what happens when we try to talk late at night - we seem to be working at cross purposes. I was a little out of it emotionally, she was tired, etc.

I think I figured out what my problem was… this is the first place I’ve lived in after moving out of my Mom’s house that actually feels like home to me. Less so after losing Pouncer, because his presence is just everywhere (I still look for him in the closet sometimes). But still, this is home. I’d rather not leave it.

The next place will be a way station, the domicile equivalent of a connecting airport. I’m going to miss feeling like I’m at home.

So I’m delivering pizzas now for a national chain. Delivering pizza is pretty much exactly what you’d expect. You pick up the pizza in the store and take it to the customer. I’m not making a ton of money, but it’s only a few hours a night. And I’m making more than I would have made by just sitting on the couch, which is what I was doing before.

I took Dexter to the vet today for his second round of shots. When we made the appointment, we made it for today so there’d be a different vet than the one who euthanized Pouncer (Doc Jeff). But when I got there, he was the vet on duty. I dealt with it better than I’d expected to, concentrating Dex and his health. He’s perfectly healthy, by the by, and even purred for the vet tech when she held him.

I told Doc Jeff how we came to have Dexter, that we’d gone to Nashville Tennessee to visit Dad and “made the mistake” of visiting their local animal shelter. Doc Jeff said that it wasn’t a mistake, that we’d probably saved the little guy’s life.

And I couldn’t help but think, just for a split second, that if I’d have had the choice, I’d have saved a different cat. But I didn’t have a choice and I saved the one I could, I guess.

Two things, actually. First, I got a job. Not all that strange, I suppose, but certainly outside the norm for the recent past. I’ll be delivering pizzas for a wage less than what I was making in high school. Yay.

More importantly, however, is the other thing.

I was laying awake in bed at about 1am, wishing I was tired but knowing I wasn’t. My thoughts have a tendency to drift into dangerous territory in such circumstances. Usually, I’ll dwell on some relatively insignificant detail from the previous day/week/month/whatever that I fucked up badly, going over and over it and in general feeling like a shit. During busy times, if there’s an unsolved problem of some sort left over from the day, I’ll find a way to solve it right then, just when I should be getting to sleep.

Lately, though, my thoughts always drift to Pouncer. Today (that is, Tuesday) will mark three weeks since his death. I’m man enough to admit that I’m still crying over him. And that’s what happened a few hours ago.

The whole sobbing fit thing isn’t that strange, really. I’m 25 years old, no children and no plans for any, few friends, no friends that I see on a regular basis, no job at the moment. I’m at a major crossroads professionally, what with grad school and all starting soon. I’ve got a lot of whacked out shit going on in my head. I feel pretty near useless because I’m not contributing to the household financially, which is due mostly to sloth I guess, since something else always tends to come up when I’ve tried to find a job this summer. The fact that I’ve not really tried to get a job makes not having one even worse. And I’m terrified that instead of finding a new career, I’ll find out I’m a fuck up when classes start this fall. That I’ve been faking it all along. Or worse, that I’m not a fuck up at all. No, worse than being a fuck up would be that I’m just not smart enough to stay in the program.

As if all that wasn’t enough, then my cat gets sick and I can’t even keep him alive. That was my responsibility as his friend and I failed.

Not saying any of that is logical thought or makes any sense, exactly, but at least now you know why I wasn’t sleeping. And since I knew that I wasn’t sleeping any time soon, I left the bedroom. I’ve already woken Carrie in the wee hours once being a sobbing idiot and have no desire to do that again.

I went into the living room and started going through the cats’ - that is to say, Gigabit and Pouncer’s - kitten pictures. Almost all of the kitten photos were before we had a digital camera. The prints are in a little box on the bookshelf.

A week and a half ago, I just couldn’t look at those pictures. I mean I just physically couldn’t. When I tried, my eyes swam with enough tears that I couldn’t see the pictures. But earlier this morning, I did. I went through the whole stack, about four inches thick of photos.

That’s when the strangest thing happened. I felt better. I don’t know why, but I did. Instead of just feeling the loss of a friend, I remembered how much fun he was to have around. And I laughed. The laughter didn’t outweigh the tears, not by a long shot, but it’s a start.

And even though I’ll never have my dear friend with the racing stripes on his butt, crooked periscope tail, and a purr that could be heard for two counties on my lap again, Bitty’s here to remind me that I haven’t petted him enough today and no matter how much I stroke the keys of my laptop, it won’t purr for me.

Here’s something kinda cool:

Taken a few years apart. Kinda nice to see Dex imitate Bitty instead of Pouncer, as he’s doing here:

The difference there is that Pouncer took up that whole left half of my desk!

Friday will mark two weeks of having Dexter. Yesterday was two weeks of not having Pouncer, and that’s still very, very hard to think of. As Carrie said, she didn’t mind spending all of our wedding and honeymoon money on vet bills, but it’s just not fair that we didn’t get to have Pounce in the bargain.

But this post isn’t about Pouncer.

I don’t recall if I mentioned it before, but when we first brought him home, Dexter wasn’t all that friendly to Gigabit. There weren’t any fisticuffs - er, pawticuffs - but there was a bit of hissing and whatnot. Gigabit, for his part, was very friendly and curious. No hissing or back arching from him.

Over the past week and a half, feline relations have improved and continue to do so. Tuna seems to be the great uniter for cats. We fed them tuna at the same time a few days after bringing Dex home. I guess it’s an ice breaker.

Anyway, here’s photographic evidence that relations are getting better:

That’s how Dex usually sleeps, by the way - all stretched out in a line.

Yesterday was a bad day. In the morning, I went through some of the baby pictures from the boys and just sorta lost it.

Later that day, I had to go to the vet to pick up more food for Bitty. He’s on a prescription food that’s designed to help him avoid another bladder infection. The vet tech asked if the food was for Pouncer. I had to tell her what happened.

As cute as Dexter is and as much as he makes me laugh, it is sometimes a little sad to watch him too. There are so many things that Pouncer did as a kitten that Dexter does.

It’s nothing big, you know. Just a look, or the toys he likes to play with, or a sleeping position. The first night we had him, Dexter licked my ear. Pouncer used to do that every night when he was a kitten, up until he was about a year old.

I don’t know. I guess it’s just that I always thought of Pouncer as very special, and everything that Dexter does that’s like what Pouncer used to do… well, in a way it sorta diminishes Pouncer’s specialness.

Sort of. That’s not quite right, but it’s close.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Dexter. He’s cute. He’s small. He acts like a kitten. He follows me everywhere and cries if I leave the room. And he’s really bendy, which is why his name is Dexter.

He’s grey and silver tiger striped. His stripes meet under his tummy:

The bedroom has a distinctive cat piss aroma.

Wonderful.

It could be from the recent rain… our wall mildews a bit in the rain. I’ll have to wait until Carrie gets home to figure out what it is. My smeller isn’t working very well these days.

In other news, chemical burns suck. I had to use a strong mixture of very hot bleach water to clean up some fabric dye from Carrie’s art. It burned my fingertips. It’s not bad unless I touch something.

As I mentioned in the last post, Dad invited us to Nashville on Wednesday afternoon. Carrie called off work for the rest of the week and we drove down Thursday morning.

Thursday morning and the drive down were hard for us. Pouncer always helped us pack and we missed him terribly while we were getting ready to leave. We spent a long time in the car talking about him.

Our mood brightened during the drive (sorta) and it was good to see Dad. His wife, Marcy, has ALS. That, and Carrie’s mother and aunt recounting Carrie’s uncle’s recent death due to cancer when we took them home from the airport on Wednesday… well, things like that have a way of putting your dead cat in perspective.

While we were in Tennessee, we went to the Williamson County Animal Control. We looked at all the kittens - so many choices! When we originally adopted our boys, there weren’t any choices. Friends of ours just had an extra kitty or two. It took us a long time to decide, and we came back the next day after discussing it.

We came home with this little guy:

That’s right. Five hours (or so) in the car with a kitty. We had an ice pack under his cage for A/C (the humans weren’t so lucky). More photos forthcoming.

He was born on April 6. The animal shelter staff named him Stitch, but we’re probably going to change his name because it doesn’t suit him. So far, I’ve taken to calling him little man. (I didn’t capitalize it because I don’t want that to stick as his name.)

He and Bitty aren’t friends yet, but they just met. We’ll see how it goes.

It’s been two days and Pouncer’s death isn’t getting easier to deal with.

This whole apartment is full of him. He was a part of everything around here. I keep looking at his favorite places and actually expecting him to be there. Yesterday, I woke up before 7am because I thought I heard his meow. I actually looked for him for a second.

We’re going to Dad’s house in Nashville, Tn for a couple of days just to try to escape Pouncer’s ghost for a little while. I don’t want to erase him from our home, but it’s just too painful to miss him this much right now.

Even packing made us cry. Pouncer always climbed into our bags before we left, like he wanted to stow away.

I miss him so much.

Pouncer was euthanized at 10:16 this morning.

I hated cats until I met this guy:

From the beginning, he wasn’t just an ordinary cat. He was my friend. Now that he’s gone, I wonder who will sleep in all of our boxes?

Who will help me with my homework in grad school?

Who will help Carrie sew?

Who will model scarves?

Who will explore the wilderness?

Who will be Bitty’s nap buddy?

And who will be my favorite subject to photograph?

Rest in peace, buddy. I never expected you to go so fast.

He’s still ill.

Turns out one of the walls of his heart is too thick. We found this out after having an ultrasound done on him.

We brought him home last night and he seemed fine. When we got up this morning, he was having trouble breathing again and was lethargic. His color is pale.

We’ve decided to try to make him as comfortable as possible here at home. The car ride to the vet would likely kill him since he hyperventilates on the way.

We’re giving him medications for his heart and lungs every 8 and 12 hours.

I must admit that I’m not optimistic about his recovery.

After returning from a very successful apartment hunting trip in Cincinnati and running errands around Indy yesterday, we came home to find Pouncer panting and salivating excessively. He was also lethargic, not himself at all.

We waited about an hour and a half to see if his condition would improve. When it got worse, we took him to the 24/7 vet. That was about midnight.

When we got there, the vet tech took a quick look at him and rushed Pouncer into an oxygen tent. He had started to turn blue. The Doc warned us that Pouncer was on the edge, that this could have been caused by an acute asthma attack, severe allergic reaction, or cardiac event. Asthma was ruled out after chest x-rays this morning.

We’re going up to the vet’s office in about an hour to visit Pouncer and discuss treatment options.