McKie Memories

This past weekend, my brother's CD Good Spirits was released. (If you want more information/to purchase and download it, you should go here: Good Spirits.) So, we hosted a release party. I spent so much time planning/preparing/cooking/setting up and it was really important to me. So, this thing happens where it's really important to me that people do something (in this instance: come to the party) but I don't necessarily tell them that it's important to me. Which might not be nice of me, but that doesn't really matter, does it? Nope.

Anyway, some people who I really wanted, and kind of expected, to come, didn't. Which was disappointing. But then that disappointment was usurped by the fact that my aunt and grandmother drove three/four hours to attend the party and surprise us.

I stole both these pictures from my aunt's instagram. Just, semi-crediting, you know?

Right: Nash and Jacob performing the song "Finger Stains"

Left: my cousin Emily and my grandmother sitting by the fire

So that, along with the fact that I've been spending a lot of time with the McKie clan as of late, has inspired me to create this list of pleasant memories:

1. In the woods at my grandparents' house, there is a small play cabin. When we were younger, my cousin, Anna, and I used to have fake tea parties with kool-aid and cookies in that cabin. We'd use a plastic tea set and we'd decorate the shelves with small rocks we collected.
2. When we were all a lot younger, we used to have "Cookie Bake Weekends" at my house during Christmastime. My grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins would all come and we'd bake cookies. 
3. My grandfather used to write these comic books for us called Super Grampa. He even made Grampy Awards for when we did something cool (guitar recital, honor role, etc.), a special decoder, and Super Grampa trade cards. One time, we threw a Super Grampa party for his birthday.
4. Used to, both my aunts lived in Kansas City, and we would all get together a lot. One time, we went to Chili's. While we were there, my cousin Emily and I kept sneaking my brother packets of salt, and he'd eat them, and my cousins Devin and Tristan thought it was so funny which just kept encouraging us all. Anyway, my brother ate so much salt he vomited in his bowl of what-once-was-mac-and-cheese. That's not really a pleasant memory, I guess. It's just a story I enjoy telling. 
5. I used to go to Chuck E Cheeses with my aunt Heidi and Devin and Tristan a lot. And sometimes when the whole gang was together, we'd go then, too.
6. A lot of my Christmases have been spent at my grandparents house with my family, my aunt Marci, and Emily. One year, not too long ago, Devin and Tristan came, too. We always do puzzles, which is fun. We do one large puzzle all together. And then, whenever we'd wake up too early and have to be confined to the back room, we'd do small, kiddie puzzles over and over again until everything was set up. 
7. One Christmas, my aunt Marci, Emily, and my family went to stay with my Uncle Joe and my cousins Billy and Anna. It was fun because we don't usually get to see them on Christmas, because of my uncle's job. We all drove up on Christmas day and then spent the day after Christmas together. Like, Christmas just got pushed back a day.
8. One time, around Christmas but not on Christmas, my family stopped by my uncle Joe's to hang out with all of them for a bit. Anyway, he had sugar cookies in his house. But they were Kwanza and Hanukkah cookies, because I guess he didn't want one holiday to monopolize our celebration. 
9. One time, my mother took all of the cousins to Kalediscope. Kalediscope is this super fun place where you get to do arts and crafts. But, back in the day, you had to be five years old to enter. So, Devin and I are five days apart in age. And within the next two weeks, we'd both turn five. And my mother had us lie. I guess we gave her a lot of grief for awhile after that. 
10. We used to go on camping trips as family a lot. One time, Anna and I really wanted to get to solve a mystery, but we quickly learned you can't just auto-demand a mystery. Another time, these bikers drove into and destroyed my aunt Marci's tent. And then my uncle Joe lectured them. I think that same campout, Emily said George Clooney was hot, to which I responded "George Clooney is old," and Uncle Joe pitched in, "George Clooney puts the chunk in hunk." 
11. At the end of one campout, the parents had all of the cousins wade into this lake. But we weren't supposed to go in too far because we weren't supposed to get our clothes wet. But all of the cousins, we wanted to swim. So we all just conveniently tripped. 
12. Two weeks ago, Emily, Nash, and I went to meet Billy and Anna for dinner. Then we went to a concert. It was just nice because we don't get to see one another as often these days.

Skin

So, in the Old Testament, there are these ten big rules. You may have heard of them before: the Ten Commandments. Anyway, the idea is that, well, if you eat hoofed animals and shellfish and you mix your linens you just really need to make sure not to murder anyone or steal anything or bear false witness. Or any of the other seven, of course.

So, there's this one Commandment--this is relevant because it showed up in my devotional the other day--"Do not worship any other gods besides Me" (Deuteronomy 5:7). When I was younger, I used to think of the whole "not worshiping any other gods" thing as pretty cut in dry. You know: Don't start praying to Zeus, and you're in the clear. Then, when I got a little bit older, someone said, "We worship other gods all the time" and put it in a very what-you-spend-most-your-time-doing sort of light. So, TV, internet, phones, those were all the Big Bads. Not that thinking of it that way got me away from those. See? I'm on the internet right now and just a few sentences ago I made an allusion to a TV show I've been marathoning.

But, in my devotional, the author put it a different way. She said that, most of the time, our idols are just things we want really badly. And they don't even have to be bad things. They can be things like... wanting to be a good spouse. Or wanting a certain job. Or wanting to be physically healthy. And, the idea is that, well, all of these wants can be good. But if they get to be the point where that one thing is the source of your happiness, and occupies the bulk of your focus, well, then they aren't so good.

And, yeah, I'm talking about this with a perspective based on your relationship to God. So, having "being a good student" be the focus of your attention and the source of your happiness is problematic because it interferes with your closeness to God. But, from an areligious perspective, having "being a good student" be the focus of your attention and the source of your happiness is problematic because it interferes with your just general ability to be happy. It mistakenly makes your worth something that you achieve, but that's not so. Your worth is innate. So... idols are problematic for everyone, is the point.

Anyway, in my response to my devotional, I started thinking about my wants. The first thing that sprang to mind is the first thing that usually springs to mind when I think about what I really want: I want to be good. I want to be kind and gentle, I want to bring happiness, light, and love to others. I want to be patient and forgiving. I want to be so unlike what I am.

But, see, my big want doesn't interfere with my relationship to God. It aligns with it. That want? The want to be good? It keeps me crying out to Him. It's what I pray for. And it's what you're supposed to get with a relationship to God. Honest. It says it in there all the time. I don't know what book those kooks who go around telling people God hates them and sends suicide bombers have been reading. Because Jesus is all about not throwing stones and forgiving our trespassers and Love.

Back to the point. For a long time I used to day dream about falling in love. And I'm not saying that I don't any more. Every now and then I do. But I used to all the time. And then it occurred to me: it is too big of a gamble to have my happiness dependent on finding romantic love. It is entirely possible that boys will just never like me. And then I'd end up 57 and pissed off that my life had never turned out to be a Katherine Heigl movie. That's when I started daydreaming about Independence. About how I would organize my apartment when I finally lived on my own. And how I would spend my evenings. And whether or not I would get a large dog to feel safer--single girl living in the city, you know?--or maybe I would get a cat.

So I almsot wrote that down. Independence could be my idol. I wasn't even concerned with how I would break my idol habit with Independence as an idol. I was just going to acknowledge it and move on. When it hit me: my own skin.

I have never had "good" skin. Part of that is just natural, I think. But also, a compulsion that came along with my generalized anxiety disorder is the tendency to pick at my skin. A few months ago, my skin issues started worsening. I would get large, hard to cover up, lumps on my face. They would stay for a couple of weeks, and eventually dissipate. This was problematic, but I was dealing. A couple of weeks ago, however, a lumpy, irritated, patch of rash?breakout?terribleness appeared along my jawline. Besides being ugly and disfiguring, it has the added bonus of being painful. Moreover, it's bright red and somehow also flakey.

And I have been obsessing over it. I have tried numerous tactics--face masks, face washes, spot treatments, and steroid ointments, to name a few--and nothing has made it go away. I obsessively check my appearance in the mirror. I apply more and more makeup throughout the day. And on multiple occasions it has brought me to tears.

You see? I might be a chunky girl with frizzy hair and the kind of eyebrows that draw the not-so-pleasant sort of attention from makeup counter girls, but I'm also really pretty. Except for this damn thing on my face.

And, sure, I know that my worth doesn't stem from my appearance. I'm smart and funny and sometimes I'm even nice to people. Plus, remember earlier? Worth is innate. It comes from the simple fact that we are. God made us, and that makes us worthy. But because of my vanity and because my own appearance is an idol of mine, I have a hard time seeing that. (Also because of perverse aspects of socialization that place women's worth in their appearance...)

To add insult to disgusting-disfiguring-skin-problems, I felt this very strong "how to move past this idol" calling. There's this book that I intend to read sometime... after I've finished my homework, and I've finished rewatching all of Buffy the Vampire Slayer... that this woman wrote as part of a social experiment wherein she spent one year without looking in a mirror. So I'm assuming she also spent a year without wearing makeup.

And I thought to myself, ask soon as I realized that my own skin was an idol, "I should go, say, a week without wearing any makeup."

And then I immediately thought... but I can't do that.

And why can't I do that?

• The release party is this weekend
• Liz's Halloween party is next week
• And I have to judge debate next weekend
• Plus there's school
• And this thing on my face is terrible
• And everyone will be like, "OH MY GOODNESS WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?"
• And I'll probably make people sick just to look at me...

And I'm so... mad at myself? I feel so pathetic and stupid and shallow and vain. And what really bothers me is that the day before I flippantly wrote in my prayers booklet, 

"Have I sacrificed anything for you? I can't think of a single time. And yet I am always pleading you to change me. What sacrifice can I make for you?" and then "Please, show me how and what I can sacrifice for you." 

And what if that was it? It came to me so clearly. Give up this one weakness and I don't know if I can do it. I'm like Jonah. Except, well... if I got swallowed by a big fish and I spent three days and three nights in its stomach... well, I'd only have to go four days without makeup. Right? 

...I should really stop ending these blog posts with silly anecdotal jokes. It really discredits me, doesn't it? Ah well. Such is life. 

Dissatisfaction with Myself and Lots of Love for Renee

Don't get me wrong: I'm okay. I'm creative and thoughtful and I don't get my kicks out of hurting people. So... those are all in the plus category for the "do I like myself" list. But I'm not happy with who I am.

I read somewhere once that God didn't really give the people in the Old Testament that many rules. It was mostly just the big ten. You know... don't go around worshiping other gods or making idols or killing people or stealing or adulter...ing. And then the rest of the loads of rules in the Old Testament were mostly just people afraid of doing the bad ten things and trying to keep really far away from them.  Like, you have to testify about any wrongdoing you've seen or heard about because not doing so is a little bit too close to bearing false witness which was a big no-no. Or you shouldn't tear your clothes because then you're a little bit too close to... causing coveting, maybe.

That and preventing death. Like, you shouldn't eat or touch the carcass of a weasel or a rat because that will probably kill you.

Also, there were a lot of kind of obvious things that people were probably just like, "well, you shouldn't do this so we'll make a rule about it just in case someone doesn't just realize that they shouldn't have sex with their relatives.

But back to what I was originally saying. I read somewhere that a lot of the rules written in the Old Testament were rules that people made up. Because, well, it's just, frankly, easier for people to have a checklist of things not to do.

It's kind of like... have you ever been on a diet? Maybe on your diet you realize, like, "You aren't supposed to eat more than 50g of sugar in a day." And you can totally go around eating sugar in moderation, but you then you give yourself the rule, like, "only one sweet per week" or maybe even "no sweets ever." Anyway, that's kind of how I think of a lot of the rules in the Old Testament. People thought that, even though they could have a serving of sorbet or a chocolate chip cookie without it really hurting them, they thought that they better not let themselves. Because it's really easy for half a cup of sorbet to turn into a banana split and rootbeer and a bunch of fries.

"What does this have to do with you not really liking yourself?" You may ask. Which is a good question because I opened up with how I don't really like who I am but then I kind of went this whole different direction and now you're maybe a little worried that I don't like myself because I've been eating weasels and coveting my neighbor's wife.

That's not the case, though.

The reason I'm not too keen on myself these days is that there's a divide between who I am and who I would like to be. And I'm not talking about the difference between who I am now and who my crazy fantasy self (cough-Mindy Kaling-cough) is. I'm talking about the difference between who I am now and who I would like my everyday self to be.

The sort of person I want to be is kind. She's hardworking, compassionate, forgiving, and understanding. She is remorseful for her mistakes, but eventually forgives herself and then takes steps not to repeat the same mistakes. The kind of person I want to be is peaceful and nonjudgemental, but she also sticks up for others.

In contrast, the person I am is scared of being judged by her friends if she objects to their trash-talking. She is quick to anger and judgement. She holds grudges. She gossips and loosely throws around insults. The sort of person I am feels remorseful and nauseated by all of these things, but she never really forgives herself and she hardly ever changes.

...I've talked to you guys about Renee (aka the love of my life) before, right?

Well, the thing about Renee is that she always saw my good bits. Even though I can be pretty scowl-y and passive aggressive and grumbly. She would pardon my bad moods as grumpiness, and she'd always think of me as kind, smart, compassionate, creative, and... lovable.

You know in Juno when her dad is like, "the best thing you can do is find a person who loves you for exactly what you are. Good mood, bad mood, ugly, pretty, handsome, what have you, the right person is still going to think the sun shines out your ass"? Well, that's Renee.

Sometimes, though, the fact that Renee always saw my good bits made me hyper-aware of all my bad bits. It's like... the person that I want to be in the world is the person that Renee saw. You know? The kind version of myself. Because I think I'd like to see myself the way she sees me.

We're going to have to take a different direction, talking about this, now... because I'm getting a little choked up and cry-y what with my missing of Renee.

So I'm thinking maybe we should go back to the biblical stuff, right?

You see, I have this kind of general idea of the person I want to be. I want to be the version of me that Renee sees, but it's more than that. I just want to be better than I am. I want to be kinder, I want to be more forgiving, I want to be more patient. And I need a guide for how to get there. I need to make like Alicia Silverstone at the end of Clueless. I need a drastic renovation. I need to... I almost referenced Patrick Dempsey in Can't Buy Me Love but it occurs to me that that's not quite the type of change I'm hoping for. Kind of the opposite, in fact.

I don't know what that guide will be just yet. I'm okay with small steps, not necessarily rapid, dramatic transformations. And maybe I need some made up rules to keep me far away from the person that I don't want to be. Maybe my rule can't just be, "Don't participate in or initiate any gossip." Maybe it has to be, "When people are gossiping, state your case and leave." Maybe it means omitting certain music, tv shows, and activities; maybe it means seeking out new ones.

I'm not quite sure. But there's a person that I want to be, and I want to start moving towards becoming her.

Whose Death Affected You Most in Deathly Hallows?

I saw a post once where someone posed, "I think you can tell a lot about a person by which character's death affected them the most in Harry Potter." And I think that's true.

But I also think there's lots of things that could tell you a lot about a person, if you considered them in conjunction with other things and other people. Maybe that didn't make sense, but my degree's in English not in Eloquence. Damn, a degree in Eloquence would be nice, wouldn't it? Right, but what I was saying is this:

There's probably a lot you can tell about a person based on...

1. Their favorite color
2. Which bathroom stall they choose in a vacant bathroom
3. Whether or not they make eye contact with the people they pass in the grocery store
4. What movies they watch when they're feeling nostalgic about their childhood
5. The clothes they wear on Saturdays
6. Which parent they think they look more like
7. What recipes of their mothers they never dream of attempting
8. The names of their stuffed animals
9. How they spend their Sunday mornings
10. The number of pillows they have on their bed
11. What they say about their friends who aren't there
12. The way they wear their hair
13. How frequently they read books
14. Which movies make them cry
15. What TV shows they marathon
16. Who they dress up like on Halloween
17. Which bands they listened to in the 90's
18. What flavor chapstick they buy
19. How they look when they think they look hideous
20. What stories and movies give them nightmares

And a lot of other things, too. And I think those things probably tell us a lot about ourselves, too... If we consider them. Maybe that's why questionnaires were popular on Xanga, Myspace, Facebook, and Tumblr. Maybe that's why tag videos are so popular on Youtube. Maybe that's why there are multiple issues of Coke vs. Pepsi, teenagers play truth or dare, and tween magazines include quizzes designed to show you which Jonas Brother or Backstreet Boy would be your perfect boyfriend.

Because, maybe, if you know that Hannah is my favorite of the Pretty Little Liars or that I ate cheesy rice for lunch or that Pottermore placed me in Ravenclaw then you'd know a little bit more about me. And a little more than just the fact that I watch Pretty Little Liars and like Hannah best. Maybe you could know that my best friend in elementary school was named Hannah, or that I prefer her style, or that I, as a chunky person, am more likely to have more affection for the formerly-chunky-girl.

Maybe I could learn more about myself through these seemingly trivial details, too. Maybe the fact that my favorite time is Christmastime or that my favorite season is Autumn or that Oz is my favorite character in Buffy The Vampire Slayer or that I love ABC Family's Holiday movies can teach me something about myself.

And isn't that all we really want? To understand ourselves and to have others understand us, too.

By the way, I'm not quite sure which death affected me the most in Deathly Hallows. I would say Fred's, but then I repressed Lupin and Tonks's. I don't know. It's a rough book, y'all.

Making Friends

There's this girl in my Principles of Acting class, Katie, who is probably my favorite person ever. She's just so genuinely hilarious and she has the hands-down cutest style. On the day that we all had to embody animals, she embodied a turtle. During the mock interview she told the interviewer, "Well, I'm not the fastest worker, but what I lack in stamina I make up for in work ethic." When asked, "What character do you think you were playing?" She, still kind've acting like a turtle, said in a sincere voice, "Oh, I was thinking I was about eighty years old. I never really worked before, but kind've wanted something to do with my time." It was the best part of class.

If I could have absolutely any friend in the world, I would probably pick Katie. And I would totally try and befriend her... if she didn't intimidate me so much.

If you know Katie, it might surprise you that she intimidates the bejeezus out of me. She's younger than me, shorter than me, quieter than me, and seems to be a lot kinder than me, too... So there isn't really a good "logical" reason for me to be so damn intimidated by her. And yet...

I'm always really intimidated by people who I want to befriend. Not too long ago, I went to visit my best friend. I am very, very similar to one of her roommates. We like the same sort of TV shows, we don't like when people touch us, and we have similar humors. And I could have totally been like, "Hey we're super similar, let's be friends!" (But, like, not in those words and instead through just being personable, relatable, and charming.) But then, instead, when my best friend was away seeing to sorority-obligations, and her roommate said (to me and her third roommate), "So where do you guys want to go for dinner?" I had to physically stop myself from letting them know they didn't have to include me. As we walked toward the car, I had to hold back a, "I don't want to be a burden, you really don't have to take me...."

People think that I don't like them. But really, I just think they probably won't like me.

When Renee (AKA the love of my life) was getting ready to go back home, I met hoards of her friends.  And I really wanted to befriend a lot of them. And some of them I have totally successfully friended. But it's so hard for me. I had to kind of desperately trick them into giving me their phone numbers so that we could maintain a relationship after Renee was gone and unable to keep connecting us.

There used to be two girls who went to Avila, Sarah and Janelle, and both were so nice to me. The first time I hung out with Sarah, she was, like, cracking up at all my jokes. And when I left I thought, "She'd be nice to be friends with..." And then I was so intimidated that the next time I saw her, I barely spoke at all. And I hardly ever talked to Janelle, she just had to overhear me saying really nice things about her. (She's so talented and pretty and funny and kind and oh my goodness she's the best...)

Anyway, the crux of this bunch of rambles is this: I can't think of a more intimidating bunch of people than those people that you would like to befriend. Not handsome men, not possible employers, not professors, or parents of people you love. And it's so hard to befriend people when you turn into a giant, rambling, bowl of jelly in front of them.

She Is A Tree Trunk

She is a tree trunk.
She is well aware of the indelicacy of her shape:
Society tells women to be flowers.
And when she thinks, "Be a flower"
She almost hates herself.
She almost wants to starve herself into another species.

They call her thighs thunder
Not because of their size
But because of the reverberations of her footsteps.
And she thinks that flowers must glide.

But darling, remember:
Only insects can climb flowers' stems.
Trees can be climbed by grown men.
Petals wither in the winter,
But you can push through the seasons
With or without your leaves.
And flowers are meant for nightstands and vases
But people build houses in trees.

That's not just some fat girl stomping down the hallway.
That's a storm.
Her thighs are made of thunder
And her heart's been set on fire.

Darling girl, remember:
You are a tree trunk.
There will be no laughing at your mass.
'Cause you've got bark and a bite
(And both are pretty bad)

Darling girl, remember:
You are a tree trunk.
You are the home of birds who make music
And bees who make honey.
Your insides are made
Of sap and wisdom.

And the rest of you listen up:
Hug a tree trunk.
And maybe, if you're lucky,
She'll let you build your home
In her limbs
And drink the sap
From her veins.

Okay

"Are you okay?" She asks me. She's asking me because it's my dog who's dying, and because it's my dog who's dying, she doesn't really need to be asking me at all.

I am not okay.

"Yes," I say. I say it more abrasively than I intend to. I say lots of things more abrasively than I intend to, I think maybe I'm constantly trying to convince myself that my skin is thicker than it really is.

The trouble I have with dying is the "ceasing to be alive" part. The part where something is here in the world and its heart is beating and blood is pulsing through its veins and air is filling its lungs and then it's just not anymore.

I'm having a hard time conceptualizing the finality of death. In the living room, I sit on the hardwood floor, cross-legged like a child during story time. The skirt of my dress is pulled over my knees and I sit my dog on my lap, her chin rests on one of my knees and her hipbone rests on the other. I pet her slowly.

***

We adopted my dog right after my brother went to college. It was my junior year in high school, and she was this scrappy cairn terrier. At the time, she had just been freed from a five year stint as a puppy mill breeder. She'd had a hard life and the repercussions were numerous. When we first got her, she'd eat absolutely everything, and she wouldn't leave the bed we made up for her in the kitchen. She kept living by the survival strategies she'd learned in the clink but without the necessity. But eventually, she started exploring other parts of the house.

Then she started having problems with her eyes, which we got eye drops to rectify. Unbeknownst to us, she was allergic to the eye drops and all of the hair fell out of her face and she stopped eating.

For a while, we were really concerned. But pretty soon she started eating again, and her hair started growing back, and she became the chipper, albeit slightly lazy, dog she usually was once more.

Puppy mills are atrocious places. I don't think you could look at either of our dogs (both of whom were adopted, rescued from puppy mills) and think support puppy mill practices. Jubilee, bless her heart, had been robbed of a lot of the joys of dogs' lives. For the longest time, she didn't enjoy going for walks, she went outside to use the bathroom only, and after we got our second dog she relatively stopped playing. But as she acclimated to her new home, she came out of her shell a little more. 

I have no doubt that we gave her a better, and happier life than before.

***

As I walk out of Principles of Acting, I see a missed call and a text message from my father.

"Vet said Jubilee will have to be put down. Do you want [me] to wait for you to see her or just take her?"

I call him back. "What's wrong with her?" I try not to sob, but I sob. In the middle of campus.

I don't want to get caught crying on campus. I'm not quite sure why. I've cried over the fact that shitty people don't want to be my friends before, but for some reason I don't want to get caught crying over my dog's impending death. I'll chalk this up to an evolutionary theory I learned in literary criticism: stories are told to prepare us for facing similar situations in the real world. Almost every story ever told about a dog ended this way. In the sixth grade, I may have cried at Where the Red Fern Grows but for whatever reason it did not prepare me to lose my dog ten years later.

"I won't be home until this evening," I say. "Don't do it until tomorrow. I don't want you to do it today."

And then I run/waddle my crying self to the bathroom to dry up my face.

***

"Are you okay?" She ask as I walk into the house. It's late. She's asking me because it's my dog who's dying. She doesn't need to ask. I'm not okay.

"Yes." It's less abrasive this time. I walk with purpose. I swoop up a handful of trail mix and take a seat in the chair closest to my dog. I give my dog a couple of peanuts from my trail mix. She gobbles them up happily and then starts breathing heavily.

An impromptu family meeting congregates in the kitchen. Nash thinks we should give her a couple of weeks to respond to the new diet. (The new diet doesn't include peanuts.) The parents both seem to agree--she doesn't look like she's in any pain. I point out that there have already been times when we thought that she was dying, and then she turned out to be fine.

I sit on the floor and pet her. She's happy, but breathing heavily. She's going to get to live a little longer.

***

The next morning, my father tells me that she's doing worse. She ate breakfast out of his hand. She wouldn't stand. When she finally moved, it was to lay down with her head in the water bowl. "We'll see," he says sadly.

I go and sit on the kitchen floor beside her. I pet her, and she rests her chin on my knee. I tell her I love her. She's a good dog. It'll be okay, whatever happens.

What do you say to someone who is dying?

As I leave, I text my father. "Whatever you decide, I'm at peace with it. But if you take her to the vet today, will you take her to get ice cream first?" Jubilee loved getting ice cream. A last meal shouldn't be a handful of diet dog food. It should, if at all possible, be from Dairy Queen.

Throughout the day, I try my best to forget. But every once and awhile, it comes back to me. I lied. I wasn't at peace with it.

I text my father again, "Will you let me know whatever you decide?"

"Yes. She's moved to her bed."

"Is she doing better then?"

"Can't tell. She is breathing hard but not panting, not too labored."

"Okay..." and then I say, "I want to give her the weekend... just to see if she gets better."

***

I go to a coffee shop to work. I do this whenever I have lots of work, or whenever I get out of school at the same time traffic is bad. By the time I get there and get seated, I have three missed messages from my family. My father says, "Okay, maybe she'll just die at home." That's my hope.

My brother says, "I don't know. She just kind of peed on herself like she couldn't get up to do it. Dad's thinking it isn't looking good."

My mother says, "Katrina, are you sure?" Then she calls.

I get audibly upset. (Side note: my sincerest apologies to the man who looked like Patrick Drake from General Hospital who I was sitting by when I started raising my voice and sobbing; also to the man who looked like he belongs in "Frightened Rabbit" who accidentally made eye contact with me twice while I was weeping.)

"Okay, Mom, okay. It's fine. Just, it's fine." I sob into the phone.

"Well, I think that's what we're going to do, then." She says.

"Okay."

***

My parents did get her ice cream before taking her to the vet. They both tell me that it made her very happy. That doesn't surprise me, going downtown and getting ice cream made her ridiculously happy.

***

Well, anyway. Jubilee was a very good dog. She was sweet and funny and got so enthusiastic whenever someone was eating chips. And I'm going to miss her a whole lot. 

The concept of death is weird, because of its finality. And I know that life ends, but it's hard not to want a little bit more time. Just, you know, one more ice cream cone, one more nap in the sun, one more walk downtown, one more embrace. I know that she was pretty sick at the end, but I hope her life ended on as good of a note as she deserved regardless. 

Here's Some Advice, Kids

Earlier today, I took two quizzes.

The first one went well because I prepared for it. The second one went not so well because I read only the first three pages of the required reading. Now, the obvious bit o' advice here is to do your homework and try hard and everything will turn out okay. But that's not the bit o' advice I'm giving.

"WHAT? HOW IS THAT NOT THE BIT 'O ADVICE YOU'RE GIVING?"

Easy: that advice has already been giving. In the first real paragraph of this blog post. Do you really expect me to waste a whole blog post on a bit of obvious and easy to give advice!? Because that's not the sort of person I am. I'm the sort of person who gives actual real advice that's also important.

"How is doing your work not important?"

It's not important because it's what people already know. It's not important because it was the very reason that 90% of the ill-prepared students in my class were fretting in the five minutes before class. It's not important because it's the very reason that I feel comfortable predicting my peers fretted over that damn second reading and damn second quiz at breakfast this morning, before falling asleep last night, and potentially even after our professor commented, "I might even give a quiz over chapter two next class period, too." 

Yes. Do your work. You know that. But this is important to: everything is going to be okay. 

Look, this piece of advice is true a bulk of the time. Especially if you're as privileged as 98% of my peers at this here suburban, private, Catholic college, in the middle of the United States is. 

And that's really who I'm talking to. Not specifically kids at my school necessarily. What I mean is there are some situations I wouldn't patronize with this sort of advice. Not that this advice is patronizing, I definitely don't mean it that way. What I mean is: I've never been a sixteen year old, pregnant, homeless, ethnic minority, with undiagnosed disorders. And since I haven't been in that sort of situation, I wouldn't dare say, "Calm down, it'll be okay," to someone living through it.

But, if you have a home and a bed and a high school diploma and four dollars that you're willing to spend on an overpriced cup of coffee, listen up!

I know that life can be very stressful. I know that sometimes you miss a meeting and sometimes you forget to do an assignment and sometimes you show up to work late. And I know that you have a lot you have to do. I know that you're taking 18 credit hours, or you're on the football team, or you're working two jobs. And I know that that's all really hard because what you'd like to be doing is, like, whatever you'd like to be doing. But what's important to remember (you, person who bought new clothes for the season and regularly pragmatically considers starting an all natural diet) it's going to be okay.

I'm super high strung, don't get me wrong. While I was driving to class, I was working through a lot of this. "OH NO I ONLY READ THREE OF THE PAGES AND THERE WERE EIGHTEEN AND I AM GOING TO FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIL."

This is when I think about Anthony Weiner. You know Anthony Weiner, right? I ask because I assume *everybody* knows about Anthony Weiner and the Anthony Weiner scandal, but the bulk of classmates looked at me like I was straight up crazy when I pointed it out. So, in case you don't know who Anthony Weiner is, he was the NY congressman who accidentally tweeted pictures of his junk, admitted to sexting six women, and resigned from congress. Then, he turned around and ran for mayor of New York.

"Why would you ever think about Anthony Weiner?" you might ask.

That's a good question. For which I have an okay answer.

Sometimes, I forget to do a reading. Or I skip work study. Or don't take a shower. Or I say something stupid. Or I shake while I'm presenting. Or whatever. And when I'm starting to panic about it, I think to myself, "Anthony Weiner tweeted pictures of his junk and was still able to run for mayor of New York." (I should say here that he did not get elected as mayor of New York. Partly because he found himself in the middle of yet another sexting scandal.)

And do you know why the story of Anthony Weiner makes me feel better? Because life goes on. Because people make mistakes and then have the opportunity to change their behavior. Because I have not been part of any sexting scandals to ruin my political career (let alone two, Mr. Weiner). Because even though Anthony Weiner lost the mayoral race, he managed not to lose everything.

Most importantly: life goes on.

And the thing about something small, something like forgetting to do a reading and then bombing a quiz, for example, is that you don't really have that much to repair. Next time, you do the reading and get a better grade. You can't change the past, you can only alter your behavior for the future. But altering behavior and fixing mistakes is advice for another time.

You know that saying, "Sometimes you can't see the forest through the trees"? It's a good saying. See, if you spend your entire time panicking of one tree, you won't realize that there are a whole ton of trees to panic over. No, just kidding, that's not what I'm saying.

What I'm saying is this: this is a moment of time. One quiz, one paper, one test, one class, one shift, one whatever doesn't define you. See, you can fail a quiz without failing the class. You can fail multiple quizzes and still get an "A" in the class. You can be late to a shift without getting fired; you can certainly be late to a shift without getting unemployed for the rest of eternity. You can accidentally hurt your best friend's feelings without losing your best friend forever. You can lie to your mother without getting disowned. I'm not saying that you should do any of these things, and I'm not saying that you shouldn't try to correct your mistakes, I'm just saying, look at the forest from time to time.

You see it all the time where people make mistakes and then life turns out to be fine for them. Anthony Weiner isn't really the best example, I mostly like to think of him so that I can think, "I might not have done my homework, but at least I didn't tweet a picture of my junk." There are other people who make big mistakes and move on from it. Like Robert Downey Jr or Britney Spears or whoever you want to think of.

So, just, remember that it'll be okay. And if, when you're stressing the fuck out, you can't remember that it'll be okay: remember Anthony Weiner. And at least you'll be amused.