It's been over 72 hours since I found out Shadow has died.
Since then, I've been pretty much been dead myself. I don't know why. Since Thursday night, I've been feeling very empty and depressed. I don't know if it is connected to Shadow's death or not. I don't know if it because I feel upset over the fact that I was the only person that did anything for her during her last six days with us.
The only thing I do know is that I've become unresponsive. I found myself sitting here in front of the computer staring down a project proposal for my class trying to figure out how to make it better only to grow more and more frustrated at it. My escapes through internet games has grown tiresome. I even quit a game of Sam & Max before even finishing the first act! The music I've downloaded and BitTorrent-ed has been blaring in my ears whenever it can.
And sleep is becoming more and more attractive to me. All I want to do is sleep and hope my troubles disappear. All of them.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Friday, August 17, 2007
The Dog That's Me
This post may not be concise. Since about 22:00 as of last night, I've been keeping an eye on the dog. And it's been stressing me out ever since.
The short end of the story is that it got to be 106o F yesterday. This meant that the garage and my room were ovens. I was the lucky one; I was in class. The dog was not. And for all I know, this heat wave has been around for a long time before any one of us in the household took action.
My aunt reported to me that Shadow wasn't responding to anything but being splashed with cold water. She thought that it could be heat stroke. Like my parents, I chalked it up to old age. The seed was planted, however, and I looked up the signs of heat stroke in dogs. What I found worried and frightened me.
Everything that Shadow was experiencing was on that list. Heavy panting, weakness, wide eyes. Fearing a cruel and sad death at her old age, I brought my findings to my parents in the hopes of bringing her inside the house to cool off and not die in such a harsh manner.
My parents appeared to be reluctant in believing me. Never before have I more strongly thought that they considered the dog to be a thing than a animal, unlike how we treat the fish and birds. Strangely enough, my passive-aggressive mind set in the situation won out.
It looked like something out of an animal hospital reality show. We moved Shadow into the dining room by carrying her in a patchwork blanket nobody really cared for. We placed her down gently and proceeded to cool her off the only way we could figure out how. When we brought water to her lips, she lapped it up with what little strength she had left.
It was then that my parents knew we were in for some bumps in the road.
I stayed with Shadow, though I don't know why even now that I lost a night of sleep. All I can remember is that part of me wanted her to get better, but another part of me wanted her to just die and get this drama over with. And yet another part of me was wondering why the hell I give a damn about a dog that isn't even mine!
Why do I care for a dog that isn't even mine? Why did I start now when I've been just as bad in ignoring her as my sister who technically owns Shadow?
It was because the dog I see is me. I've stated this before, and I'll say it again until someone other than myself believes it: Shadow and I are experiencing the same life, the same careless neglect by those all around us who we both know are capable of loving us but don't show it. They may think they are showing it to us with what they give us (food and a place to sleep), but the sad fact is we don't feel it from anyone no matter how sweet they talk to us.
We don't know what love is.
We don't know what compassion is.
We only think we know.
...
Shadow is nearing the end of her long life with us. By my dad's guess, she has to be at least 14 years old. We are expecting her to go any day.
I just hope she knows that I tried to show her love and compassion by finally getting her out of that ghetto-ass cage in the oven that we call a garage and into a cooler setting. I pray she knows that I tried to show her a genuine sense of caring by trying to feed her and staying up with her all last night just to make sure she was able to sleep comfortably.
I hope she is aware of all my effort that I put forth even though it may have been too late...
Because maybe then she can leave us knowing that at least one person cared that much for her instead of only "just enough."
The short end of the story is that it got to be 106o F yesterday. This meant that the garage and my room were ovens. I was the lucky one; I was in class. The dog was not. And for all I know, this heat wave has been around for a long time before any one of us in the household took action.
My aunt reported to me that Shadow wasn't responding to anything but being splashed with cold water. She thought that it could be heat stroke. Like my parents, I chalked it up to old age. The seed was planted, however, and I looked up the signs of heat stroke in dogs. What I found worried and frightened me.
Everything that Shadow was experiencing was on that list. Heavy panting, weakness, wide eyes. Fearing a cruel and sad death at her old age, I brought my findings to my parents in the hopes of bringing her inside the house to cool off and not die in such a harsh manner.
My parents appeared to be reluctant in believing me. Never before have I more strongly thought that they considered the dog to be a thing than a animal, unlike how we treat the fish and birds. Strangely enough, my passive-aggressive mind set in the situation won out.
It looked like something out of an animal hospital reality show. We moved Shadow into the dining room by carrying her in a patchwork blanket nobody really cared for. We placed her down gently and proceeded to cool her off the only way we could figure out how. When we brought water to her lips, she lapped it up with what little strength she had left.
It was then that my parents knew we were in for some bumps in the road.
I stayed with Shadow, though I don't know why even now that I lost a night of sleep. All I can remember is that part of me wanted her to get better, but another part of me wanted her to just die and get this drama over with. And yet another part of me was wondering why the hell I give a damn about a dog that isn't even mine!
Why do I care for a dog that isn't even mine? Why did I start now when I've been just as bad in ignoring her as my sister who technically owns Shadow?
It was because the dog I see is me. I've stated this before, and I'll say it again until someone other than myself believes it: Shadow and I are experiencing the same life, the same careless neglect by those all around us who we both know are capable of loving us but don't show it. They may think they are showing it to us with what they give us (food and a place to sleep), but the sad fact is we don't feel it from anyone no matter how sweet they talk to us.
We don't know what love is.
We don't know what compassion is.
We only think we know.
...
Shadow is nearing the end of her long life with us. By my dad's guess, she has to be at least 14 years old. We are expecting her to go any day.
I just hope she knows that I tried to show her love and compassion by finally getting her out of that ghetto-ass cage in the oven that we call a garage and into a cooler setting. I pray she knows that I tried to show her a genuine sense of caring by trying to feed her and staying up with her all last night just to make sure she was able to sleep comfortably.
I hope she is aware of all my effort that I put forth even though it may have been too late...
Because maybe then she can leave us knowing that at least one person cared that much for her instead of only "just enough."
Sunday, August 12, 2007
At Summer's End
With the summer season winding down and nothing really to write on here about, I can't help but wonder where my interests currently are. Mostly because I have to have some kind of interest ready to explore in the more introvert sense of word for a class, but partly because of the collection of unfinished and unrefined material entertainment currently in my ownership. I am, of course, referring to my collection of video games and lingering desires involving entertainment or projects of those kind.
Now, I'm in a very strange position right now. Right in front of me is the DVD set of Animananiacs; the last video game I played was Sam & Max; I currently not interested if not entirely burned out on art in general, yet know enough to still keep the interest and curiosity alive, if only on a contemporary and technical level.
I haven't a single decent artistic idea come into my head since the summer semester came to a close with the final critique on my piece for my Study Abroad class. On top of this, the one project I had going on before my trip has been reduced to nothing but a dream while I sit here and bookmark items I want to buy like the complete Batman: The Animated Series collection. And the stupid thing is, I want to spend my paychecks on that kind of entertainment instead of on the things I actually will get some use out of like a new camera.
I would rather be mindlessly entertained for hours on end instead of being productive without monetary gain. In fact, booting up RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 just to continue "mixing my paints" in fireworks has been boring to me. The projects I had lined up for the engine, while no piece of real art in any sense of the word, have yet to even be outlined let alone thought of in anything more than a fleeting dream that comes when iTunes plays the audio mix I made.
That being said, my mind is under the unfortunate misdirection of interest best described as "a lust for company."
Here's how it went down. At work, a co-worker whom I was just generally being nice to outed another co-worker. With a curious interest, the three of us ended up forming an awkward friendship built around the first party's big mouth. Where this acquaintance is going is anyone's guess at this point. They were the first people I've actually hang out with from work outside of the context of being on break, which apparently should carry a lot of weight in some sense.
And that's where I think things went arry for me. Social repression, even self-induced, combined with my sexual desperation to produce a new side of me known in situational comedies as that desperate friend who ends up stalking the main characters on a level that is both scary and annoying. With one of the two co-workers, this is not a problem. He is going to college, and my first and last out-of-work with him was so similar to my last serious talk with Jason to the point where I knew what to do: leave him alone.
Why I can't do that with the other one? I cannot figure that part out for myself. It's been bothering to no ends to the point where I needed to talk to him one-on-one, but every time I do, I keep getting his machine. When I do get in contact with him, he's always busy doing something else. He says he'll call me back, but he never does.
Today, I pretty much gave him an ultimatum. He was the one that said he was serious about trying to be friends, and I took him at his word. His actions, on the other hand, sing a different story. So, on his machine, I told him if he is serious about wanting to be friends, he will need to step up. I didn't say it in the message, but that was to be the last time I would ever call him.
I don't want any more false hopes. But at the same time, I don't want my social interests be so introverted they end up damaging me even further than where I am at now. An repairable situation the likes only Hollywood and the media could make into something society will only see as either a pathetic comedy or a romantic tragedy.
Now, I'm in a very strange position right now. Right in front of me is the DVD set of Animananiacs; the last video game I played was Sam & Max; I currently not interested if not entirely burned out on art in general, yet know enough to still keep the interest and curiosity alive, if only on a contemporary and technical level.
I haven't a single decent artistic idea come into my head since the summer semester came to a close with the final critique on my piece for my Study Abroad class. On top of this, the one project I had going on before my trip has been reduced to nothing but a dream while I sit here and bookmark items I want to buy like the complete Batman: The Animated Series collection. And the stupid thing is, I want to spend my paychecks on that kind of entertainment instead of on the things I actually will get some use out of like a new camera.
I would rather be mindlessly entertained for hours on end instead of being productive without monetary gain. In fact, booting up RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 just to continue "mixing my paints" in fireworks has been boring to me. The projects I had lined up for the engine, while no piece of real art in any sense of the word, have yet to even be outlined let alone thought of in anything more than a fleeting dream that comes when iTunes plays the audio mix I made.
That being said, my mind is under the unfortunate misdirection of interest best described as "a lust for company."
Here's how it went down. At work, a co-worker whom I was just generally being nice to outed another co-worker. With a curious interest, the three of us ended up forming an awkward friendship built around the first party's big mouth. Where this acquaintance is going is anyone's guess at this point. They were the first people I've actually hang out with from work outside of the context of being on break, which apparently should carry a lot of weight in some sense.
And that's where I think things went arry for me. Social repression, even self-induced, combined with my sexual desperation to produce a new side of me known in situational comedies as that desperate friend who ends up stalking the main characters on a level that is both scary and annoying. With one of the two co-workers, this is not a problem. He is going to college, and my first and last out-of-work with him was so similar to my last serious talk with Jason to the point where I knew what to do: leave him alone.
Why I can't do that with the other one? I cannot figure that part out for myself. It's been bothering to no ends to the point where I needed to talk to him one-on-one, but every time I do, I keep getting his machine. When I do get in contact with him, he's always busy doing something else. He says he'll call me back, but he never does.
Today, I pretty much gave him an ultimatum. He was the one that said he was serious about trying to be friends, and I took him at his word. His actions, on the other hand, sing a different story. So, on his machine, I told him if he is serious about wanting to be friends, he will need to step up. I didn't say it in the message, but that was to be the last time I would ever call him.
I don't want any more false hopes. But at the same time, I don't want my social interests be so introverted they end up damaging me even further than where I am at now. An repairable situation the likes only Hollywood and the media could make into something society will only see as either a pathetic comedy or a romantic tragedy.
