Ending What Began Here

 After nineteen years, I had to make the decision to put Squooshable to sleep today. He had squamous cell carcinoma of the mouth, and it had taken over his tongue entirely and the floor of his mouth. I fed him carefully for as long as I could. 

It was a good death; he was very calm and peaceful throughout. He was ready, I could tell. I gave him the happiest life I was able to until the very last moment, and I stayed with him for eight minutes after he died because the brain still has activity for up to seven minutes. It doesn’t seem real that he’s gone  

I love you, Squooshable. From the moment I met you, always and forever. I’m sorry our life together had to end. 

Test

Test

No Proper Time Of Day

...so where was I at before? 

I forget, which is nice. 

It was in about November that my current problem began; let’s call it aleph-naught. It’s an enthralling problem, and I have buried myself in it so that I have a reason to keep thinking. When this problem ends, I will still have aleph-one, The Game, and few trivial things to do. And I cannot drag aleph-naught out, because it involves an actual human being, though I am not making great headway into this. 

I had another distraction, and that involved a human too, but I’ve had to put that one to the side because, well, let’s just say that particular puzzle solved itself. 

I am waiting to fall asleep. 

As surprising as it is, considering that I grew up in a time when there was an awful lot of talk about grabbing people out of cults and deprogramming them, it turns out that if someone is actually mentally unwell, there is no benevolent group that will just go get them. I think I am destined to spend my entire life being surprised by how poorly society is structured. 

In other news, Arby died of lymphoma last year. Squooshable, Butler, Cookie, and Sweetie are still alive and well. I don’t believe that I will be getting any other cats after they go, but that’s a discussion for another post. Right now, I’m preoccupied with resolving this aleph-naught issue, and the pills I take to sleep are kicking in. I can hardly walk, and that has really sucked. 

But I can talk about all that later. 

Teaching College Students Be Like...

'So Stanley Milgram brought in subjects and assigned one to be the "teacher", and one to be... (expectant look at class)'
'Killed!'
'No...the "learner"; remember what we read in chapter twelve. But, unbeknownst to the "teachers", they were the only...'
'Gays?'
'Umm...no; they were the only true subjects; everyone else was a confederate'
'They were all gay?'
'No. No one was gay.'
'When did people start being gay, then?'
'I'm sure some of the subjects were gay, there have *always* been gay people, but being gay has nothing to do with Milgram's experiments'
'But what about the people who were killed?'
'No people were actually killed; at one point, the "learner" stopped responding, and there was the insinuation that he had died, or gone unconscious, but he was really....'
'Gay?'
'Look, we've been over this.'

'cos you make it hard for me to stop

Yeah.

I'm fine.

Nothing ever changes. Seriously. It's completely possible that I am immortal.

I may test my hypothesis in subsequent days. Or I may get on a real computer and change all this background shite.

So I'm sitting here, and sure, I'm smoking. Because reasons.

I think I'm going to have to be back here for a while.

Unless a meteor shower happens.

Test

Ohai.

Cos we live in a time When meaning falls in splinters from our lives…

Happy Thanksgiving.

I'm not dead yet.

Neither is Mother Liz, my stepmother's mother…so I guess she is my step-grandmother. And she is not dead, but it's coming.

I am, morally, against the withholding of food and water as a means to hasten death. While I fully support voluntary suicide and euthanasia — including voluntary terminal dehydration (VTD), if that's what blows your skirt up — I strongly believe that a systematic withholding cannot be tolerated because of the potential for a slippery slope-type justification for the denial of fundamental Human rights.

And, coincidentally enough, I believe access to food and water is a fundamental Human right. I would be happy to help out if someone needs to park a bullet in their brain, but I want them to have a nice lunch first. That's how I roll.

So this was my 2014 Thanksgiving, because my family raises the bar on dysfunction every single year: while Mother Liz is VTD'ing it, and went non-responsive a little over a day ago, we did Thanksgiving.

It's demented and sick, sure.

My offers to help out were dismissed, largely because, I think, my relatives are a pack of pussies. Or they enjoy misery, both their own and others'. Who knows? I *do* know that I would never let someone I loved go through that; if she wants out, fucking help her out. Damn.

Why is everyone so damned weird?

Wow. I just hung up with my father, and AGAIN I offered help, and again he got all defensive, saying that his wife is doing a fine job of taking care of her mother. Fuck this shit. I told him that he has my phone number and morphine, and I have the Vistaril and glucophage, so quit being stupid. He said he'd phone if help turning her was needed again. Whatever.

Yeah, my morality says I have to hear it from my stepmother. I can't just go all vigilante, even if it's clear that *someone* needs to. Fuck, this makes me angry. And sad. Angry and sad. I really liked Mother Liz; I kind of loved her, really. She reminded me of Mom a lot.

I'm going to pretend this shit isn't happening and watch movies. I'm home now. And I moved. More about that later.

Hugs and love.




- Posted using an app that I drew on an Etch-a-Sketch modified to run Free BSD.