a little increasing entropy…
June 20th, 2006So just an update: a week ago, I had to make the decision to have Susie put to sleep. She was getting really, really sick, and the medicine didn’t seem to be effectively treating her symptoms (and treating her symptoms, trying to keep her blood sugar under control, was the only thing we could do — she was too sick to have the tumor/s removed). This has been really difficult for me and I don’t really feel like working on this site much right now. (Which is not to say I haven’t been working on anything — I’ve been painting a lot.)
I know some people think that the death of a pet isn’t a huge deal, and would find it strange that for me it’s so devastating. I think those people are stupid. 
But anyway, I think you can all at least somewhat understand where I’m coming from here.
Not only am I still pretty sad about this (doing better than I was), I also have to find a way to earn some money to pay my dad back for vet bills because of all this. (In addition to website costs which I already needed to earn some money for.) I’m not terribly motivated but the motivation I can muster is definitely going towards potentially paying work. It’s not too bad; I’ve gotten a few leads and I think I can get some artwork in a couple of galleries, I think at least some of it will sell, although if I didn’t really need some money, I probably would never pursue the idea of selling art professionally. I might be house-sitting for a little extra cash and I’ve got a huge editing job that should help a little. But that’s my focus for now and all I have energy for.
It’s not that if I really felt inspired I couldn’t find the time for this blog, but…I just really can’t do it right now. I haven’t been able to for weeks now but it’s just been getting worse and worse and circumstances haven’t improved. I can’t keep up with other blogs either, so I’ve got no idea what’s been going down in most of feminist blog-land for the past month. It’s not just burnout — but that’s big part of it.
Anyway, there you have it. Keep me on your RSS feeds or whatever; I know I’ll be back around eventually. I get too pissed off about the world and too worked up over theory for it to be any other way. Keep an eye out: even if I’m not writing here I’ll post information about any other projects I work on.
June 21st, 2006 at 8:53 am
i’m so sorry for you loss.
my cat just turned 16 and she has some sort of tumor but is too old to operate on so i kind of understand what you’re going through. she is still pretty healthy and happy but i know the time is coming soon when i’ll have to decide to let her go and it’s going to break my heart.
i hope you find peace and comfort in your memories and the people around you.
xoxo, jared
June 24th, 2006 at 4:36 pm
I’m so sorry to hear about Susie. But, dear, being saddened by the loss of a loved pet is nothing to be ashamed of, neither is going into debt to save them. After my Elvis got sick, I went into pretty massive debt and he made a full recovery, but not after actually have people suggest that I put him down to save money. The nerve!
Take some time off and we’ll see you when you get back to blogging.
June 27th, 2006 at 10:45 am
Thanks a lot for the support, really. I’m not ashamed of being depressed about it so much as certain a lot of people won’t understand what the big deal is. The whole attitude that the deaths of animals aren’t important or sad profoundly disturbs me — especially coming from people who have actually owned pets. I mean, they’re not human beings, sure, but they are family members and pet owners take a level of responsibility for them that’s similar to caring for a child. And having my baby’s life suddenly cut short when she could have lived twice as long as she did has no less of an impact than it would if anything had happened to a human family member. (Probably more, since I’m not responsible for such an intense level of constant care for, say, sick siblings.) That some people can’t understand that bond really…concerns me. It seems like a disturbing lack of ability to empathize and connect with other living things, even if they aren’t human. But then, the lack of connection most people seem to have with the living world around them really disturbs me anyway.
My mom was SO CLOSE to suggesting it would be easier to put her to sleep than to take care of her. (Which is true but in no way an acceptable alternative.) Thank god she didn’t say actually say it, as such — I was pissed off enough when she got all weird about giving me a ride to the vet while my pet was DYING because she wasn’t sure about the cost of an emergency visit.
(And this was after reassuring her it was okay because I’d already talked to my dad about it, and it was his money anyway! But that all worked out okay because my dad somehow managed to get home as we were “dicussing” this anyway so I didn’t have to deal with her just then. :P) So, yeah, she said some stuff that really rubbed me the wrong way but stopped JUST SHORT of anything really horrible. And then she’s all sympathy and hugs and “I’m so sorry, this is so sad”. Ugh. Save it, I don’t want it from someone with that attitude.