juushika

Most nights, I keep the blanket that August sleeps on right beside my pillow at the head of the bed. In the morning when I wake up, she's right there: her fur looks like crushed velvet, all mussy and soft and every which way; she's quiet, dazed with sleep. She doesn't look like that, act like that, after her long daytime nap—only in the mornings.

Today when I got up, Dee was about to take Odi out for a walk; I went with her and we made a trip out to the nearby farm stand/food cart pod. As we walked down, there was a light rain; as soon as we got there and got under cover, it started pouring. We got drinks—I can't drink Starbucks mochas anymore, they're too sweet for my tastes, but this had less sugar and it was lovely. We had them by the covered fire pit that made our clothes smell of smoke. When he gets wet, Odi's fur makes little raven-feather clumps; when the rain broke and sunlight hit him, by the heat of the fire, his fur let off gentle steam. The food cart next to us was one we'd never noticed before, Greek; we ordered from there and while we were waiting on it we bought fruit, including this-season Braeburn apples. When we walked back with our food, the sun lit fiery autumn foliage against a slate sky.

As Tumblr threatens but fails to make an exodus to anywhere-but-here/maybe DW and LJ, I think about how I still have a journal, still use it—but when I think of recording my daily life, I don't see a point: not for lack of audience, but because not much has happened in the last [period of time] that I'd want to remember. That's not entirely negative—my sister is doing well, and over most of her hurdles; my mental health is better than it was this time last year; things right now are a monotonous not-awful. But in my media blogging over on Tumblr, I notice how much I prioritize fictional stories—even when mine isn't awful, it's richer and easier to live elsewhere.

But today was different. Today seems worth recording. It's autumn, and comfortably cool, and beautiful, and this was a lovely day spent in it.

There was a brief heatwave here in the Pacific Northwest—we had a day each of 104, then 94, then 84 degrees. Last night I slept like shit (normal pain and nightmare* shit as opposed to "it's one in the morning why is it 90 degrees in the house" shit), woke at 3a. The room was deep and cold; I used my hotpad and watched Dark Shadows 214, the episode where Victoria encounters Barnabas in the Old House and he tells her about its building, its imported chandler and handpicked wallpaper and how so well built a house will last forever—and, as such, forever carry the memories of the evil that happened within. At its best, Dark Shadows is delightful: pulpy and compulsively watchable on account of its genre and episode length, but steeped in gothic, both its bombast and it's emotional resonance—and what's more gothic than a decrepit, beautiful, remarkable New England house? (Well one in England-England, I suppose.)

I guess what I'm saying is can it be autumn now please.

No—but the break in the weather is a blessing. At the dog park this afternoon it was overcast and then a cool breeze came through; so overcast I could go in short sleeves, so cool it raised goosebumps on my arms. We never thought, when we started taking Odi to the dog park, that we would get to know these dogs and sometimes their people so well. There's a cast of regulars that we see almost every time we go, and it forms a safe bubble of dogs we know and people we trust, so we don't have to watch Odi with such an eagle eye and we can give other dogs basic commands. Neither did I imagine that I would have the opportunity to know so many dogs so well—and there are fewer pleasures that compare to throwing a ball for a really enthusiastic dog, or having someone else's dog come up to you to say "love me and touch me all over and make me think you might let me go home with you."

But I'm writing this because I'm feeling a bit ... emotional, and emotionally conflicted, I suppose. I've had one eye on the Readercon controversy, which dredged up a few days of "everyone sucks and sexism is everywhere and fuck the world" about the time that Woof died so really, fuck the whole and entire world; and then in a single day Readercon resolved that controversy with aplomb and Britain won some awesome gold medals in the Olympics and Curiosity landed, and people weren't shit, they were beautiful and they did good and awesome things. But this afternoon and evening I was thinking back over my experiences in therapy (for reasons), which I didn't notice until a few hours in was hugely triggering because wow, who'da thunk that thinking about the time I was ill enough to be in therapy could possibly be upsetting. Meanwhile it was hot and I was miserable, and then Dee and I spent a day in St. Johns to avoid much of the heat and we did Starbucks and book browsing and dinner and it was fantastic, and then the heat broke and the natural world was both tolerable and occasionally beautiful. It's all a bit of an emotional roller-coaster, a small and creaky one and not the high-tech wonder of the themepark, but still enough to make me nauseous.

I know that I will never be completely mentally well, and yet I always feel a little surprised when a bit of mental ick slaps me upside the head. This isn't even a major brainmeats malfunction—I'm pretty much coming out of my major depressive episode, fingers crossed and knock on wood. It's just ... me: sensitive and melancholy, and therefore too emotional receptive or at least thirsty for the opposite, and strangely confused by the whole thing. It's been years and years of this, dear me; it's been pretty much all of a lifetime: these feelings shouldn't come as a surprise. But they do.

At this point, for what it's worth, I'm doing okay with Woof's death. I took a few days off of going to the dog park because the thought was too painful, but on the whole this is a low-impact death, which is to say that it's not sudden and it was clearly her time. I'm moving on; now, the dogs at the dog park are a joy. We'll see if I feel the same whenever I make it back to Corvallis, but. Yeah. Today I threw balls for a Miniature Pincher and snuggled Alfie, this little Chihuahua (uh ... mix? I'm unsure) who isn't trying to be a big dog, he is a big dog in a little body. Love is always a dog.

* Conscripted into an largescale assassination squad—by which I mean: tactical nuclear devices. The real irony is that murdering hundreds and thousands of people, and the mental stress of being put in a situation where I was expected to do so, made for a distinctly unpleasant but not unbearable dream, whereas going back to school is pretty much my nightmare of nightmares.

So.


Meet Odin (Odi for short).
Dee adopted a 4-month-old Lab/Border Collie puppy today. Adopting a puppy has been a long-time idle desire, and became a whirlwind plan of action while I was in Corvallis; she met Odi yesterday, and put a 24-hour hold on him; today I came in on the train and we went to the shelter immediately after and now, behold: dog.

Odi has the body of a leggy black Lab—he actually looks a lot like Jamie—including all-black fur; his muzzle is narrower and longer than a Lab and he has Border Collie half-floppy ears. He's missing one eye, and no we don't know how or why: he came to our local shelter without it, and there's no record of how it was lost in his file. It's all closed up and healed, and he seems to notice it not at all, so we don't imagine it'll do him any harm. Here is his original adoption page, not that it gives much more information! Dee's meet Odi post is here.

He's been here about five hours, which tells you not very much about a 4-month-old puppy except that puppies are energetic. He's teething like a beast and we have to do a lot of [body part and/or clothing] for toy substitutions, but he's smart. He's already picked up on "no" as a command word, and sometimes even obeys it; he's figured out that he's not allowed upstairs or on the couch (one or both are privileges he may earn in the future, but he'll be downstairs-only and crate trained for now). This mix purportedly gets the smarts of the Collie and the desire to please of a Lab, so I think he'll do pretty darn well.

But really, who cares! I know what we're here for, and what we're here for is puppy pictures. These are half-blurry snapshots because 1) I'm tired and 2) it's a puppy, but there ya go.

( +2 )

AAAH YOU GUYS WE HAVE A DOG

(August, in case you were curious, is very glad I'm home and very put out by this beast in her home, although she has already been downstairs and, however, unenthused she is so far, she's not particularly scared, bless her. She's grown so comfortable here; she knows this is her home, even if there are strangers or big black dogs. It's also worth noting she lived peaceably with a dog at her previous home; I expect she'll coexist fine with Odi once everyone has calmed down. Which ... may be a while.)