Here Kitty Kitty

1992 - March 24, 2007

Today was the day. It got so bad that he couldn't drink water anymore. I spent 20 minutes last night squirting water into his mouth with a syringe while he drank what he could and slobbered the rest away. Before this he must have gone 2 or 3 days without a drink and without me realizing he could no longer lick the water from his dish.

The other day I was washing the cars. He wanted to be with me, so he sat there as the overspray covered him. He didn't move. He sat in the driveway as waves of soapy water came washing down all around him and soaked him. He didn't budge. You could see in his eyes that he was scared. He was dying of dehydration and yet had water all around him.

My wife said he stank to high heaven. His mouth and throat were infected. His cancer was rotting. The Little Girl wouldn't go near him anymore. His eyes were black with fear and he'd follow us everywhere we went in the house. He'd meow all night, waking us up over and over. I'd try to give him food and water and he'd just sit and stare at it. It wasn't until last night that I found a way to get him a drink. I'd tried the syringe before, but he just thought I was trying to give him medicine so he didn't want it. Last night I just kept squirting his mouth until he finally realized I was just giving him water. This morning I did one better. I put him in the tub and turned the cold water on just enough to make a constant stream. Then I squirted water from the syringe until he started drinking. At first he thought I was going to give him another bath, but once he calmed down he was fine. I led him closer and closer to the water until he started drinking from the faucet. I left him in there drinking for 15 or 20 minutes. When he came out, he was soaked, but he wasn't thirsty anymore.

And then it was time to go to the vet.

She said it was bad. He'd lost more weight since last week when he was first diagnosed. He's lost a lot, nearly half his normal bodyweight. He had a fever. He's infected. His tongue had been pushed to the side of his mouth so that it was sticking out the side and he could barely use it. He was miserable. He wasn't going to get better, and he might just die next week from dehydration or starvation. I figured he wasn't thirsty, he wasn't scared, and he wasn't alone, so it would be best if he went now.

It was quick. From the time they injected until the moment he just plopped down was only a second. I was surprised. In an instant he was gone. It's a weird feeling. I've known him for as long as I've known My Wife. We weren't even dating yet when we found him. And we found him together. He's always been around. And now I have to go outside and bury him.

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Choices

They've just forced me to switch to the new Blogger, the Google Blogger, which I guess should be called Glogger.

I don't like being forced to do things. And already I don't like Glogger.

But so be it. They wouldn't let me in unless I changed. So I gave in, like a corporate CEO being blackmailed by Jesse Jackson or feminist terrorists or the Feds.

It's ironic timing actually. I've been going through a lot of changes, a lot of crises. And I've been thinking about shutting down.

All good things must end. And some rather mediocre ones, too. I guess that's where I come in.

I know I'm not ready to just hang it up completely. And maybe I'll change my mind? But lately I've been only posting every other day. And it hasn't seemed to matter. I have days when no one comes by and other days when everyone who is going to come by does it within a span of about 2 hours.

A lot of my favorite bloggers have quit or are talking about quitting. Gator Robin closed and I haven't deleted her link because I am too sad about it. And I can't believe Robin the Beautiful Canadian Binsk is considering it. Steph the Attention Whore quit and then returned, only to disappear completely without a word.

In fact, I can't even reach Stephanie on MySpace, which is where she left Blogger to go to. She and Australian Avery both went over there together. And now neither of them has posted anything in weeks.

I myself have barely been over there lately. It started off with me avoiding it because there are so many security problems with MySpace that half the pages I visit cause my browser to crash. That got old fast. After awhile, though, I just got used to never being there.

Lately I've had less time for visiting all my favorite blogs. And they've responded by having less time for visiting mine. I never know if it's just because they're pushed for time, as I am, or if it's because they don't like what I write anymore.

I'm not usually uncomfortable with my own writing, but I have been lately. I can't think of a time when I've ever had a regular article that people asked about when I didn't post it before. Loonies on the Path got a surprising amount of requests when I stopped having anything to write, but it was never a regular weekly thing so I guess it didn't occur to me that very many people might only be coming to read that. But Fuck You Friday, well it's a weekly thing. I only did the first one because I was in a weird mood. It was fun in that I absolutely did not care about a damn thing that was going on. After that I sort of cared and sort of didn't. But I never liked writing about politics and religion on a regular basis. It was always one of those things that I'd write about when I was especially pissed about something, but otherwise I'd avoid it. Now I end up trying to comment on it every week and sometimes I just don't want to. Sometimes I'm just not comfortable commenting on the week's events. But it seems crazy to throw away something that people actually request. I mean, hell, some blogs have no readers at all and here I have one thing that people come by only to read that one thing. And I'm going to stop doing it? Still, sometimes I feel like it drives away as many people as it brings. Sometimes it just makes me uncomfortable. I don't know why.

Ironically, it was exactly this sort of subject matter that I was encouraged to write about in the first place, back when 2 professional writers told me I should write. When I couldn't get my articles published I started this blog. And now I feel weird writing this very thing? How dumb is that?

Anyway, there is a lot going on. I am trying to devote myself as full-time as possible to finding a job out of Memphis. I am looking in Middle Tennessee and North Alabama. Meanwhile, without me having activated my resume online or anything, somehow the damned headhunters have smelled blood and started bugging the living hell out of me. Two different ones at Robert Half are trying to steal me from each other. One is trying to throw me onto a contract in Memphis just to keep the other from placing me in Nashville on a full-time job. Great, this is just what I need. Meanwhile, Roger the headhunter (2 Rogers don't make a right) is calling and emailing. I didn't give him my number or my email address, but he got it anyway, probably by selling his soul to the devil for it. I may have to dump that email account.

Anyway, I don't know what is going to happen. I'm just knocking around a lot of things in my head. I've been sick for the past 2 weeks, so I haven't left the house much and I've felt like absolute crap (the explosive kind that catches you by surprise and messes your pants.) Perhaps when I'm well again I'll forget all of this and go back to the way things were before? I don't know. All I know is I want out of here and I can't see it happening unless I devote all of my spare time to making it happen.

Everyone jokes that Memphis is a black hole. No one who comes here ever gets out and most of the people born here end up stuck here. Well, not me. I'm getting out. I will find a way. But it may mean dropping or neglecting this blog.

Perhaps Google forcing me to switch to their new Glogger system was the last straw? Perhaps this is the end? Or perhaps it was just an excuse to do what it was time for me to do anyway?

I have a lot to think about.

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