FYI
I hate not posting regularly, but I'm not doing so well this week. It's just a bad week. First of all, poor Sam has somehow hurt his foot--one of his back right toes is swollen about twice the size of the others. This made him sad.
We took him to the vet and they gave him an X-ray (I do not even want to contemplate how much that cost), but it's not broken. So I don't know what he did, but he hurt it. And it didn't seem to be getting better, so on Monday (I think it was?) we took him back to the vet, and they put a boot on him. We've just managed to keep it from abscessing, so we're going to have to take him back for regular follow-ups.
So now he's frisking around on three legs, holding the hurt foot up as he goes, happy as can be. It's the saddest, funniest thing you've ever seen.
Meanwhile, I've been feverish for a few days, and even managed to have one of those dried-out-sinus nosebleeds. Coughing a bit as well. Spent much of Tuesday in tears, just... because. I don't know. It probably doesn't help that the 13th is the twelfth anniversary of my father walking out on us. Various members of my family have been in contact with him; I have not, nor has he shown any interest in contacting me. I have no interest in ever seeing him again. It's a long, complicated story, but it was more acrimonious than your usual divorce/family breakup, and at one point involved the FBI. So. No interest in seeing him. But you still have this sinkhole in your life, in your psyche--even if you understand that he's an ass, you sit there and ask yourself why you don't have a father, any father at all, who cares about you. Look, I've been thinking about this for twelve years; even I'm sick of it at this point.
The one benefit to this was that I took Valentine's Day in stride for a number of years, because after your father has walked out 1) on Friday the 13th, 2) the day before Valentine's, 3) five days before your mother's birthday, it gives you some perspective. The good news is that twelve years has gotten me just about as "over" the whole thing as I'm ever going to get--I'm mostly philosophical about it now, in other words, although occasionally I threaten to punch him in the face if I'm ever put in the same room with him. The bad news is that now I have enough mental energy to start getting depressed about Valentine's Day again. I love Valentine's Day. It's one of the three Aesthetic Holidays, as I think of it, the other two being Halloween and Christmas--holidays where just the atmosphere and the decorations and all the trappings are kind of awesome. It's hearts and flowers and chocolate, y'all! Yeah, it's overcommercialized, but so is everything else, so whatever. You take the stuff you like and you ignore the stuff you don't. And I've never had anyone to spend Valentine's Day with. Never. Which is the fun part of Valentine's Day. And I'm finally over the whole walking-out thing enough to feel sad about it again.
I'm just kind of tired of life at this point, is what I'm saying. I don't mean that in a scary way. Just a "curled up on the couch with a low fever" kind of way.
Meanwhile, let me re-run a shortened version of what I posted on Tuesday, from rachelmanija: "helptheproject is to benefit the Virginia Avenue Project, a free after school arts and academic mentoring organization in Los Angeles.... The auction has some really cool items on offer, including gift boxes of local treats from all over the USA, home-made baked goods, fanfic and fanart, and signed books and/or offers to name a character after you by Sarah Rees Brennan (The Demon's Lexicon), Elizabeth Wein (The Winter Prince), Sarah Monette (Melusine), N. K. Jemisin (The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms), and many more, including yours truly."
We took him to the vet and they gave him an X-ray (I do not even want to contemplate how much that cost), but it's not broken. So I don't know what he did, but he hurt it. And it didn't seem to be getting better, so on Monday (I think it was?) we took him back to the vet, and they put a boot on him. We've just managed to keep it from abscessing, so we're going to have to take him back for regular follow-ups.
So now he's frisking around on three legs, holding the hurt foot up as he goes, happy as can be. It's the saddest, funniest thing you've ever seen.
Meanwhile, I've been feverish for a few days, and even managed to have one of those dried-out-sinus nosebleeds. Coughing a bit as well. Spent much of Tuesday in tears, just... because. I don't know. It probably doesn't help that the 13th is the twelfth anniversary of my father walking out on us. Various members of my family have been in contact with him; I have not, nor has he shown any interest in contacting me. I have no interest in ever seeing him again. It's a long, complicated story, but it was more acrimonious than your usual divorce/family breakup, and at one point involved the FBI. So. No interest in seeing him. But you still have this sinkhole in your life, in your psyche--even if you understand that he's an ass, you sit there and ask yourself why you don't have a father, any father at all, who cares about you. Look, I've been thinking about this for twelve years; even I'm sick of it at this point.
The one benefit to this was that I took Valentine's Day in stride for a number of years, because after your father has walked out 1) on Friday the 13th, 2) the day before Valentine's, 3) five days before your mother's birthday, it gives you some perspective. The good news is that twelve years has gotten me just about as "over" the whole thing as I'm ever going to get--I'm mostly philosophical about it now, in other words, although occasionally I threaten to punch him in the face if I'm ever put in the same room with him. The bad news is that now I have enough mental energy to start getting depressed about Valentine's Day again. I love Valentine's Day. It's one of the three Aesthetic Holidays, as I think of it, the other two being Halloween and Christmas--holidays where just the atmosphere and the decorations and all the trappings are kind of awesome. It's hearts and flowers and chocolate, y'all! Yeah, it's overcommercialized, but so is everything else, so whatever. You take the stuff you like and you ignore the stuff you don't. And I've never had anyone to spend Valentine's Day with. Never. Which is the fun part of Valentine's Day. And I'm finally over the whole walking-out thing enough to feel sad about it again.
I'm just kind of tired of life at this point, is what I'm saying. I don't mean that in a scary way. Just a "curled up on the couch with a low fever" kind of way.
Meanwhile, let me re-run a shortened version of what I posted on Tuesday, from rachelmanija: "helptheproject is to benefit the Virginia Avenue Project, a free after school arts and academic mentoring organization in Los Angeles.... The auction has some really cool items on offer, including gift boxes of local treats from all over the USA, home-made baked goods, fanfic and fanart, and signed books and/or offers to name a character after you by Sarah Rees Brennan (The Demon's Lexicon), Elizabeth Wein (The Winter Prince), Sarah Monette (Melusine), N. K. Jemisin (The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms), and many more, including yours truly."