I’m just giving my mom a hard time, of course (although she did scare me a little bit). It is really strange to think that I won’t be in my 20s anymore. So far the one change I’ve seen is that I’ll have to start paying more for theater tickets. I guess that means I’m supposed to start making more money though, right? I should make sure my boss knows.
Most of you have probably seen this, but I updated some pictures in my Game of Thrones Flowchart, so I’m reposting it. (No spoilers!) I also realized I haven’t made a flowchart in too long… need to think of something (feel free to send me any ideas you have though!).
(Click to enlarge)
*Source material and inspiration taken from George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series.
For about the last 10 years I’ve kept an aquarium of fish. The fish have a collective name of the “The Natives,” which stems from the story of when I received my first fish. It was at my wedding shower and one of my college roommates said she had a surprise for me outside.
“Why is it outside?” I asked, mainly because when you live in Northern California it tends to be 110 degrees in the summer and nothing but the sun is outside by choice.
She giggled. “Oh, they’re natives, it’s ok!”
It turned out she was wrong. Outside were two feeder goldfish in a small cup. Goldfish are actually cold water fish, but it didn’t matter, I immediately loved them and vowed that they would never be any turtle’s meal.
Even though I was a broke college student, I bought them a small proper aquarium. They were the perfect pets. I could buy a 12-month supply of food for about $2.99 and they never woke me up in the night and let me sleep in long through the morning.
Eventually, I bought a bigger aquarium and added some Platies to mix with my goldfish. When I did Ph tests on the water, I silently thanked my chemistry teacher for believing that, yes, there was a slim possibility I would use this skill in real life one day. I enjoyed taking care of them, and they seemed to enjoy living with me.
After about four years, my two original goldfish died. It broke my heart. I moped around for a week and my poor concerned husband would ask me, “Is this just about the fish?” To which I would answer with only a glare. Just the fish?!
Little did I know though, with the Platies I had inadvertently bought livebearing fish. (Yes, everything you were told as a child was wrong.) Pretty soon I had tiny little schools of Platies swimming around in the tank, which helped ease the loss. The trade-off for the poor Platies’ ability to produce offspring so easily though was that they had a shorter lifespan. Platies came and Platies went over the years. But my fish now had something extra special, they truly were all Natives to my tank, and I felt a special affection for each little fish that I had watched grow from a small fry.
Eventually though, I ended up with all females in the tank (ever the hardier sex), and the population dwindled.
Finally, only one Native remained. I decided that for now, this would be the last Native. We were planning on moving again soon and it was just too stressful for fish to be moved. My one Native seemed happy having the tank to herself though. Every morning when I turned on the light she would swim happily up to my reflection. The cats would watch her curiously and she would glare right back, content in the safety of her aquarium.
The other day though as I watched her swim, panic gripped me. Even though she still seemed very happy and active, she had a growth on her.
My fish has cancer.
I don’t know if there was ever a sentence that sounded so sad and ridiculous at the same time.
Last night I watched her swim for a long time and decided to look up her symptoms on the Internet. Were there any treatments for fish cancer? Did anyone else care about such a thing? How do you dose pain meds for a one-inch organism?
Eventually though my searches led me to the end – how to humanly euthanize your fish, which involved a mixture of clover oil (to send her to sleep) and vodka (to end her sleep).
Suddenly, the tears I had been holding back all week came out. I sobbed.
I sobbed for my poor fish that seemed so happy yet so sick. I sobbed for the death of my family member over the weekend, who could never be replaced. I sobbed for my family. I sobbed because life could be so so shitty sometimes.
I looked back at my fish, who was still swimming happily around my face, which only made me cry more. With all the death around me recently, the thought of having to put down my last fish broke me. It was like I was having to choose death, and I didn’t want it.
At that moment, I got a text message from the Husband, who was coming home from band practice.
Husband: How was your night?
Me: I was worried about the fish and was looking up stuff and came across how to euthanize it. It made me cry.
Husband: What?! You should never follow a link that tells you how to euthanize anything!
Me: But sometimes it’s necessary.
Husband: We should let the Native finish its cycle and then move on. It’s had a radical life.
I agree that getting euthanization advice from the Internet is probably a bad idea, especially if the FBI ever decides to seize my computers, but I felt a little defensive over letting the Native move on. Why should I let it move on without me? Why should I let anyone move on without me? It hardly seemed fair.
When I was little, I was really worried about death. Mostly, I was worried about going somewhere without my family. I was fine with the thought of moving on to a different plane of reality (after all, heaven seemed like a pretty sweet place, especially since I imagined being able to hang out with all sorts of awesome animals that no longer thirsted for my blood (see All Dogs go to Heaven)), but I didn’t want to go there alone. But my brother told me not to worry. That when we die we all go to a sort of waiting room, where we sleep and wait for everyone else. It was like waking up in the morning, the dark of the night goes by with a blink of the eye. I was six, and this made sense to me. I imagined a very white room with a lot of white linens and sleeping bodies (my visions of heaven at that age also involved a lot of white togas and clouds).
I don’t know where my brother got the idea for the waiting room to heaven, but it made me feel better. It still makes me feel better – to think that no one is really moving on without me, but they’re just there waiting for me, maybe with a little aquarium of bright orange fish.
Until then, we can just hope that we can all live a radical life.
If you Google “sad beach” in the images search you’ll get a lot of black and white pictures with people rolling around in the sand (related searches: alone beach, lonely beach). There was also one picture of a beached whale that really did feel sad.
It’s funny though that when I think of a visual for feeling sad, I think about a beach. “What about a desert?” I ask myself. “That’s actually sad. All barren and dead.” No, a beach. “Not even outer space? Outer space is really cold and there’s no sound…” No, still thinking of a beach. Besides, beaches in Northern California are cold. “An astronaut wouldn’t think that they’re cold.” What do you know?
And I can make myself laugh because I’m crazy or high on Sharpie and I can forget why I’m sad for a few seconds. Then I feel guilty about it because it’s stupid. Or maybe feeling guilty about it is stupid. I don’t know.
I just know that it never gets easier to lose someone. I can never put words around it, so I’ll use someone else’s.
“I like the stars. It’s the illusion of permanence, I think. I mean, they’re always flaring up and caving in and going out. But from here, I can pretend… I can pretend that things last. I can pretend that lives last longer than moments. Gods come, and gods go. Mortals flicker and flash and fade. Worlds don’t last; and stars and galaxies are transient, fleeting things that twinkle like fireflies and vanish into cold and dust. But I can pretend…”
-Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol: 7: Brief Lives
I wish I had something scandalous to share. Really, Fridays should always end with something scandalous. That’s just science.
The most exciting thing to happen to me was yesterday when I got home and my entire neighborhood was corralled off with police cars. I asked a cop if it was safe to go home and he just said they “were on a manhunt” and if I saw anything out of the ordinary, to let him know. That didn’t exactly answer my “safety” question, but whatever, I like an adventure. After checking my property for any hidden men (unclear what I would have done if I found one, but my general thought was to run away in a zig zag pattern) and not finding any (he probably ducked out through the goat portal), I went inside. For the next hour I basically debated whether it was safe to take off my bra or not.
For those of you who aren’t of the female variety, bras are a big part of a woman’s life. Bras do a couple of things:
Still, taking your bra off is like releasing a breath you didn’t know you were holding, which is why getting home and taking it off is the best thing ever. Except what if I took it off and I was kidnapped or got held hostage? I didn’t want to end up on the news without a bra on. So I sat around and waited for the cops to clear off which in the end was pretty boring and not scandalous at all. I probably should have just taken my bra off for the drama of it.
Anyway, I’ve been really busy this working two jobs, but I still feel guilty for not posting a picture. So I drew this really fast for you with Sharpie, which was annoying because there’s no Ctrl-Z for Sharpie.
For the record, I’ve never been able to draw human feet either.
*A loose recap of Defiance, Season 1, Episode 6. And by loose recap, I mean a lot of random observations.
The episode opens with clothes drying on lines, which I guess is supposed to remind us that in this crazy future we have crazy spaceships, but dryers? Sorry, save your quarters for something else. Maybe the Prime Directive in this future is not to interfere with a species until they develop a laundromat?
The Lawkeeper is chasing a criminal, but some bounty hunter is too. They catch him, but have an intense moment. It’s cool cause they’re friends from the past! It’s such a small universe.
So, there are still file drawers in the future. The future sucks at being paperless. Bet they don’t recycle either, bastards.
Our two old friends are having a drink in a bar. Alcohol and fun colored cocktails still exist. Obviously.
Did I mention that prostitution is an honorable business? How inventive. Yawn. Anyway, the lawmaker tells his prostitute girlfriend that he would “never get between a woman and her work” if she needs to see other clients, including his bounty hunter friend. How progressive. The sex room has a round bed with lots of pillows and curtains. Gross. And there is some sex move called a “six-legged monkey crawl.” Sex in the future still sounds gaudy and boring though.
Now we’re in some 50s style diner that’s in an old train car? The future seems confused about what century (millennium?) it’s in.
The red-headed alien girl, Irisna, is sharpening a knife on a stone. One of the butter knives she wears on her back maybe?
Wait, now a boy is talking to his dad about an earthquake that happened there in 1811? I’m so confused.
Am I the only one who’s noticed that most of the alien-type beings are just some form of albino? Except for the blue strong-armed wide-neck alien and our favorite red-head. There’s the albino aliens with white hair and the albino alien with no hair and little polygon shapes on their skin (remember, polygons are the future).
Just saw a commercial for the Defiance game. I just explained what it was to the husband and his reaction was, “Aw, gross.” Indeed.
There’s a lot of bowler hats and fedoras in the future. I think I’ve mentioned the fedoras before, but don’t forget the bowler hats.
An alien just made a joke about how funny humans look when they’re enraged. That would probably be funnier if I wasn’t human.
A different alien just joked that cooking is usually “a woman’s domain, but he considers himself progressive.” Ha, even alien women need to stay in the kitchen! Sorry ladies, gender roles are the same across the universe.
The future has a lot of super white highly lit rooms. Well, at least the albino aliens do. Now the albino aliens are driving around in some 60s corvette? How did they get these really old Earth cars on Defiance? I think I mentioned this before, but I’m confused.
Oh, just saw the red-headed girl still has her butter knives strapped to her back. It’s good to see that some things don’t change.
The Lawmaker just caught the bad guy and made a speech about how he hopes the criminal will enjoy the terrible death he’ll get on Earth for his crimes, but the bad guy is like, Psyche! They don’t want to kill me, they want to give me a mansion so I can do my highly coveted work but I can get a better deal somewhere else and that’s why the Earthlings are trying to catch me! This pisses the Lawkeeper off, since the cocky bad dude injured some of his men earlier in the episode, so the Lawkeeper just shoots him. This is justice in the future, guys. Get used to it.
This is where I should mention that in the first or second episode some alien dude got tortured all day because he ran away from a fight. Most everyone was totally fine with this was going on. Like I said, get used to it.
Wait, there’s a group of soldiers wearing berets. Now there’s berets in the future too?! WHAT IS GOING ON WITH THE HATS IN THIS SHOW?!
A bunch of things are going on with the plot. Don’t even care, too upset about the eclectic grouping of the worst hats in history.
Aw, now the Lawkeeper’s “girlfriend” just told him that she’s booked with clients and can’t do him. But then she’s like, just kidding, you’re just not my type. This isn’t really true though, she just has a hard connecting with people because, you know, she’s a prostitute. Ladies that have too much sex are still emotionless tramps in the future.
Now there’s the worst cover ever of “Have you ever seen the rain?” I’ve ever heard playing. The future just keeps sounding worse and worse.
Oh guys, I did it again. I’m watching Defiance. It’s just so ridiculously bad, I can’t help it.
There’s a new episode on now, but in the last episode I can tell you there was a close-up of some guy in a bar and he was doing a paint by number cat picture, but he also kind of looked like a cat! The future is so crazy!
In the episode I’m watching now there’s a group of people traveling in this van-like tank and one guy was asleep with a fedora over his face. So there you go. The future has figured out how to inhabit other planets but has not managed to get rid of fedoras. Also, the future is cool with plural marriage, except it’s a lady with two dudes! So progressive! And now there’s insinuating sex jokes. The future may be progressive, but ladies having sex is still funny!
One thing I’ve noticed about the future is all alien races have boobs and they’re all in the same places. Sure, weird hair or eye colors, strange obtrusions from the head, different cultural norms, but boobs? Boobs are all the same.
Now I have no idea what’s going on in the show. Too distracted by how alien boobs are all the same. Oh wait, it seems a preacher is double-crossing our hero. Oh shit, wait, he’s dead now, and they all thought they got out clean but now some lady is double-crossing them. She’s an ambassador from New York. I should mention that earth is called the Earth Republic now because, you know, other planets.
(I really hope I’m not actually spoiling this show for anyone. No one else is watching this, right?)
We’re on another plot line right now with a little red-headed alien. I have no idea what’s going on, but she seems to be quite feisty. So red hair also still exists in the future. Not sure if that’s supposed to be comforting or not.
The red-headed girl has something that looks like five butter knives strapped to her back. I think it’s supposed to make her look intimidating, but all I see is five butter knives. They don’t even seem to be special future knives either. Boring. Moving on.
There’s an alien boy playing music on a radio-like station. Haha, he just said he’s going to play some old-world vinyl! It’s the Cure! That’s funny because we still listen to and buy vinyl now, but in the future, it’s like really old and antique-like! The future is crazy!
The episode is ending with some alien/human sex. Don’t get too excited. Again, boobs are the same and they’re using missionary position. What’s even the point of being with an alien? The future is boring.
