L to R:  emma, my mom's service dog puppy in training; daisy, 15y/o family dog; and bella, my 2y/o pibble mix.


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dear mr & mrs average pet owner:

thank you, whoever wrote that.



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Frederick is one of my foster kittens.
And of course, Bella's my FIGHTIN' DAWG!!!


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have i mentioned my new dog?



her name is bella.  she is 2 years old.  she's from animal control.  she had overstayed her welcome and was in line to be euthanized.  yes, she's a pibble mix.  she does great with all our other animals.  she loves to play with olive, and she lets the kittens crawl all over her face without batting an eye.  she is very careful not to step or lay on them.  she is recovering from her spay.  she has been here since wednesday of last week and has not had a single accident in the house.  if she does something wrong (eating the kitty food, for example), i only have to tell her no once, and she minds me and won't do it again.  she has loud farts.  she goes right into her crate at night on her own free will.  she is friendly with everyone she meets, but she does bark a couple times when someone comes to the door.  i like that, because our other 2 dogs don't do that.  she doesn't enjoy spending as much time outside as our other dogs do, unless a person is out there with her.  she comes when i call her, she sits when i tell her, and she always has to have her head in my lap.  that is all  :)


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1.  sheila and closed on our house today.  we signed our lives away, and we're moving on wednesday.
alice is helping us pack the truck on tuesday night.  my mom and dad are helping unpack a little on wednesday, and sheila's mom & grandma are coming down that day also.  though i don't know if they intend on helping or what.  plus i think alice will help us on wednesday too (right, alice?) .
syd is coming up on thursday and staying the night, and hopefully we can get cherie over to take a look at the space where i want her to do a mural and we can go paint shopping.

2.  we adopted another dog.  she was rescued from a neglect situation.  we drove over 3 hours in a snow storm with white-out conditions just so that she would not have to spend another night outside.  cute little red & white beagle.  about 3 or 4 yrs old.  got her a dental, a spay, a microchip and some shots, and named her olive.  she's mostly sheila's little girl, which is good because charlie's such a one-person dog, and i am his one person.  charlie doesn't really appreciate olive (1 uptight older phobic dog who does not know how to play + 1 hyper playful obnoxious energetic dog = do not want).  when we take the two of them over to my mom's to be with her 2 dogs, olive and emma (her paws with a cause foster puppy) tear around the yard and work out all their wiggles, while charlie and daisy (the old man and the old lady) relax inside.

3.  so yeah, i've had a lot more contact with my mom lately.  mostly it's been good, but i'm very nervous that things are going too quickly.  and it would totally be my own fault too, because i call her all the time, and we get together and do stuff.  too often, i think.  i kind of miss the feeling i had when we were not in touch as much... i felt more independent and more proud.  i have a hard time letting myself depend on other people.  i wish we could hang out as friends instead of mother/daughter.  as hard as you can try to make that happen, there always IS a mother/daughter dynamic there and it will never go away.  plus with the two of us being in such completely different income & socioeconomic brackets, there's always a feeling of inequality.  i would rather be her equal, but these factors, plus others, make that not an option.

anyway, pics of 1 & 2 are forthcoming, but i think i might need to buy a new camera first.  i've been looking around at them, but i have such a hard time making a decision.  the one i have now doesn't work right anymore, but i don't want to learn how to use a new one!  it's one of those things that stresses me out way more than it should.  i mean, this morning, i bought A SHITTIN' HOUSE.  (and a fucking entertainment system but we don't need to talk about that right now).  yet i can't pick out a camera.

oh, ps, if you want to see pics of emma, go here.  note the date.  she has doubled in size since then!

CAT PEOPLE!!!
check out this shiznit:
kitty wigs

i need six of them.  STAT.

yesterday, i was grocery shopping and my mind was sort of wandering as i walked around.  first i thought about how weird it would be if i saw dawn at the grocery store.  but then i realized that i probably would never see her at this particular grocery store because she doesn't like it because it's so big (not something you would normally know about your therapist, but after 6 yrs, we've discussed EVERYTHING). 
then i thought about someone else, an old friend who i hadn't seen in a LONG time.  i felt really bad about not seeing her, but i had tried to contact her and never heard back.  honestly, i assumed she was dead.  the last time i spoke to her (4 yrs ago), she told me about how her liver transplant had gone into rejection the year before.  so she crossed my mind, as someone who was from the past, and i assumed i'd never see her again.  it was a sad thought, but not necessarily a new one.
anyway, after i was done grocery shopping, we went across the street to the pet supply store to get dog food.  i took charlie in with me, and it was an adoption day so we were standing around and looking at the foster cats, when all of a sudden i hear someone say, hi charlie!  i turn around and dawn is there!  so weird.  omg hi and all that. 
a couple minutes later, she's gone, and i hear someone else say, "emily???"  i turn around and it's THE FRIEND WHO I THOUGHT WAS DEAD!!!!  :)

my back has been pretty consistently painful these past couple days.  i mean, it almost always is anyway, but even more annoyingly so now.  if i think of it as anything other than "annoying", i'd probably cry.  same goes for the foot pain.  i'm tired of being in pain, but i'm in pain so often that it's more normal now than anything.  i was filling out a form before i had my massage about past medical issues, and i put down my scoliosis and plantar fasciitis, and the lady asked me if i was in pain, and i said yes.  then she asked if i was in pain yesterday, and i said yes.  then she asked what i did that caused it to flare up, and i said, "it just never flares DOWN!"
and i really really really really hate talking about it.  i can't believe i just said all of what i just said.  it's taking all my restraint to not hit the delete key over all that shit.

i'm such a jackass today.  sometimes i feel like i'm not a good mother to our animals.  i feel like i should take care of them before i take care of myself.  but then i don't take care of myself either.  i just sit around, stinkin' the place up.

my dreams are telling me that i spend too much time in the past.  i know that's where my obsessions lie.  it's so hard to move on.

my goal this week is to call the social security administration on monday, wednesday, and friday... and to call the local SS office on tuesday and thursday.  i will continue like this until money starts showing up.

i've sort of put my realtor on hold, and i'm sure she's getting irritated (or maybe i'm projecting... i'm DEFINITELY irritated with myself!).  i'm so tired of looking at houses.  though i really enjoy it, i get my hopes up and then realize we can't afford them.  i STILL need to sit down with a lender and get the nitty gritty details figured out after the money comes and before i can be completely comfortable with a price range.  we're probably going to get our loan through national city.

i need to get to the DHS this week... tuesday would probably be a good day... to drop off the rest of the information that is necessary to apply for food stamps and medicaid all over again.  having those will help quite a bit, and i'm pretty sure that at least the food stamps would pad our application on the mortgage.

i'm getting pretty excited about finally being in charge of my own finances, and am moving towards ways to make that happen regardless of the stupid representative payee situation.  there is an appeal process on that determination, but it might be too late.  they give you 60 days, but i'm not sure from when.  and even if that's a bust, there are ways around it.

there is some sort of mouse or rat (i couldn't get close enough to tell) living under the eaves on our balcony now, right where the sparrows used to nest.  i saw it run out and attack a frickin squirrel earlier today.  there was much squeaking, and the squirrel fell off the railing and the other little rodent-like creature ran back into his home so fast that i barely saw what happened.  i hope i can get a closer look at him soon.

sheila got eleven teeth pulled on friday.  i thought she'd be knocked out on vicodin all weekend, but no!  we went to the k-wings game on friday night.  it was a pretty good game, went into overtime, and then into a shoot-out.  we wound up losing, but it was only preseason, and it was still fun.  even on vicodin, sheila barely gets drowsy.  and the pain has been pretty manageable for her, so that's good too.

i did 2 loads of laundry today.  would have been 4, but i let one of our neighbors cut in.  i can finish tomorrow.  i went through all my clothes and put a bunch of stuff in a bag for goodwill, then rearranged everything, including my underwear drawer!  i did the semi-annual throwoutthesinglesocks ritual.  and i made room for charlies ever-expanding wardrobe in my dresser.  he's got half a drawer of his own now.

i miss my syd  :(

Syd's recent updateyness has inspired me to write an actual update too.
We have secured mortgage prequalifications from 3 different lenders!  House hunting is still in progress.  Money should be here by the end of the month.  Of course, that's what I was told last month too.
We have a new kitten named Miles.  He is black & brown stripey patchy.
We also have a new kitten named Mikey.  He is black & white with extra toes and no tail.
Both of these were Sheila's doing WITHOUT consulting me!  So yeah, now we have 6 cats.  At least they're cute.
We also have a fresh, new lovebird named Teej.  (aka TJ, aka Turd Junior).  Be is a black masked blue.  Also Sheila's doing ;)
Last night, Alice and I saw The Brave One.  It's really good.  See it.  I cried so much at the end, but I still can't figure out why.
Then we went to Denny's and blew bubbles in our drinks.  And got sundaes and brought one home to Peaches.  And watched an episode of South Park.
I think we're going to a K-Wings game tonight.  The first preseason home game of the year!!!  :)
Some fun pics I've taken recently:


I haven't gotten any good pics of Mikey yet.  But just visualize it... a kitten with thumbs and a bunny butt!  Mikey and Pork have become fast friends.  Pork really likes kittens, but I think one of them got him on the nose the other day.  Right on the front, the most sensitive part, he's got a scratch.  It looks really painful, but I think it is going to be okay.  It's been there a couple days and we're keeping an eye on it.  There's nothing you can put on a cat's nose that won't be licked off in 2 minutes anyway.

so much despair in my dreams last night:

1.  there was a large, shallow aquarium with no lid.  it was on the top of a table at a museum.  it was a saltwater set-up with anemones, live rock, starfish, and crustaceans.  it was very beautiful.  i was looking down inside of it from the top.  there was an egg on the bottom that was halfway cracked open.  i could see a little naked baby bird inside.  it was very premature, but i knew it was alive because it was moving, struggling to break away from what was left of the yolk.  i was trying to take a picture of it with my digital camera, but every time i got close enough, a big lobster started climbing out of the tank and attacking me.  i didn't want the little baby bird to drown, but i felt that there was nothing i could do.  i just wanted to take its picture before it got destroyed.
i was having problems getting good photos through the water, so i decided to look at the instruction manual for my camera.  i couldn't find it, and the museum started to close for the night.  the man who worked there was trying to get me to leave, but i didn't want to go because i was sure the baby bird would be dead by the next day.  i told him i was looking for the instruction booklet for my camera, and that i could not leave without it.  he handed it to me, but it was for a different model of camera.  i pointed this out to him and he said it was mine.  we argued back and forth for a minute and he kept insisting that he had given me the right set of instructions.  finally i gave up and left, knowing i'd never see the poor baby bird again.

2.  charley and i were at my paternal grandfather's house in augusta.  it was several hundred years into the future, and all the neighbors were gone.  there was a big, dilapidated barn in the backyard.  i was supposed to make my way through the yard to be with the rest of the family on the other side of the barn, but there was electric fence all over in some sort of a maze pattern, and the fencing was very hard to see.  i felt that no matter which direction i turned, i would walk into the fence and get electrocuted.  i was afraid for charley too, but he seemed to be able to get around better than i.  i wanted him to stay with me, but he was running around the yard by himself.  my aunts and uncles kept telling me that i had to just run through the fence and get it over with.  they said it would only hurt for a second.  i wanted to be with them at first.  then, once i realized they weren't going to help me, i just wanted to leave.  i looked all around me and the rest of the world was black as far as i could see.  there was nowhere to go.

i should mention that charlie is the Best Dog Ever.



on the days when i can look down and see this, i know that things will be okay.

apparently there's an iphone that's about to come out?  we live a few blocks from a cell phone store, and as i was walking charlie tonight, i noticed that a bunch of people were lined up waiting for it to come out tomorrow.  wow.  it's a phone.  people are CAMPING OUT for a PHONE.

omg, so how do i survive without a cell phone?   it's horrible, i tell you.  i have privacy, and i deal with people on my OWN schedule.  i don't have to make excuses for not answering my phone 24/7.  and if not being able to call peaches when i'm at the store because i can't decide what flavor of ice cream to buy is the sacrifice i have to make, so be it.  i'll just get vanilla.

taking charlie to therapy with me is turning out to be helpful.  he lays on the couch next to me, all calm-like.  and he lets me play with his toes absentmindedly while he's sleeping.  my therapist brings him water.  he likes her.

social security sent me another one of those "daily activities" forms to fill out.  i know they have to, and logically it makes sense, but i'm freaking out, thinking that they're looking for discrepancies, trying to catch me in a lie or something.  and it's likely that they WILL find discrepancies, not because i lie but because from one day to the next, you can ask me if i have this symptom or that, or you can ask me how well i do with cooking, or laundry, or hygiene, or whatever, and i WILL have different answers because i forget how things are.  my memory is so so SO shot that someone will remind me later of problems i have in a certain area, and it will be something i haven't written down.  and if i bring it up later and say it's been like that all along, they think i'm just trying to pad my case at the last minute.  i'm so anxious about this.  i tried to get ahold of my lawyer yesterday but he left the office early.  i don't know if i'll have time to try again tomorrow, maybe i will.  if not, there's monday.

sheila has some overtime hours for sunday morning, then we're going up to her mom's house in the afternoon.  taking charlie, and seeing how he gets along with their golden, clyde.  i have some hesitations about this, because clyde isn't the most well-adjusted dog in the world.  and neither is charlie.  but clyde has bitten other dogs.  he's got no boundaries, no rules, gets away with everything, no limits, and of course separation anxiety, food aggression (he's free fed & obese), and all the shit that goes with that.  the woman raises dogs exactly like she raised her kids!!  i mean, she's nice and all, and a good person, but her dog annoys me.  i'm not worried about charlie picking up those habits, because it's just not going to happen.  mostly i'm just worried about how out of control clyde is.

i watched sophie's choice tonight, just because it was on our "free movies" on-demand menu, and i have heard mention of it in the past as something that's relatively good, sort of a classic, if you can count anything made in the 80's as a classic.  so i watched it... and it was okay.  very watchable, kept my interest, though in the end i couldn't figure out why.  i mean, it was alright, but not something i'd watch again.

my trazodone's kicking in.
goodnight.

i've had a lot more "worst.dream.ever"s since the last time i posted.
night before last?  my parents were tormenting me and trying to convince everyone in my life how horrible i am.  they were saying i was a bad person, etc.  i was terrified of them and kept looking for someone to protect me.  they were physically chasing me.  they seemed to have superhuman powers because they always knew where i was anyway and would come after me.  when i told peaches about this dream yesterday, i cried about it, and how hard it is to believe that i am a good person today because of 20+ years that i went through believing otherwise.
night before that (i think)?  covered from head to toe in blood, showered and showered but couldn't get it all off.
i cried 3 times yesterday.  first about the dream where my parents were coming after me (it was truly terrifying), then about things going on with a good friend of mine who i feel like i'm losing after many years of friendship.  i cried one more time, but i don't remember what that was about.  got choked up on the phone with brachypelmic. 
drcrutchleg held me as i fell asleep last night.  it was nice.
you know what's especially weird?  terrible nightmares are nothing new.  but my emotional reaction to them is.  usually i feel nothing.

charlie, ziggy, and i are off to brachypelmic's place in indiana tonight to do some zoo-sitting while she and d3p3ch3mod3 are at bonnaroo.  i'll be back in about a week.  maybe a little more, maybe a little less.  i may or may not get online while i'm down there.  don't be surprised if i don't.



emc
May, 2007
State Theatre
Kalamazoo, MI

the inside of this place is gorgeous.
kalamazoo state theatre

things are starting to go pretty shittily in my head again during the past several days.  the temptation to do something really fucking stupid and self-destructive (not kill myself though... and not drinking and not using) is so strong because i have been really neglecting my need to communicate how i fucking feel.  i'm really really bad at asking for help.  but definitely, i'm not feeling stable right now, nor am i feeling very much like dealing with it in a mature manner.  3 different things, all relatively significant, have been affecting me, and i haven't talked about any of them to anyone.  i suppose that's what i get, huh?  i don't care to get into the details here... i have therapy tomorrow...
i fell asleep and missed charlie's vet appointment this afternoon.  i assumed i would wake up when the maintenance guy came back to my place, as i told him i would only be home until 3.  well, he never came back, so i didn't wake up until 5:30ish.  all of my other planned commitments went okay today.  saw my psychiatrist this morning, saw my grandma tonight with alice... that went better than i expected, and we're planning on visiting her every week now.
we have a hole in the ceiling in our bathroom.  to make a long story short... the guy upstairs needs new sealant around his bathtub.  his water was dripping into our bathroom whenever he took a shower.  that's gonna be a several day project for the maintenance guy, which pisses me off because i just feel like spending several days in bed.  see now why i have charlie?  :P

1.  syd and i went to a k-wings game friday night and it really sucked.  you can't tell so much from the stats, but had you been there, you would have wilted away in despair.  they looked fucking awful.  we went to snak & yak after the game.  then we took chaz for a walk.
2.  i keep forgetting to take my meds and experiencing little forays into the world of mental shittiness.  usually when i'm forgetting meds on a regular basis, i assume there's some sort of subconscious aspect to it, like not wanting to take the meds on some level or something... you know what i mean.  and if you don't, go away.  i don't know what i want.  i'm done talking about it.
3.  syd and charlie and i went to the humane society dog walk thingie on saturday.  the weather was awesome.  it kept threatening rain, but never came through, and the temperature stayed mild all day.  there was so much to do, and we did the walk part twice too, because it was so nice.  i saw a handful of people i knew from different places.  charlie and i waded in the lake.  there were agility and freestyle obedience (dancing with dogs, etc) demonstrations that we watched.  we didn't see some of it because we walked twice.  we missed the costume contest, dog/owner lookalike contest, singing contest, and something else, but that was okay because we weren't as interested in that.  we watched the frisbee dogs.  the lunch that they supplied was pretty good.  people had better leash manners than i expected, but still it was pretty consistently something that you had to be on the lookout for (people letting their dogs wander around behind their backs on retractable leads and not paying attention to where they're going).  they could use a "leash etiquette 101" flier at the door next year. 
thanks to oregonsongbird, foalstory, lezah, sare, and themidnightsea for sponsoring us.  together, we were able to donate $120 to the kalamazoo humane society! 
syd took pics and i will have them up here as soon as she uploads them.
4. on our way back to the car at the end of the afternoon, a cameraman from the local news channel shot some footage of charlie.  but then of course sheila and i forgot to watch the news to see if he was on tv.

these are pics from last week when syd came up to visit charlie for the first time since he's been here.  i've had him for 5 weeks now :)
me & charles:

charlie and i had a very nice walk tonight.  the rain was just finishing up outside, and it was in the 60's, i think.
we saw 2 pair of canada geese that already have goslings!  they're getting an early start this year.
the other day we saw turtles and a beaver dam.  and a couple days before that we saw at least half a dozen deer grazing in a field at sunset.  they ran away when they saw us, and the rest of the walk home, in the dark, i was afraid that we were gonna get attacked by some big horny psychotic buck out of nowhere.
we have nice places to walk :)
charlie's foster mom, brachypelmic, came to visit last week.  charlie and syd were so happy to see each other.  we walked through a nice park and syd got to see charlie's fake-out peeing trick that he seems to have developed i taught him.  i think she got some good pics too.  i will post them here or link to them when she gets them online.
charlie has been living with us for a month now :)

our local UHL team, kalamazoo wings, are in the eastern conference finals for the colonial cup.  we saw them play flint a couple weeks ago, and we're going to see them play muskegon this week.  i love going to hockey games.  best. sport. ever.

does anyone know why i woke up with sore pecs this morning?
i can't figure it out.

neeners is in my lap, getting kisses and cuddles.

pork got his re-check urinalysis today, but it'll be another day, maybe two, for the vet to call with the results (really dumb, as a UA takes less than ten minutes).

i'm seeing my therapist again tomorrow.
i look forward to seeing her.  is that wrong?  i don't think so.  at some point i came under the assumption that therapy wasn't supposed to be something enjoyable.  but it's okay.  it's not like it's a party or anything.  i just crave that deep connection, and the nurturing that i need at that level.  i don't feel like that part of me is acknowledged anywhere else in my life (95% my own fault).  so i go see dawn and i cry and freak out and all that other shit, but it's cathartic.

the end.

our humane society walkathon is this weekend.  if you would like more information or to make a donation, click here for our fundraising page.
thanks to anyone who can help out by donating any amount :)

for locals who would like to stop by, it'll be at prairie view park on saturday afternoon.
it's gonna be a good time!


p.s.  MUCH thanks to those of you who have already donated:  oregonsongbird, foalstory, lezah, and sare!