Ending a year and starting a year all wrong.
The year was on its way towards ending, feeling much like a toilet flushing. It didn't mean much to me, though. My mind remained set on the future, the upcoming spring and summer, the escape from this life and this city once again, looming ahead of me like a dangling prize. The only thing that would normally change with a new year was my calendar, but not even that would be true in 2012 since I use a dry-erase one now. Time feels like it's stopped when it's winter and I'm back in Schenectady and midnight on December 31st did not unpause it.
I had two Thanksgivings, which is a lot more than some people can say in this world. The days leading up to it, Ronnie and Cici showed up at our house with their little husky pup, Sapphire, and lounged around, eating all of the food in the house and generally trashing the house. It was terrible to have them in the same place as me for five straight days. The first night they showed up, I didn't even know they were downstairs until weed smoke seeped up into my room. I stomped down there and, like an angry parent, said, "You can't be smoking weed up in here! That shit is coming up into my bedroom!" They didn't respond, but either by my request or the end of their joint, they stopped smoking. Yvonne, an ex-addict, was sleeping while they did this and Cici is pregnant. Dinner was whatever. Yvonne made Tia and I some Daiya-stuffed mushrooms, mashed potatoes, and biscuits, which we grabbed and ran upstairs with to stay away from everyone. Ronnie went after food like a rabid dog and leftovers rotted on the kitchen table, covered in cockroaches, for the week or so following. Tia, Bianca, and I all went out to Kara's the next day for another Thanksgiving, this one way better, consisting of a smorgasbord of homemade cornbread, quiche, stuffing, and pumpkin pie. It was all really good. Her brother Bart was there, the only non-vegan with his lame 2% milk sitting in the fridge. Kara's dad grabbed his shoulders and said, "But he's a good vegetarian!" I responded, "Everyone has their flaws." Her father has this, "Ohhhhhuhuh!" type of laugh he does when I say something outlandish.
Ronnie and Cici were still in our house after Thanksgiving, even though we assumed they'd leave once food was gone, much like rats do. They made due with any and every scrap in the fridge and left to spoil on the table. No one even tries to cover food or preserve it in this house. Meanwhile, their little dog, who they did not bring any food for and did not walk, proceeded to shit and piss all over the place, Tia and I being the ones who cleaned it up. They had owned the dog for well over a month or two and still had never taken her for a walk. A few weeks before this, they tied her up outside in the cold because she went to the bathroom in the house, as if she had any other option than to. While out there, unattended, someone let her go and they had to find her at an animal shelter, which Yvonne helped pay for. It was truly unfortunate that they got her back. Whenever she'd piss or shit in our house, or bothered Ronnie while he played video games, they'd throw her out on the back porch and shut the door while she squealed outside of it. It all sickened me so much. To keep her from shivering outside, we tried to let her upstairs to our rooms, but she wound up pissing on my bed and blankets. I ended up having to sleep with my sleeping bag until they got cleaned. We later found out that the reason they had stayed over for so long was because, partly thanks to Sapphire defecating everywhere, their apartment was too dirty and trashed for even them to want to stay in it. So they came to our house and trashed it instead.
I went to dinner two nights in a row for Christmas or whatever at my grandmother's, despite my typical discomfort and hesitance with the idea. The tensity in the room at any family gathering is so strong that you can feel it wrapping around your face like a scarf. It wasn't as bad as expected and I successfully dodged any comments or questions regarding veganism. I stood there, ate my salad, and tried to get along with Elisa and her friendly boyfriend while my Uncle Chris said racist things and the rest of them brought up my grandmother's dead son (and Elisa's dead husband), Jon. My family has no ability to gauge what is appropriate for dinner table talk, so every story about him involved his alcoholism or abusive nature toward Elisa, while everyone laughed uncomfortably. I'm pretty sure everyone knows that it's not all that tragic that he's dead. He was a truly horrible person. I got to eat Tofurky with a baked potato, though, so that was cool. The fact that I wasn't with my parents felt really odd and I did feel a little sad about it. Just last Christmas, I was with them, under the impression that maybe I had a real family again. The conflicting emotions I feel about them continue to strain me and the nightmares have yet to cease, though I do get a few nights a week without them sometimes. I guess I have yet to come to terms with the fact that a real family is just another one of those things that I'll never have, no matter how badly I may want one sometimes. I didn't get anyone a gift except Grace, but that was only because I conveniently stumbled on something I knew she'd love for free.
Kara made me a t-shirt that says "I SMELL LIKE PIZZA" (a Mellow Mushroom shirt she decided to make instead of buy) and painted me the breakfast portrait that hangs in Ron Swanson's office on Parks and Recreation. She's the best. I got a package in the mail from Shea from Memphis: A mix CD, a love letter, a few containers of delicious homemade baked goods, and some graphic novels. It was so exciting and I got it right on Christmas Eve. I love that kid so much. Dana got me a brand new black and grey flannel shirt that is one of the most comfortable things to ever grace my upper body, as well as some of her delicious cupcakes. We went out to eat at Moe's when she gave me this stuff and told me she wanted to go vegan, which was honestly the best of her gifts. Bianca gave us gifts early, knowing she wouldn't even try to see us any other time during December. I appreciated everything she got me, though it did not change how bitter I was becoming over her total lack of effort in maintaining her friendship with any of us. It was all pretty nice, though my yearning for material possessions slims more and more every year and I generally do not give a shit about any holidays anymore.
I stopped drinking soda and tried to stick to just water on December 27th. It sounds stupid, but it was really difficult for me. The caffeine withdraw gives you a really bad headache for a day or two, but it's completely gone after that. The hard part for me is just that I'm denying myself something that I want. As someone who does pretty much whatever he wants, it's hard for me to sit and drink some disgusting, metallic tasting tap water instead of a nice, cold, carbonated Pepsi. I know it's not the healthiest thing I could put into my body, but it's also the only unhealthy thing I put into my body and I really fucking like it. The main reason I wanted to abstain from soda, for at least a month, was to lose some weight. Of course, I started portioning my meals along with it and stuff like that, too, eating more salad and beans, making sure not to eat within five hours before I go to sleep, et cetera. By the second week without soda and drinking only water, my mouth started getting unbelievably dry, no matter how many glasses of water I drank. So I started giving in and drinking all-natural 100% juice apple juice every now and then. Two weeks went by and as proud as I was that I went that long, I started to feel stupid that I wanted soda so bad and was stopping myself from getting some based solely on superficial reasons. I don't like the way I look, but I'm really healthy and I think I like Pepsi more than I like losing weight to impress shallow females. So after fighting Tia, who had joined me on the soda-free diet, about it, I drank some. It wasn't as good as I thought it'd be, but it was by the second two-liter. Whatever.
This was where I was at before stopping for two weeks.
A day or two before the end of the year, trouble got worse with Chance. It all started while I was sitting on the front steps, waiting for my grandmother to pick me up so I could go to the post office or something. Tia had taken Chance for his walk in the cemetery and when she came back, she was wiping tears from her eyes and Chance was limping, covered in blood. I asked what happened and she whimpered that Chance had just been attacked by another dog in the cemetery. As he slowly limped up the stairs, he kept stopping to lick his bloody paws. I looked over his body a little, immediately sent a surge of anxiety through my entire body, and saw that he was pretty banged up, but without any noticeably urgent injuries. Tia said she had gotten the contact info from the woman whose dog, a pit bull lab mix, had attacked him and that she said she would be willing to help pay for a veterinarian. According to Tia, this stupid, lazy asshole was "walking" her dog by following him in her van as he ran unleashed with another dog. Chance is a lover, not at all a fighter, so he didn't stand a chance. I came back and was told the woman had come over, brushing off Chance's injuries as, "not that bad." Except, as I found out, he had a giant laceration at the top of one of his legs, right next to his balls. This cut was wide open, to the point that you could see the meat that lay underneath his fur and flesh. Chance wouldn't even go near it with his tongue. Fortunately, this woman was still willing to bring us and Chance to the vet the day after the next and pay the expenses. That didn't make me feel any better about her being so careless with her own animal and being too lazy to walk him like a real dog, something simple that would have easily ensured something like this wouldn't have ever happened. Chance got a bath while Yvonne bitched about unrelated things to someone on the phone. She didn't seem to care at all about it. When I asked her if she had seen what happened, her initial response was, "Well, I don't have any money." Later on, she would say, "I can't deal with all this dog drama." Her continued indifference was astounding.
Chance spent the night in front of the heater in Tia's room, on her bed, while her, Kara, and I hung out in my room. His eye lids hang low and he was very obviously depressed and sore. It was the first time I had seen him without any spunk or swagger in his movements. He laid there for the entire night and we checked on him every now and then to make sure he was doing okay. The next day, New Years Eve, he was at least jumping around and running again. But his injuries were even more defined and that laceration under him was still gruesome to look at, though he begun to nurse it himself a little bit. My bitterness with Yvonne was reaching a boiling point, especially after she had stopped buying him food and, after almost two days without any, Tia spent her last $10 on getting him a big bag from Dollar General. So the day I got my check, early because the 1st fell on a Sunday, I decided that I would pay for Chance's vet appointment for his general check-up and ears instead of giving Yvonne rent. While this was in part due to spite, it was mostly because it was the only option. I feared how she would react, but I also thought that she might understand it. When Tia mentioned it to her, she went completely fucking insane. "HE NOT GONNA GIVE ME MAH MONEY?!" she screamed from the downstairs. Some banging erupted below me. I laid there with Kara in bed and said, "I knew this was going to happen." She stormed upstairs and walked to my doorway, panting with wide eyes and yelled, "So you're not gonna give me mah money?!" I calmly responded that I was instead going to use it to pay for Chance's vet appointment. She exploded and said, "You're gonna fuck me over some dog?!" She stood straight and continued to yell, as I calmly maintained a reasonable volume and tried to reason with her. She yelled, "I want you out of here! I'm sick of your shit! You tryna take over my house, you turnin' my daughter into a fuckin' asshole, you hate me, you hate my son! I'm sick of it!" It was all finally coming out; all of the things she usually says to people behind my back while smiling at me and asking for favors whenever she sees me in person.
"This dog scratches his ears every day, while crying and bleeding from his head. He needs to go to a doctor! This is a living creature and you may not care about him, but I do!" She wasn't hearing it, though. She started to leave, saying she was going to, "call Ronnie," but came back to keep yelling, repeatedly digressing into spare rants that made no sense and bared no relevance to what was going on. Eventually, I was accused of, "hating black males," something I already was aware she had been saying and telling people behind my back (it was why Ronnie had slashed my bike tires, even). I blew up and started screaming back, because I take accusations of being a bigot pretty fucking seriously. Meanwhile, Kara cried under the blanket next to me while Chance laid between us, unaware in his peaceful dog mind that the big fight was happening over him. A lot of things were thrown my way by her, causing me to accept in advance that I may be soon kicked out of this house and have nowhere else to go. As far as I was concerned, and I told her this, I was willing to lose my place of residence to ensure that Chance got seen by a doctor. So I let it all out back at her and told her everything that had been boiling up within me: how I know she talks behind my back to Tia and others; how I have no say or respect in the very house I pay rent to live in; how the kitchen that I have to eat and cook in is constantly filthy; how her son comes over and tears the place apart while being worshiped by her; how she should have never gotten a new dog if she had no intention of taking care of him. Each remark sent her on a stuttered tirade where she would lie her way through excusing herself. Or she would just pridefully fess up to it. My voice got louder and my swear words became more frequent. In the back of my head, I couldn't stop thinking that I shouldn't have to live like this. I had to keep reminding her that Chance was the subject of this discussion, though to her the discussion was about one thing and one thing only: me giving her money. I stood by keeping the money for Chance for most of the argument. Towards the end, she started bringing up veganism and trying to say she just didn't know that people really liked animals as much as, "we did." Forty minutes later, the storm passed and she calmed down, beginning to apologize for this and that and crying on Tia. In the midst of everything, we found out that the reason she was so broke wasn't because of her new car; it was because she loaned $1,500 to her crackhead gambling addict boyfriend, who had no intention of ever paying her back after they broke up. So Chance wasn't a priority, but her boyfriend who she saw once a week was. I also found out that she had been off of her meds for depression for a while.
After everything was over, she took us to Rite Aid so we could buy some butterfly stitches and bandages for Chance, in hopes of closing up that wound until the next day. They wouldn't stay on, though. I spent the rest of the night with Kara. We didn't even know it was midnight until we heard people screaming the countdown outside. She was my first kiss of 2012, rightfully so. That night, our next door neighbor, Steve, drunkenly stumbled around and yelled at people, proclaiming this block his and his only, and wound up getting into a fist-fight with some kid from a gang called ABCG. They kept trying to egg the fight on, pushing drunk Steve into the other kid to provoke a reaction. He got hit a few times and kept backing up, too drunk to even stand straight, while his obese wife screamed at him like a child, telling him to come home or else he'd be locked out. It was all pretty fun to watch.
The next day, the woman took us to Pet Smart and we were there for almost four hours. Chance was cooperative, of course, and the woman ended up paying almost $200 for the appointment, which resulted in no sutures at all and just two pills. They shaved parts of him that were injured and cleaned out his wounds, which looked even worse without hair covering them. You could see where teeth entered his skin, the poor guy. They told us he had fleas, even though we knew he didn't, and informed us that he didn't have ear mites... he had a bacterial or yeast infection of the years. I walked him when we got home, since he had peed on a few shelves back at Pet Smart, and he had trouble lifting his leg. A week or so later, Yvonne finally took him to the vet. I did wind up giving her rent money, because I felt bad for her. I also paid for half of the cost, $60. They said his infection of the ears was due to allergies, but they couldn't assess what he was allergic to exactly, so a process of elimination, trial and error, was the best we could do to narrow down its cause. He was also put on two pills and given an ointment to be applied to his ears by Q-tip. We had him on a strict schedule of four pills a day and the ointment. We've also changed his food several times and I currently have him on organic, gluten-free dog food by Newman's Own. He finished all his medicine and I am currently the only one taking care of and paying for him, as I prefer to be. However... his scratching has not ceased one bit. It's still going on. He's even accumulated a new problem where he gnaws, snaps at, and constantly licks his paws, sometimes having his entire back foot in his mouth, chewing on it like a bone. Sometimes in the morning, he is going completely insane, grinding his entire head against the ground or my bed. I have no idea what could be wrong, so I just keep trying to change his food, take care of him, and stop him from destroying himself.
Here are some more pictures of him. He's my best buddy now.
