end notes: january
01 on kidney transplants for cats. previously-unknown-to-me factoid: as in most human renal transplant operations, the native kidneys stay put, so the donor kidney makes three. we lost a cat to kidney disease several years ago; i have no idea what we would do if one of our cats developed CRF now.
02 when WFUV's the alternate side stream dried up and we had to dig around for new internet radio, joe discovered FIP, née france inter paris, a 45-year-old advert-free french station (if you're in france, it broadcasts terrestrially at 105.1). we listen to it for a couple of hours every night.
03 in march we'll visit our friends sarah and judd at their winter superhero headquarters in the dominican republic. like them, i have started referring to it as the DR, which makes me feel vaguely like a junot díaz character. this—the visit, not the junot díaz thing—will score me cool points at ye olde charity bookstore cafe, where sarah's tale of learning to budget her fucks so she could do things like move to the caribbean is holy writ. i will make an effort to dress like ernest hemingway. it feels right.
04 we aimed our old red car at philadelphia for a spur-of-the-moment road trip over MLK weekend and acquired a variety of cheeses from amish people, delectable smoked-coconut sandwiches from a taproom, and a huge bag of hand-cut soap from a man in a striking sweater (i am particularly fond of the black pepper bar). in other soap news, i have switched from lush's charcoal-based dark angels cleanser back to their ocean salt, as the former was clinging to my face and i am not fly enough to make that work.
05 speaking of vegan food and smells, i am quite enjoying moby's memoir, which teems with both. moby's voice is appealingly self-effacing, his run-ins with fellow '90s a-listers are frequent and entertaining (i attended a handful of the southern california concerts he describes, which weirds me out a bit), and he knows when to back away from industry details that would bore non-musicians (looking at you, keith richards). i have a hundred pages to go, but i'm already willing to forgive him for his terrible, ricci-forward "natural blues" video.
06 the final-ish draft of an essay i've been writing since june of last year goes back to my editor this coming thursday. for about a month or so in the fall i was so nervous about said essay that i'd sneak out of bed at one or two in the morning and run a few miles to wheedle the adrenaline out of my legs. it will be the first personal piece i've published in a national magazine, and it's the sort of work i'd like to do in the future (not exclusively, christ, the idea of trying to make a living by writing about myself all the time makes me want to chug tile cleaner); i have psychic skin in this game. i really, really hope it's good.
Showing posts with label fuck CRF. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fuck CRF. Show all posts
09.10.10
our little cat, jude, died a year ago today. his ashes are in a little tin next to my jewelry box in our bedroom closet; i can't imagine where we would scatter them, and sometimes i need to reach in and touch the tin before i go to bed. there are things i called him which will always be only his, but there are others which were only his and now slip out of my mouth when i'm talking to steve (a gregarious, knockabout, impertinent cat, as unlike jude as he could be; the little one was private, sad-eyed, and gentle). while that should be alright or even a good thing, something in my gut dissolves every time it happens. it always comes together again. it always dissolves.
from this week's new yorker, in a collection of notes by roland barthes:
our little cat, jude, died a year ago today. his ashes are in a little tin next to my jewelry box in our bedroom closet; i can't imagine where we would scatter them, and sometimes i need to reach in and touch the tin before i go to bed. there are things i called him which will always be only his, but there are others which were only his and now slip out of my mouth when i'm talking to steve (a gregarious, knockabout, impertinent cat, as unlike jude as he could be; the little one was private, sad-eyed, and gentle). while that should be alright or even a good thing, something in my gut dissolves every time it happens. it always comes together again. it always dissolves.
from this week's new yorker, in a collection of notes by roland barthes:
July 29th
Bibliothèque Nationale
Letter [from Proust] to Georges de Lauris, whose mother has just died (1907).
"Now there is one thing I can tell you: you will enjoy certain pleasures you would not fathom now. When you still had your mother you often thought of the days when you would have her no longer. Now you will often think of days past when you had her. When you are used to this horrible thing that they will forever be cast into the past, then you will gently feel her revive, returning to take her place, her entire place, beside you. At the present time, this is not yet possible. Let yourself be inert, wait till the incomprehensible power...that has broken you restores you a little, I say a little, for henceforth you will always keep something broken about you. Tell yourself this, too, for it is a kind of pleasure to know that you will never love less, that you will never be consoled, that you will constantly remember more and more."
01.10.10
four months ago i told our little cat the story of how we met. i told him about how handsome everyone at the SPCA always thought he was, how i used to worry about joe rolling over on him in the middle of the night when we first brought him home, how i loved the way he'd curl up like a snail in the crook of my arm and fall asleep with his chin on my hand. i told him that he'd been the only thing about my time in san francisco that really made me proud. i sat on the toilet lid; he cowered between our shower curtain and liner.
a brass band played in the plaza across the street for hours that afternoon. trumpets puked swing music as joe and then our vet joined me in the apartment, as i gathered up and tried to soothe our terrified, skeletal little cat, as i sat and held him while the sedative took effect and the vet laid him out on our coffee table.
i'm no longer in that apartment every time i stop thinking of other things, but i'm there more often than i thought i'd be. we spent three years giving jude what was ultimately a daily dose of subcutaneous fluids, trundling him off to the vet for urinalysis and blood tests, feeding him (and chuck) pasty prescription food. specialists would make me feel like shit for not having $30,000 for a kidney transplant, and poor, sweet jude broke my heart every time he forgave me for holding him down and putting a needle in his back. i can't tell you how good it felt to rip the IV bag hook from our kitchen wall that afternoon in september. i should have used it on the fucking brass band.
joe and i went up to animal care and control in harlem today. we met ziggy, a sweet adult stray, a grey and white fellow who kneaded his towel and butted my head when i opened his cage. "he's a really great cat," joe said, "but it feels like he's someone else's great cat." i don't know if we're ready for one who isn't ours.
i miss you, puppy, and i'm so sorry.
four months ago i told our little cat the story of how we met. i told him about how handsome everyone at the SPCA always thought he was, how i used to worry about joe rolling over on him in the middle of the night when we first brought him home, how i loved the way he'd curl up like a snail in the crook of my arm and fall asleep with his chin on my hand. i told him that he'd been the only thing about my time in san francisco that really made me proud. i sat on the toilet lid; he cowered between our shower curtain and liner.
a brass band played in the plaza across the street for hours that afternoon. trumpets puked swing music as joe and then our vet joined me in the apartment, as i gathered up and tried to soothe our terrified, skeletal little cat, as i sat and held him while the sedative took effect and the vet laid him out on our coffee table.
i'm no longer in that apartment every time i stop thinking of other things, but i'm there more often than i thought i'd be. we spent three years giving jude what was ultimately a daily dose of subcutaneous fluids, trundling him off to the vet for urinalysis and blood tests, feeding him (and chuck) pasty prescription food. specialists would make me feel like shit for not having $30,000 for a kidney transplant, and poor, sweet jude broke my heart every time he forgave me for holding him down and putting a needle in his back. i can't tell you how good it felt to rip the IV bag hook from our kitchen wall that afternoon in september. i should have used it on the fucking brass band.
joe and i went up to animal care and control in harlem today. we met ziggy, a sweet adult stray, a grey and white fellow who kneaded his towel and butted my head when i opened his cage. "he's a really great cat," joe said, "but it feels like he's someone else's great cat." i don't know if we're ready for one who isn't ours.
i miss you, puppy, and i'm so sorry.
07.02.09: from jubilate agno
For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.
For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.
For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.
For he is of the tribe of Tiger.
For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.*
For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.
For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.
For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he's a good Cat.
For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.
For every house is incomplete without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.
(christopher smart, c. 1758-1763)
*i know, i know, but it was the eighteenth century (in a madhouse). i still think christopher smart is great.
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