city of lights.

|
okay.

finally getting around to setting this down before i forget it utterly:

i was in europe this summer. end-of-summer, actually. had a convention in london, another one in NYC, and a few days in between, which i spent in paris.

it was so much fun. all of it. i gotta do it again.

heh, london was like...i dunno. after you've been there, you have a better grasp on it. i guess this is true for any famous city, but somehow before going there london was sorta two-sided to me.

1. spice girls, beatles, british pop, union jack, big red buses.

2. that british reserve!

after i've been there, though, the picture's so much more complete.

dude. heh. british women are F'ING HOT. their accents, man, and god they're all so well dressed. maybe it's cuz i was in cosmopolitan west-end-of-london the whole time almost, but still. i looked around and all the brits were so sharply dressed. they all looked like they were wearing tailored clothes. no sloppiness, and no SLUTTISHNESS. even when they went casual they still looked good. and everyone seemed slender and tall.

if you saw a short, fat, sluttily dressed chick, it was probably an american tourist.

right, so i got distracted there. as i was saying - picture's much more complete. it's kinda weird. england's like...at once much more liberal and much more conservative than us. dude, i saw this chick with her boyfriend and she was like ELEVEN. i'm not even kidding. she was a CHILD. i thought maybe she was with her brother at first, but then he kissed her. i was like "UGH?!"

but a the same time, these are people who do not SMILE at all. in california, people smile all the time. when we pass each other and we accidentally do that thing where we both try to go the same way and then duck back and forth? we smile at each other. when we catch each other's eyes in our cars, we smile. when we bump into someone, we smile and apologize.

we just. SMILE. a lot.

now, in london?

NOT THE CASE.

i kept smiling, though. it was instinct! my eyes would meet someone else's on the street - and i'd smile.

and they'd get this really spooked look. it was funny as hell. like this total "omfg, is he nuts? is he gonna kill me? is he gonna hump my leg?" look before they smiled back - shakily - and hurried past.

BRITISH. RESERVE. THEY DO NOT SMILE.

(but they sure as HELL are hot.)

god! i just can't get over how well-dressed they were. i swear, every last chick i saw was gorgeously dressed. not fancy? just like - well, a little fancier than in america. you didn't see sweatshirts and short-shorts. i saw a lot of business suits, but they were all so well-fitted and, heh, damn, so sexy. those nice slacks and those jacket shells, and like...

...those accents. whew.

england itself, though, wasn't that great. it was dirty. all the buildings were huge. not tall? but HUGE. horizontally big. and grey. big and mighty, very... english. come hell or high water, we'll stand to the end-ish. not just the landmarks, either. everything was big and grey and mighty. it was an island watered by blood, and its history is nothing but war and conquest again and again and again, so i suppose it was fitting.

that was just london, though. when i got on the train to go across the chunnel, i went south across the countryside. and oh man, it was gorgeous. i was working on like 5 hrs of sleep and terribly sleepy, but i dragged myself up and wrote up this thing by hand. just sensations. memories. thoughts i was having at the time, because i knew once it had passed i'd never feel it so keenly again.

i'll post it up someday...too lazy to type it all right now.

anyway, so after london i went to paris.

and omfg.

everything everyone has EVER said about the city?

is probably true.

all the cliches, all the overused phrases and sayings - ALL TRUE. there's just... nowhere else on earth (that i've been to) quite like paris.

the city of lights, man. it's the truth. the whole city just ... glows.

remember how i said london was grey? well, paris was golden. i guess they had more sandstone or something, because all the buildings were this sundusted shade of cream-golden. it was raining when i was there, too - this lovely, gentle september rain - and it didn't dim the glow a single bit.

also, instead of some big swanky UCSF-paid hotel that was faceless and identical to every other big swanky hotel in the world, i was in this tiny little french inn. i was up on the top floor, and the ceiling was slanted. the bedsprings creaked. there was no shower. there was only a bathtub. and despite there being no shower, there was a bidet.

yeah, i was in france, all right.

and when i put my head out the (french) windows, i could turn to the left and see the eiffel tower rearing out of the distance behind the buildings. when i looked down i saw the tiny narrow french street with the crappy tiny french cars and the storefronts selling fruits and produce. when i came out and walked around, it was 10 minutes to the tower and 5 to the arc de triomphe.

and just! even walking down the streets was an experience. in london you always felt harried and rushed somehow; in paris you felt like you had all the time in the world. there were trees everywhere. the sky was bright, even when it was overcast. the sidewalks were broad. the people were friendly. the snobbish french thing is apparently a myth, because i never met a single snob.

they SMILED when i smiled at them.

and just...well, like i said, walking the streets was an experience. everywhere you went, you'd turn a corner and suddenly you'd be looking at some fantastic view, or some gorgeous work of art just sitting there in the middle of the street.

the first day i got there - the afternoon after i'd taken the chunnel over - i went out and walked the length of the rue de champs-elysee from the arc to the place de la concorde. the WHOLE way. didn't feel tired at all.

i stared up at the arc. it's fucking huge, man. pictures deceive. you think it's like 2 stories high? it's more like... i don't know. 10? 20? it's fucking ENORMOUS. i don't even remember how big it is now, but i just remember being shocked that it was that. huge.

then i strolled down past the huge stores whose names i see all the time all over the world, but then i'd suddenly realize, holy fuck, this isn't just chanel's showroom, this is THE CHANEL SHOWROOM, in paris. had dinner at this italian place (it was ironic - my whole time there, i had all of one french meal. they seemed to like foreign food as much as we do), which was odd because it was such a LIGHT meal, when i think of really heavy cheeses and shit when i think italian.

anyway, afterwards i went down into the place de la concorde. stared in utter awe at these gilt sculptures and zillion-year-old artifacts they just had set out, just WAITING. tried to go into the louvre area, but they closed at sunset so i came back out.

i was all disappointed, but then i wasn't. because it had gotten dark enough then that the lights were coming on.

and see, paris - that part of it at least - had a master planner. so unlike other big cities were nothing's symmetrical and everything's crowded and a mess, this thing was just...laid out to please the eye. there was a balance to everything. a symmetry. you stood at the gates to the concorde and you looked down the champs-elysee and you could see the arc in the distance. on either corner of the concorde were statues; off to your left was the eiffel tower. the twilight would be fading from the sky, and the lights?

they came on not all at once, but one by one.

first the arc lit up. then the louvre. then the length of the champs-elysee. the obelisk on the place. the bridges over the seine - the tower - and then around 9pm, everything was lit up, and the eiffel tower starts FLASHING.

i know that sounds gaudy. but it wasn't. somehow, it just wasn't. you have to understand everything were just normal streetlights. ochre-hued, you know? but somehow because of the symmetry and the gradual lighting, they seemed golden. the whole city seemed golden, somehow, lit up like a handful of stars under this darkening sky. and there was such anticipation as you waited for the lights to come on, and finally when they were all on you thought it was over - but it wasn't.

the tower starts flashing. it does that every hour on the hour for about ten minutes - brilliant white lights. it was like diamonds on gold, man. all these flashes everywhere returned it: every last tourist with a camcorder or a camera was shooting like mad. but then when you go back and look at the pictures, it's static, not moving, and you can't feel the wind in your hair, the smell of paris, the very feel of it permeating the air, and it's not the same.

it's just not the same when i look at the pictures i took. it's not the same magic i felt, the utter awe and joy of being alive in this city of cities.

that's what i felt when i was there. joy. happy. i was just so happy to be there, even though i wasn't doing anything other than walking around. a little lonely, too, because i didn't take my gf and i kept thinking to myself when i saw something pretty - wow. i'll take brianna here and show her this. and that. and that. and this.

the seine was utterly beautiful. everything was utterly beautiful. of course, the major landmarks were amazing - the louvre: there's no describing its size. it's the museum to end all museums. i only had a day in there and i walked my feet into blisters trying to see it all. the building ITSELF is an art museum, which sounds stupid, but i mean: the building itself is so beautiful, it deserves like a placard of its own describing it.

i'm getting distracted again.

the point is, the landmarks were amazing, but it was the entire equation summed up that was just unforgettable. it wasn't just the louvre, or the cathedral of notre-dame, or the arc, or the pont-neuf over the seine. it was everything.

it's like how san francisco isn't its cable cars or its bridges. it's the very feel in the ground and in the air when you walk about.

it was just... the simple pleasure of being there. i just remember these two moments so vividly:

strolling the right bank of the seine looking across at the eiffel tower and its scattered reflection on the water at night, about 10pm. the smell of the air, the sound of the city which was somehow different from the sound of every other city - softer? - and the wind in the leaves of the trees. the random monuments i'd come across just walking. the sense of history that ran so deep in the blood of the city, but didn't threaten to overbear and overwhelm the way london's bloody history seemed to. it was just this feeling of culture of beauty, quiet and patient, that lay beneath every stone of the city and gave rise to the beautiful monuments scattered everywhere, the gilt-topped bridges, the vast plazas and perfect symmetry of it all.

sitting on the vast green belt behind the eiffel tower eating a hot dog (which was three thin sausages stuffed into a baguette, believe it or not) while the sun set. and the sky was just lit up into these incredible colors, pastels, pink and orange and flaming red, and then silhouetted and also lit up against it was the tower, and all around me were people, lovers, friends, families, and there was just this sense of wholeness and wellness that seeped into every fiber of my being.

i was so. perfectly. happy at that moment. i was so damned happy in paris. i only had like 4 days there, and it wasn't enough. not even close. it's one of those cities you fall in love with immediately, and then it gets into your blood and calls to you. it's not as though i think about it every day, but i do still think about it often. and every so often i flip open yahoo travel and look up plane tickets so i can go back and stay there for a week. two weeks.

i wouldn't want to live there, though. familiarity and contempt, and all. plus i don't want it to be my city. i like san francisco fine for that. by the time i got to NYC (which felt like a bigger, dirtier version of SF), i was missing san francisco like hell. my white city by the bay. it's where i live and where i belong.

but paris...

see, i want it to always be that city of lights i remember from the late summer of 2003. that's how it is in my mind, and it's perfect. it's nothing but easy strolls, the placid river, the leaves in the trees and the beauty that you could breathe in like you breathed air. and if i were to live there, i'd learn to hate parts of it - the traffic, the tourists, etc. more so than that, it'd just become the place i lived, and become mundane. i'd work there. i'd shop for groceries there. i'd probably be too busy to stroll the seine's banks.

i'd forget the magic of a perfect summer's evening with the lights coming on all around me, reflecting into the seine.

i'd forget.

fucking metaphors and shit.

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man. so, recently: stress galore, bad mood galore. i'm having one of those periods of extreme stress at work, where i start self-doubting just a little bit.

i mean, it's impossible not to. when you choose the path of medicine, you choose it early. while your friends are off smoking pot behind the high school, you're joining clubs and doing sports to show the colleges you're a well-rounded person. while your friends are changing their majors 17 times and taking human sexuality, you're taking molecular biology and human physiology and immunology and endocrinology to prep you for med school. there's no real room or time for exploration - you better crank the fuck down and get shit done, or you get left behind.

what ends up happening, though, is while the fact that you're SURE you love this shit, you're POSITIVE you wanna follow this path, is the only way you'll even survive all the rigors of taking it - you always, always retain this little seed of self-doubt. cuz i've never had a chance to really explore. i never took human sexuality or intro to astronomy. i never took any of the hundreds of cool, random classes in college that my friends did because i was always, always, running with my nose to the ground and my eyes on the prize.

so now that i've almost got the prize, now that i'm locked into this very last phase of getting the prize, i have these moments when it's just fucking overwhelming (like it's supposed to be, heh), and...

shit. see, i even reason it out to myself when i'm ranting. this is why sometimes i wonder if maybe i DIDN'T pick the right path. if maybe - just maybe - out of the hundreds of other paths i could've taken but never even tried - one of them was the "right" one. because i never LET myself wonder. not aloud, at least. not on paper, either. all the doubts are in my mind, and as soon as i start going into doubt, i talk myself out of it.

i'm having trouble expressing this, i think.

the bottom line is, i'm afraid, sometimes, that i've made the wrong choice. the idea terrifies me because i'm so way, way, way beyond the point of no return. but i never even looked to both sides before crossing the point, so there's no way, really, for me to know. i've always just forced my gaze back on center whenever i've tried to look, and i do that even now, when i try to look backwards.

seems like cheesy metaphor's the only way i can say this. heh.

i am fucking plagued by doubt right now. just ... haunted by it. i don't know why. not really. i'm stressed, yeah, but i'm not that stressed. but i look around at all the bright-eyed faces of the 3rd-year med students just starting their rotations and i wonder how they can be so certain of themselves. i look around and wonder how they can be so absolutely sure their path is the right one, and how i could've, once upon a time, been so blindly sure, as well.

i'm still convinced it is the right one. hell, if it wasn't, i think i would've realized it and bailed by now. but still.

still. the fucking doubt, you know?

i just need some way to be certain. absolutely certain. but i think that's one of those things where i'd be looking for an answer that might not even exist.

and of course, there's also the fear that this ISN'T right for me. i'm cut out for it but it's not cut out for me. does that make any sense? that idea terrifies me. that i could've worked so hard, 28 years of my life, one third of my FUCKING LIFE, to come to this point, and maybe - just maybe - be wrong.

==

this is why i've been so fucking on-edge lately. the slightest things set me off. the slightest, tiniest things make me go off. my stress at work feeds into my doubt feeds into my stress feeds into my doubt, and i haven't had a real break since.. hell, since i can't even remember. it's been just one thing after another for so long. grant applications. papers. patients. new wards. new shit to learn. new shit to practice. and then my dad, and his fucking company - he's been starting one for the last 3 years or so - he didn't have any employees for a long time so i was basically doing his shit as well. and there's just been no respite for...jesus, to be honest, i think for about 2 years. the last time i really had no stress was a week-long break i took in the summer of 2001.

i need a fucking break. this winter, i'm taking a fucking break. 3 weeks, and i'm not going to do shit. i'm not coming online, i'm not going to work. i'm going to fucking europe or something and i'm going to wander in the shadow of the wonders of the world and not think about conferences, meetings, the real world.

look at me, spewing my troubles across the page. i hate doing this. i fucking hate unloading.

==

i'm dividing this up into chunks because my thoughts are in disconnected chunks. heh.

==

so anyway. tonight. random bad mood again. god knows what set me off. the smallest things make me go off these days. i think maybe it was because another friend of mine was grumpy, and it just kinda... i don't know. infected me. that has a way of happening.

heh. so yeah. my bad mood just exploded on me like a fucking thunderstorm out of the blue. i always feel bad when that happens, because someone's gonna take the brunt of it sooner or later, and usually they don't deserve it because when i'm in a bad mood, most often it's something that has NOTHING to do with anyone but me.

so then i went offline. went for a joyride. was just gonna go for an hour but it kinda went long. i drove up to marin county past the golden gate bridge and i came back; i was still kinda revved up somehow, and i kept having this urge to just floor the pedal and go faster and faster, which i recognized as a pretty fucking dangerous urge.

it's like i felt like maybe if i just drove fast enough i could outrun the sense of doors closing on me.

that's what i feel like sometimes lately. that doors are closing on me. like everyone around me is so fucking placid, so fucking happy in their place, and somehow i'm still searching. it's like their fucking lives are already over. they're just settling down to go through the motions now, and me, fuck, i feel like my life is still just getting started. or it should be. i feel like i should still have unlimited possibilities in front of me.

but then i'm afraid i don't.

hell, i know i don't.

and this feeling of closed doors - coupled with this feeling of doubt - it's tearing me apart. i can't, i don't know how to deal with it.

wtf happened to college? heh. wtf happened to 18 years old?

uurgh.

==

you know, i wrote this up meaning to tell this little story about my joyride, not spill my tortured guts. heh. so yeah: story.

so i kept driving right past my place. went from the 101 to the 280. southbound. drove past the bend of the mountains and the city (god it's still so fucking beautiful...at least there's still that) vanished behind me, and all there was was the night, the highway, the few cars still there.

i went all the way down to san jose where 280 hit 101 again. then i came back up.

so i'm driving north. and then i'm like, outta fucking gas suddenly. i passed this sign saying next gas 18 miles and i was SURE, dead SURE, that i'd be able to get all the way home. well, at 18 miles sign i had 1/5th of a tank. by the end of the 18 miles, i was down to 1/16th. so i'm like shit, i better fuel up, right?

so i pull off the freeway.

guess what.

NO FUCKING GAS. CLOSED.

shit! go back on the freeway. go another 5 miles. pull off at another sign. go like 2 miles out.

NO FUCKING GAS. CLOSED.

by now i'm in the red, the light's on, i'm really worried. and i was only 5 miles from home by then, so i was like fuckit and i pushed it. i was coasting on neutral whenever i went downhill, man, and finally i got to a shell that was open, like 2 blocks from my place.

0.7 gallons left.

sheeeeeeesh.

now that would have and did get me home. but i just kept thinking what if i'd dawdled a bit more? taken one more exit to come down from up north? or two, or three? hell, i coulda run out in the 18-mile stretch. had to sit there and call my gf to come rescue me, and shit.

anyway, heh. sheer terror kinda blew all the doubts out of my mind, so i guess the joyride did some good. 'course, now that i'm home, trying to record the incident, i ended up recording my mood instead, and dredged them all up again.

fuck.

==

so remember what i said, when i said i didn't want to go home yet when i was coming back down from the north? i felt like i still needed a few miles to work some shit out. it's like running, almost - you keep doing it and after a while you get past the agony of exhaustion and your limbs somehow unkink and you can just run forever.

that's how i felt. i felt like driving forever. i went south all way down until 280 merged back with 101, and then i had a choice: 101 north: SAN FRANCISCO; 101 south: LOS ANGELES.

you have no idea how close i was to taking los angeles. i'm sure i wouldn't have gone all the way. but i don't know where i would've stopped. i didn't want to come back. i wanted to keep on driving until the sun rose, see where i was then. shed my skin and start anew, or some poetic BULLSHIT like that.

but, yeah. i came back. fuck. i think i'll always come back, and that's why i have these doubts. because i'm not placid enough to never leave at all, but i'm not brave enough to keep on going.

metaphors again. heh.

that fabled last gasp.

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end of october.

san francisco bay area.

ninety. fuckin. six. degrees.

i shit you not.

it's the fabled last gasp of summer, but god fuckin dammit, what a last gasp it's been. this past week has been insane. before that it was steadily cooling down. 75. 70. 65 degrees, getting ready for fall. after today, it's going straight into the fifties. but for the past seven days, without fail, it's been 90 and above.

the streets are sizzling.

the inside of my car feels like an oven. and when i open the windows, it doesn't help too much - because it's just as hot outside. at night the frogs are singing again. the crickets are putting out mating calls. they think it's summer. i think it's summer. i'm dying of heat. i get home and i throw open the windows and i loiter on the balcony. i wait for the nightfall but sometimes even that doesn't help, because it stays hot until about midnight when finally the air temperature outside starts to have some bearing on the inside.

you take a hot shower, you steam up the bathroom, and then you walk out and miraculously, it's hotter outside.

winter's coming after this week. rain and grey skies all winter long. but for now?

it feels more like summer than summer itself, man.

memento.

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been a long time since i've written here. suddenly there's so much i want to write, but one thing at a time, right?

lots of things happened in the interim. i worked my ass off, mostly, which is why i haven't had time to write. also some other stuff that'll i'll address. slowly. heh. in the next few entries. maybe.

watch, i'll probably go away for another 6 months.

anyway. just wanted to post this tonight. my dog got bitten by a rattlesnake at the beginning of august. he's all right now, thank god, but for a while it was bad. it was very fucking bad.

it's hard for me to put down what he is to me. we got him 12 years ago, just before i went to college. i had a year with him, and that was it, but it was enough, somehow, to make him a part of me. i love him. that's all i can say. i love him more than just about anything else on this earth, and if he'd died - like that - my grief would have torn me apart.

when he was so sick after getting bitten, when he couldn't even hold his head up and his eyes were sunken and he was dazed, barely even recognizing his family, i was a few thousand miles away and i couldn't do a fucking thing. i knew if this was it, i wouldn't even be able to say goodbye. and there was a night when it seemed like it was the end. he just kept downspiraling. they took lab readings every few hours, and he just kept going down and down, and even after they administered plasma and all - which was supposed to be something of a miracle cure - he still didn't improve.

he improved the next morning, as it turned out. but not then. and when i found out his numbers were still so bad, i couldn't deal with it. i have a double-room thing in my bathroom - the toilet and tub in one small room, the sinks in another. the small room is the most isolated, private, holed-away place in my apartment. that's where i went after i hung up w/ my parents. i put the toilet lid down and sat down and i was just going to think for a moment, just prepare myself somehow, and next thing i knew i was sobbing.

i couldn't help it. it wasn't something i had control over. i couldn't stop it, not by pinching the bridge of my nose, not by pressing my hands to my face. i couldn't even breathe evenly. it kept hitching in my lungs, and the tears just wouldn't stop. i hadn't cried like that since i was a child. in fact, i don't think i've ever cried like that, because i've never known that sort of pain and grief. all i could do was keep it silent and in the dark, and not come out until i was all right.

it took a fucking half-hour.

the lights were off because i didn't want my grief to be visible, or something. there's a window in that room, and through it i could see the moon that night. i think it was a half moon, waning; i remember looking at it and wondering how it could still float like that, normal.

i was hurting and i was furious. i was alternating between doubling over - like maybe that'd help the pain somehow - and cursing. cursing god, i guess. i kept saying "goddammit, saifur--" and i don't know why. i think i wanted him to fight it harder, or maybe i wanted him to be all right somehow, and i thought if i just asked him hard enough he would be.

this is something i wrote at the lowest point of it all, right after i got out of the bathroom. i didn't mean to keep it at the time, but it was an email to someone else. she wrote back, i wrote back, etc etc - and it was always down there, even after my dog had gotten better. so i thought i should save it. just so i remember what it was like.

i don't know why it's important for me to remember. maybe because my dog's old now, and i know he's old now. i know this won't last forever. but maybe it'll make it easier for me when it ends, if i can remember how bad it could have been, and the extra time i had afterwards.

--

my dog's not doing so good. he's so old, you know, and the fucking snake, it bit him like 2-3 times. piece of fucking SHIT. i swear, i've never wanted to kill anything before - i mean honestly, seriously, open-eyedly want something DEAD - but if i had half a chance i'd kill that snake if i could, and as slowly as i could.

i know it's horrible and utterly inhumane, but i can't help it. my DOG, goddammit, i got him when i was in high school. 12 fucking years, and every time i went to my parents' i felt like i'd gone home because that dog was there to welcome me. he never forgets a friend, and he never forgot me even though i was really only with him for one, fucking, precious year before college. i love that dog. 12 years of my life, he's been there for me, even if he lived somewhere else, and now i can't do SHIT when he's going through utter hell that no one should have to go through.

the venom is designed to do one thing, man. cause. destruction. it's not even to KILL. that's a fucking neurotoxin, where you go numb, lethargic and drop dead in 2 minutes, painlessly. this is just destruction. it's a venom designed to chew up the internal structure of the victim. it's designed to incapacitate by PAIN, and then DIGEST while the victim's still alive.

and the fucking piece of SHIT snake hit my dog 3 times with it.

i forgave the shit one bite. i know my dog must've bothered it. he's a curious dog, and tends to totally ignore all danger and all attempts to call him off when he's hellbent on investigating something. he's a rough dog too, who likes to chew up little animals. i know that. i know the snake's entitled to self defense. but three fucking strikes, man. three fucking strikes. that's fucking malice, and i don't care if it's irrational to think that about a fucking idiot reptile who can't even MOVE if it drops below 40 degrees.

....argh...

anyway, so he went in with decent vitals. his hematocrit was 45%, and that's stayed pretty steady, but that's not a real big deal. his protein levels has been going up and down, and has been steadily a bit low. went in 5.2 (normal is 6-8), went down to 4.0 at his lowest last night around 9pm, which had us scared bad.

but it's the fucking clotting time that's shit right now. that's what the venom does, partially - it chews up muscle, and it also fucks the blood up. it kills RBCs to some extent, and it kills off clotting factors so the blood just flows. he went in with 90 sec clotting time, which is a bit high, but still okay. it shot up to fucking 130 at 9pm. went back to 80 at 12 midnight, which we thought meant he was outta the woods. but then at 6am he was back up to 110, and then he spiked to like 180-190, which is fucking AWFUL.

so they put him on plasma transfusions at about 2pm, which is supposed to help a lot. at 8pm though, he was still at 150...plus his proteins went from 5.0 at 6am to 4.4.

i'm so fucking scared. i know he's old. i know everyone has his time to die. but not like THIS, goddammit. not like this. i want him to die at home, peaceful, in his sleep, old and comfortable and warm. i want to be there even though i know it'll tear me to pieces. but then this fucking rattler bites him three fucking times and he's SUFFERING in the hospital and he hates the fucking hospital, but he's too damn weak to even put up a fight now. he's just lying there with strangers in a cage, alone, and i'm just so scared to death that he might just give up.

goddammit. i was so hoping that the 8pm readngs would be good. when i heard they hadn't improved nearly as much as the doctors had hoped i fell to pieces. i didn't even know wtf hit me. i sat on the fucking toilet lid and bawled for half an hour. i couldn't stop. he's my DOG. i love him, and now he's in a fucking hospital fighting for his life and i can't even talk coherently because i'm so fucking scared for him.

and i wish i could have more faith in the vets. it's hypocritical of me. this is the shit i complain about in my own patients. but i can't help but wonder how much they really give a fuck about my dog, and how much of this is them looking at dollar signs. it's been $5000 so far. it'll be indefinitely more. i just wish i could have some TRUST in them, that they're doing all they can. that they're not doing more than they should and making it worse. that they're not letting him linger even if there's no hope just for the money. that, if it really comes down to it, they'll be able to ignore the $200/bag price tag on the plasma transfusion, the $1000-$2000/day on drugs and hospitalization and transfusions and all that shit, and tell us, honestly, that my dog has suffered more than his share, and it's time to let him go rather than stake it out to the bitter fucking end.

i'm thinking so negatively. i can't help it. i don't know wtf to do. i'm scared that they're not doing enough. i'm scared that my dog is just going to give up even though i KNOW he won't. i'm scared that they're doing too much. i'm scared that he's scared and isn't going to rest properly. i'm scared to death and back that he's going to lose this battle and it's going to be horrible for him.

i want him to go home. i want to believe that he will, and keep a positive attitude, but right now it's so fucking hard.

failing that, i want him to not suffer anymore. but i know that'll just shred me to pieces. i can't even think of him not being there anymore, leaving like THIS, without crying. it's not fucking fair. he's never been anything but good and brave and loyal and too damn smart for his own good. it's not fucking fair that he should have to go through this, you know? and if he doesn't pull through, it's just... christ.

i know if it happens people would comfort me by saying he's lived a good long life with my parents and me, and that we've loved him more than anyone, but STILL. goddammit. NOT LIKE THIS. nothing is worth this.

i would honestly, happily, give years off my life to save my fucking dog. even if it's just to get him out of the hospital, stabilized again, if only for a month so he can pass away peacefully the way he should. i don't care. i want him to live, but if it's his time to go, i just want him to go with some dignity, and where he feels safe.

just not like this.

goddammit...PLEASE.

i gotta stop thinking so fucking negatively. part of me wants to delete everything i've written because i'm so fucking scared right now i'll grab for any straws, and i'm afraid i'll jinx it or something. at the same time if i don't say it, somewhere, i'm going to explode, and i can't even say it IRL because i could never be able to get all this out without falling to pieces.

i just need someone to tell me it'll all be okay. more than that, i need it to all be okay, but that's too much to ask of anyone. i wish the fucking doctors would tell us SOMETHING definite. they just say "okay let's put on some more plasma" and there's never a distinct call on anything. and i understand that on one hand. you don't want to get their hopes up just to crush them. you don't want to get them so down that they'll give up. so you hover in the fucking middle.

but GODDAMMIT...

just...

christ, i can't handle it. i cannot deal with this. i've been preparing myself ever since he turned 12 for the day that my parents are going to call to say he passed away peacefully in his sleep on his favorite bed after taking a walk and eating his favorite steak dinner.

but not this. goddammit. it's just not fucking fair.

....i gotta get some sleep. heh. i'm just talking myself into another fall-apart.

sniiiiifff!

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i've discovered something amazing about Bath and Body Works stuff. i've been ranting about it for hours already, and now i'm gonna rant here.

it smells GODAWFUL when you're just putting it on.

i mean. GOD. AWFUL.

brianna was spritzing some sorta body spray and then slathering some aromatherapy "sensuality" lotion on last night? and i was GAGGING. it smelled, quite literally, like SHIT.

was gonna BARF.

so i was sitting there laughing my ass off at her cuz it was so damn stinky, right? then like. 10 minutes later, it started smelling good. like REALLY good.

and then TODAY. sheezus. i was practically sniffing my sheets. i can smell it on my hands, too, so i've been like inhaling my hands all. friggin. day.

sheeeit.

it's like this...can't describe it. not a scent-expert. but it's light, kinda sweet scent, but not cloying, with just a HINT of spice, and kinda cooooool as a summer breeze? and then there's this second scent that's kinda heavier, a touch fruit-ish/rose-ish, and like.

just daaayum. both of them. and the mix! and just. WHOA.

can't help it! must sniff! GOD. had this friend once who got separated from his girl by his job for 6 months, and ended up buying her brand of shampoo to sniff? i thought he was nuts, but i can dig that now. something about scents, you know? touch is the most intimate you can get, but scent is right up there under it. it's like closer than sight or sound. you can call your girl or look at her picture, but nothing reminds you of her quite as much as scent.

it's somehow...i dunno, visceral. kinda primitive, hits you in an older, more carnal part of the brain, or something. you can easily dissect the way she looks, make it all brainy and stuff. you can do that with voice too fairly easily. but scent is such an elusive thing, but also so, i dunno...striking gut-instinctive-ish. it just triggers memories and reactions like that.

anyway. yeegad. SNIIIIFF.