cats are going to be alright

She used to fetch the jolly rancher candies that my grandmother stored in her purse. She would chase them up and down the stairs, across the living room and into the bathroom. When I was 9 or 10 years old, I caught her bathing in the sun, asleep. I snuck up on her and spooked her in a way that had her jump straight up into the air a good two feet completing a back flip on the way down. I remember when we picked her up from the shelter, a scared kitten, her voice howled through the inside of my mother's car as we drove home. Her paws reached out of the holes of the box that we brought her home in.

On Thursday, my mother had eye surgery. It went well. Before the eye surgery, she brought Misty in to be euthanized. Both procedures were successful

This morning I went to a farewell brunch for Oliver at Nicole's place. There were lots of friends there and it was a good time. Afterwards, Al and I jammed for a while before we rode our bikes out to Berkeley and climbed Grizzly Peak. We descended the hill and rode back to Oakland and we in our house in less than 30 min. I called my mother because I was confused about life. She told me that her surgery and Saturday had gone well and that she was feeling good. My sister is at the house painting for the weekend. My father is relaxing with the dogs. She also told me about how she had to put the cat down. It was sad for both of us. A piece of my youth and our family disappeared with that cat.

remote control alarm clock

I hit the snooze button 5 times this morning before finally rolling out of bed at 7:54. I caught the 8:08 train and was in the city around 8:25, ate a muffin, and downed a double shot of espresso. I was at the office before 8:30.

flower face

It’s on days like this, when the emptiness overwhelms me, that my many faces bring me the most satisfaction. Sitting at the corner of California and Sansome in the financial district of San Francisco, at Fida’s Sandwich Shop, making clown faces and laughing hysterically at passerby’s not because they’re funny, but because the expressions on their face appear to me, even emptier than the thoughts running through my head. Most look away, but sometimes, a smile even wider than my own, will expand across their face. Granted, they could be dreaming of the most amazing scenes or going over the events of a passion filled last night, but to me, they’re just weeds with eyes. Me too. But I wish I was a flower, so I pretend that I am.

My stomach is here.

jungle

I'm on my lunch right now. Today I woke up in the second bed that I've ever learned to love. As a young boy, I used to stare at the shevleves nailed to the walls of my bedroom and imagine them to be crooked and then straight, and myself crooked. Often, I would step back into the reality I had come to except as the truth and wonder about the future without my room, my bed, or the window that I spent so much time gazing through. Sometime I would forget the truth. The walls could cave in at any moment, I believed. Just 6 years old when the 1989 earth quake hit the bay area, it was often that I dreamed about catestrophe. I knew there was no such thing as superman and it scared me. I drew images from the tv about doom and gloom, the cold war propaganda and a nuclear ending to everything around me. It wasn't until I was 14 or 15 years old that I got over my fear of the end and began living without so much anxiety. 5 years later, at the age of 20, I was more scared than I'd ever been. more propaganda, more death, less money, more fear. Fear fear fear. I drank or smoked myself to sleep almost every night.





Now, I'm 24.