The Egg.
This is tough to explain.
That is, it's tough to explain without seeming like a bit of a loony, which, to be fair, I may very well be. (How does one gain character without becoming a character?)
Anyway...
I was holed up in my room my senior year of college, finishing my thesis. My then-boyfriend was living in the city, and I saw him once a week or so. I was in a definite hermit phase. I was spending hours and hours in a darkroom I put together out of odds and donated ends in my tiny kitchenette (while the dishes were done in the bathtub). I lived on frozen dark sweet cherries, case upon case of diet coke, and morningstar farms vegetarian corndogs (which took just long enough that I wouldn't forget about them while they were cooking and wander off to scan prints).
( It has just occured to me that Morningstar Farms is an iffy name for a happy veggie food company, since I believe the Morningstar is another reference to Satan before his fall from Heaven (and not just from Kevin Smith's hand), but I think that probably belongs in another post. )
I was wrapped up utterly in my thesis project, and I skipped a goodly amount of sleep and nutrition that I probably could have used. I was very serious, and serious for me is dangerous sometimes. It can be overwhelming to think of a lot of humanity's negative points without interspersing them with positives. The only TV channel I got clearly was FOX and public tv station WTTW 11, so I had a warped porthole into the outer world while I was wrapped up in the blue velour bathrobe and black heels that I insisted on wearing most of the time. A couple of recent suicides were weighing heavily on me, and I was feeling very disconnected from any concept of the future. I was seeing very few reasons why life was good instead of a hopeless mess. Not my life in particular, just life. Life.
Keep in mind, this is merely context. This crap worked itself out in the way that it tends to...but it certainly set the stage for my reaction to The Egg.
SO, I'm holed up in my hard-earned cave. I had to pull in a few favors and grease some wheels with a few veiled threats thrown in for good measure, 'cause I'm dramatic like that, to get the single room I required to finish my thesis during the weird hours I knew I would be keeping.
I have always been the kind of person people come to when they have a problem, especially health related. I don't know why. I just tend to make sh*t happen when it needs to happen. I plan well, I delegate well, and I know when to let sh*t slide when it's not of the utmost consequence and when you'd be wasting effort worrying cause there's not sh*t you can do about it anyway. (Sorry for all the sh*ts. I've been watching South Park.)
So there's a knock at my door. It's S., and her cat has run away. Now that, I can do nothing about. But before she ran away, she had a kitten. Just the one, that I know about, although I don't remember asking if there were more. She abandoned the kitten, and of course, who do you bring an hours-old kitten to but the third-floor vintage-clad darkroom hermit?
So I take her in. I make some calls and do what I can with what's in my room to keep her warm at least. I know how to dilute milk in an emergency to make it digestible for kittens, but I needed more supplies than I had on hand. Jan shows up with supplies from her job as an assistant at the local vet and hands over all sorts of useful things, including actual kitten formula mix and a tiny bottle, a huge help. M. donates her softest angora sweater and I sew two pockets that hang around my neck and fit under my sweater, so she can be cradled next to my heartbeat and stay warm and soothed by bodyheat and rythym. The second one can be washed by hand, wringed out, and dried on a hot radiator by the time the first one has been soiled. It turns out not to be much of a problem....I have to take the kitten out every four hours or so and rub her belly with a warm wet paper towel to stimulate her functions, and that pretty much cleans it up right there.
So, with a lack of a name and a shock at her helpless newness and my grotesque comparative bulk, I called her The Egg.
I struggled with feedings every two hours, and her perfectly timed squeaks let me know if I was a minute late. People checked in to see how she was doing, and the kids at Homework Center marveled at her tiny claws and closed eyes.
I worried about what to do with her in classes, 1 1/2 hours long with no good place to take a break. I mocked up a bag with a hot water bottle for emergencies, but it was easiest to keep her underneath my sweater and hope no one noticed if she mewed.
This went on for two weeks.
I was in a class with my toughest professor, a man who many loved dearly but who was Perptually Disappointed with my...well, my participation...my existence, my interpretation of the text, you name it. He said to me at one semester-end conference that he had never given so high a grade to someone he was so frustrated with, and I should have told him later that I never worked so hard to please a teacher I liked and understood so little.
Now, it's only fair to tell you that there was a Rule. Now, rules at Shimer were rarely firm, as evidenced by the young man who put another young man's head through a plate glass window and remained in college housing, and by W's amazing ability to miss twice the number of classes that automatically flunk you from a class while still squeaking by at the end of a semester (but to be fair, these young men had their tuition paid in full by family members, and who is a struggling elderly college to turn away a paying matriculator?)
The rule was that there are no pets allowed in 438 (a rather unimaginative name for a building whose rooms were named Pi, Infinity, & other mathmatical stumpers). I think that rule was made official when I snuck a 130 lb german shepard into an early Sociology class years ealier. The teacher was supposedly very allergic to animals, but being fair, she showed NO signs at all of any distress until he sneezed loudly under the table an hour into class, betraying his presence. This same teacher was, at the time of The Egg's presence under my sweater, downstairs and three rooms over, so I assumed that her health would not be a serious concern. And considering the dire consequences, should I leave my charge for even an hour or two, I figured that discussions could be had, if necessary.
The Professor did not see it this way.
Upon hearing her squeaking, and seeing the furtive smiles and glances of my classmates (who of course knew all along) he ushered me out of class and proceeded to lecture me about rules, about how they applied to me (I've heard this one before), about how I could be endangering the life of the Allergic Professor, etc. etc.
I was angry, frustrated. I cared about very little around then, and I just couldn't fathom why anyone would begrudge me the tiny ball of fluff living over my heart....why rules and decorum couldn't step aside in the strangest of settings and allow me my eccentric little grasp on the joy and wonder of a new living thing. I was being caring, responsible, reverent of life. I had considered the allergies of Ms. D., and my extreme distance coupled with the fact that a two week old kitten produces little to no dander brought me to the conclusion that my actions were safe. Not to mention that the massive amount of cat hair on the sweaters of half the campus kids should send any true extreme allergy sufferer into seizures and swelling just by attending their own class. I had every reason to argue and debate until my face was blue.
Instead of presenting these carefully considered points and fighting the good fight, I did what I do when I'm depressed, angry, and frustrated.
I cried.
I floundered.
I was given an ultimatum, that I could not return to the class with The Egg. I found a substitute pocket-wearer for the remainder of class, and returned, fuming to my room afterwards. Luckily it was the end of the week, and I had three more days until the issue would come back up and I would have to fight or flunk.
On Saturday, The Egg developed a little cough. Now, when you feed a tiny kitten you have to be extremely careful. Any excess fluid that gets into their mouth that they can't swallow can be aspirated, and once inside the lungs can cause pneumonia. This, along with chilling, is the cause of death for most hand raised kittens. So much so that the books and notes I had picked up to help me along warned me to not become too attached and to not blame myself if I could not keep her alive. I carefully fed her while she was on her stomach...often people hold them head up to feed them, which makes it much more difficult to eat properly.
Her cough worsened. She didn't squeal for her feedings by Sunday afternoon, and soon, my check on her found her very weak. Weak as a kitten. Weak as the tiniest living mammal I've ever seen.
She died in my hands.
I have cried in my time, from hurtful words, from friend's betrayal, from deaths of friends and deaths of friendships, from too much estrogen in my BCP's, and from broken bones.
But I had never cried like I cried when I felt her little body cool down. I cried as if I had no control. I felt stabbed through. I felt my lungs contract painfully and the wind was knocked out of me by a kick to the solar plexus delivered by no one. I felt just a little glimmer of the pain you must feel when you lose a little someone you helped make alive. It was blinding.
I felt stupid...she was just a little nothing, a handful of cells that probably should have met their maker a fortnight earlier. I felt like I had been living for only that little angora pocket.
A friend had brought me some odds and ends earlier in the week and among them was a tiny cotton sack marked "Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans". (I would not read the Harry Potter books for another six months, and so would miss the odd reference. I will say it later took some of the fun of them from me. I had just come back from England six months before, and so I just assumed it was some snack relic kept as a souvenir because of the telltale spelling of Flavour. Sort of right.....sort of.) She fit inside, and I trudged out in the cold and found a spot on the garden around the north side of the dorm. Her grave was dug with a big spoon. I sunk the spoon into the soft ground...deep, until just the decorated end served as a tiny marker, so I would know where she was.
I wouldn't see anyone for a while after that, even the few who were able to get into my room before. I cried whenever I saw her little pockets, and I packed away the emergency kitten materials.
I still have one of the little pockets. It's in a box I almost never look inside. Because then I would think about The Egg, and how beautiful she would be if she were alive, with her calico coat and little white paws.
Sometimes you just need a little something.
-K
*warm*
That is, it's tough to explain without seeming like a bit of a loony, which, to be fair, I may very well be. (How does one gain character without becoming a character?)
Anyway...
I was holed up in my room my senior year of college, finishing my thesis. My then-boyfriend was living in the city, and I saw him once a week or so. I was in a definite hermit phase. I was spending hours and hours in a darkroom I put together out of odds and donated ends in my tiny kitchenette (while the dishes were done in the bathtub). I lived on frozen dark sweet cherries, case upon case of diet coke, and morningstar farms vegetarian corndogs (which took just long enough that I wouldn't forget about them while they were cooking and wander off to scan prints).
( It has just occured to me that Morningstar Farms is an iffy name for a happy veggie food company, since I believe the Morningstar is another reference to Satan before his fall from Heaven (and not just from Kevin Smith's hand), but I think that probably belongs in another post. )
I was wrapped up utterly in my thesis project, and I skipped a goodly amount of sleep and nutrition that I probably could have used. I was very serious, and serious for me is dangerous sometimes. It can be overwhelming to think of a lot of humanity's negative points without interspersing them with positives. The only TV channel I got clearly was FOX and public tv station WTTW 11, so I had a warped porthole into the outer world while I was wrapped up in the blue velour bathrobe and black heels that I insisted on wearing most of the time. A couple of recent suicides were weighing heavily on me, and I was feeling very disconnected from any concept of the future. I was seeing very few reasons why life was good instead of a hopeless mess. Not my life in particular, just life. Life.
Keep in mind, this is merely context. This crap worked itself out in the way that it tends to...but it certainly set the stage for my reaction to The Egg.
SO, I'm holed up in my hard-earned cave. I had to pull in a few favors and grease some wheels with a few veiled threats thrown in for good measure, 'cause I'm dramatic like that, to get the single room I required to finish my thesis during the weird hours I knew I would be keeping.
I have always been the kind of person people come to when they have a problem, especially health related. I don't know why. I just tend to make sh*t happen when it needs to happen. I plan well, I delegate well, and I know when to let sh*t slide when it's not of the utmost consequence and when you'd be wasting effort worrying cause there's not sh*t you can do about it anyway. (Sorry for all the sh*ts. I've been watching South Park.)
So there's a knock at my door. It's S., and her cat has run away. Now that, I can do nothing about. But before she ran away, she had a kitten. Just the one, that I know about, although I don't remember asking if there were more. She abandoned the kitten, and of course, who do you bring an hours-old kitten to but the third-floor vintage-clad darkroom hermit?
So I take her in. I make some calls and do what I can with what's in my room to keep her warm at least. I know how to dilute milk in an emergency to make it digestible for kittens, but I needed more supplies than I had on hand. Jan shows up with supplies from her job as an assistant at the local vet and hands over all sorts of useful things, including actual kitten formula mix and a tiny bottle, a huge help. M. donates her softest angora sweater and I sew two pockets that hang around my neck and fit under my sweater, so she can be cradled next to my heartbeat and stay warm and soothed by bodyheat and rythym. The second one can be washed by hand, wringed out, and dried on a hot radiator by the time the first one has been soiled. It turns out not to be much of a problem....I have to take the kitten out every four hours or so and rub her belly with a warm wet paper towel to stimulate her functions, and that pretty much cleans it up right there.
So, with a lack of a name and a shock at her helpless newness and my grotesque comparative bulk, I called her The Egg.
I struggled with feedings every two hours, and her perfectly timed squeaks let me know if I was a minute late. People checked in to see how she was doing, and the kids at Homework Center marveled at her tiny claws and closed eyes.
I worried about what to do with her in classes, 1 1/2 hours long with no good place to take a break. I mocked up a bag with a hot water bottle for emergencies, but it was easiest to keep her underneath my sweater and hope no one noticed if she mewed.
This went on for two weeks.
I was in a class with my toughest professor, a man who many loved dearly but who was Perptually Disappointed with my...well, my participation...my existence, my interpretation of the text, you name it. He said to me at one semester-end conference that he had never given so high a grade to someone he was so frustrated with, and I should have told him later that I never worked so hard to please a teacher I liked and understood so little.
Now, it's only fair to tell you that there was a Rule. Now, rules at Shimer were rarely firm, as evidenced by the young man who put another young man's head through a plate glass window and remained in college housing, and by W's amazing ability to miss twice the number of classes that automatically flunk you from a class while still squeaking by at the end of a semester (but to be fair, these young men had their tuition paid in full by family members, and who is a struggling elderly college to turn away a paying matriculator?)
The rule was that there are no pets allowed in 438 (a rather unimaginative name for a building whose rooms were named Pi, Infinity, & other mathmatical stumpers). I think that rule was made official when I snuck a 130 lb german shepard into an early Sociology class years ealier. The teacher was supposedly very allergic to animals, but being fair, she showed NO signs at all of any distress until he sneezed loudly under the table an hour into class, betraying his presence. This same teacher was, at the time of The Egg's presence under my sweater, downstairs and three rooms over, so I assumed that her health would not be a serious concern. And considering the dire consequences, should I leave my charge for even an hour or two, I figured that discussions could be had, if necessary.
The Professor did not see it this way.
Upon hearing her squeaking, and seeing the furtive smiles and glances of my classmates (who of course knew all along) he ushered me out of class and proceeded to lecture me about rules, about how they applied to me (I've heard this one before), about how I could be endangering the life of the Allergic Professor, etc. etc.
I was angry, frustrated. I cared about very little around then, and I just couldn't fathom why anyone would begrudge me the tiny ball of fluff living over my heart....why rules and decorum couldn't step aside in the strangest of settings and allow me my eccentric little grasp on the joy and wonder of a new living thing. I was being caring, responsible, reverent of life. I had considered the allergies of Ms. D., and my extreme distance coupled with the fact that a two week old kitten produces little to no dander brought me to the conclusion that my actions were safe. Not to mention that the massive amount of cat hair on the sweaters of half the campus kids should send any true extreme allergy sufferer into seizures and swelling just by attending their own class. I had every reason to argue and debate until my face was blue.
Instead of presenting these carefully considered points and fighting the good fight, I did what I do when I'm depressed, angry, and frustrated.
I cried.
I floundered.
I was given an ultimatum, that I could not return to the class with The Egg. I found a substitute pocket-wearer for the remainder of class, and returned, fuming to my room afterwards. Luckily it was the end of the week, and I had three more days until the issue would come back up and I would have to fight or flunk.
On Saturday, The Egg developed a little cough. Now, when you feed a tiny kitten you have to be extremely careful. Any excess fluid that gets into their mouth that they can't swallow can be aspirated, and once inside the lungs can cause pneumonia. This, along with chilling, is the cause of death for most hand raised kittens. So much so that the books and notes I had picked up to help me along warned me to not become too attached and to not blame myself if I could not keep her alive. I carefully fed her while she was on her stomach...often people hold them head up to feed them, which makes it much more difficult to eat properly.
Her cough worsened. She didn't squeal for her feedings by Sunday afternoon, and soon, my check on her found her very weak. Weak as a kitten. Weak as the tiniest living mammal I've ever seen.
She died in my hands.
I have cried in my time, from hurtful words, from friend's betrayal, from deaths of friends and deaths of friendships, from too much estrogen in my BCP's, and from broken bones.
But I had never cried like I cried when I felt her little body cool down. I cried as if I had no control. I felt stabbed through. I felt my lungs contract painfully and the wind was knocked out of me by a kick to the solar plexus delivered by no one. I felt just a little glimmer of the pain you must feel when you lose a little someone you helped make alive. It was blinding.
I felt stupid...she was just a little nothing, a handful of cells that probably should have met their maker a fortnight earlier. I felt like I had been living for only that little angora pocket.
A friend had brought me some odds and ends earlier in the week and among them was a tiny cotton sack marked "Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans". (I would not read the Harry Potter books for another six months, and so would miss the odd reference. I will say it later took some of the fun of them from me. I had just come back from England six months before, and so I just assumed it was some snack relic kept as a souvenir because of the telltale spelling of Flavour. Sort of right.....sort of.) She fit inside, and I trudged out in the cold and found a spot on the garden around the north side of the dorm. Her grave was dug with a big spoon. I sunk the spoon into the soft ground...deep, until just the decorated end served as a tiny marker, so I would know where she was.
I wouldn't see anyone for a while after that, even the few who were able to get into my room before. I cried whenever I saw her little pockets, and I packed away the emergency kitten materials.
I still have one of the little pockets. It's in a box I almost never look inside. Because then I would think about The Egg, and how beautiful she would be if she were alive, with her calico coat and little white paws.
Sometimes you just need a little something.
-K
*warm*