PSA: Five Weeks Of Sketchy Entries

Hey y'all! Tomorrow I leave to work at summer camp for just over a month. I may periodically update this here blog, but I only have 18 hours of time off per week. So.

I'll leave you with this--the happiest picture I've ever seen.

I wish I were hyperbolizing, when I say I have looked at this photo roughly 100 times per day over the past week (when I found it on da interwebz).

LATER DAYS!

Driveway's Clear, You Pray for Silence

I love this bedroom. The one I'm in and the one pictured--which was my bedroom in the fall of 2009--the first time Kay and I broke up. In these rooms I learn to be lonely and like it.

On Saturday I came home at midnight with a headache. No roommates were home. I had accidentally not really eaten all day. I took my box of Ritz crackers up to my room. I was my nurse. Get into a tank top, wet a washcloth, lay still, say a prayer of thanks.

I remember those first nights in Fall 2009--those nights of "No one even knows what I'm doing." I expressed this concern to Muff, who told me to call her and let her know when I was going to bed. I took her up on it. A few times. But I didn't really need to be accountable. I needed to know I could.

I texted her this week. Even though it was 3 AM her time. I let her know--I'm going to sleep, and someone should care. Because I am a living person, and for a while, I won't be conscious. PLEASE SOMEBODY CARE--there's an urgency in realizing you could die in your bed, and no one might realize until three days later.

I think that's right. Sometimes I don't see the roomies for a week straight. My sister would say, "Hey. It's been a while..." but what could she do? Who would she be able to call to check up on me? Chelle would probably call. If I missed rehearsal, she might come over. If someone was home, they'd come to my room and...

I have this wonderful, just wonderful, memory of that 2009 room. It was a Friday night and I was just writing a letter at my desk holding my hamster in my lap.

Today I woke up lonely, and now its midnight, and all sorts of things have happened to let me know I'm loved. Impromptu hellos from no fewer than seven--not an exaggeration--seven faraway friends. I sure liked those lil hi's, but I didn't gulp them down. This is good stuff here on my own.

Letters to Noelle--
marked up cardboard boxes fell.
I fell with them.
Crushed like them.

Here Lies Blanche

Dad buried her under the statue in his backyard.
I wrote on the tombstone, said a prayer.





If I die, see, you won't be so close to me,
and I won't be the one who sticks around.
If I'm awake, see, you won't go to sleep, I promise,
and I won't be the one who lets you down.

Bye Bye Baby

January 2, 2011

Blanche has been staying with her gramps since Thanksgiving. I was in transit for over the school break (including taking a train back here from Chicago) so she was returning home to me in two weeks when my dad next visited.

This morning he called to say she died last night. I am sad, of course. But, hamsters die. Little hearts. And, what kind of life is a little cage anyway? Still, I wish I had gotten to have her just a little bit longer. She was great company, adorable, and she really did lift my spirits. There's nothing like cozying up with a good book and a hamster. I recently put a picture of her on the desktop of my work computer. Yesterday my dad texted me to say he was listening to a duet of Blanche running in her wheel and the strangely similar sound of coffee percolating.

Some great memories of Blanchie:
-As aforementioned, the times she would just curl up on me as I did homework.
-The random places I would bring her--like newspaper pitch meetings, play auditions...whatever.
-When she escaped her ball and I found her just sitting upright under a chair, uninterested in going much farther.
-The way she was trained to climb the bars when she wanted a snack or to be played with.
-When she would lie on her back pressed against the bars of her cage when she got too hot.
-How she would keep Muff awake at night when we were roommates.
-How I really wanted to see her after I had gotten my wisdom teeth out.


I'll be the other hand that always holds a line
connecting in between your sweet heart and mine.
I'm strung out on that wire.

Morbid Wishes

When I brought my sweet little baby hammy home last year I had everything! I bought food, the cage, some treats, some blocks, and, of course, shavings. Dur.

I was trying to be a skimpy shopper as usual, so I bought the young lady a huge honkin' bag of pine shavings. I figured it would last me the year. Wrong. The little bag I bought to use for the first couple weeks of Blanche's new life ended up lasting me the entire year. Thus, I still have the huge bag. I bit the bullet and opened it a couple weeks ago. I keep it--you have to realize this is a bag of shavings about two and a half feet tall and a foot wide--in a garbage bag so the pine doesn't fall all over the darn place.

Okay SO. The other day I was tying it up to bring to my dad's house (the seasonal hamster sitter who incidentally just discovered the garbage bag full of shavings in his living room and exclaimed "This isn't--No!" as I was typing this) and I thought, "Good God. What if Blanche dies? What the heck am I gunna do with a trillion pine shavings?!?!" So I got quiet and made a little deal with the universe. I said, "Universe, I will help out the environment by not buying these shavings in vain if you make sure Blanche lives until they're gone. Alright?"

Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket. Never let it fade away.

Breakfast, Baby Ghal!

Blanche's adoption day, August 2009

A of all, while on our Chicago LZ trip with Bradley steering the massive van through the icy streets, he and I found it hilarious to mimic a rastafarian trying to pick up various "Baby Ghal"s. Like a woman walking with a Whole Foods bag became "Organic Baby Ghal" and pick up lines to her included "I'd like to see dat Kashi rump Baby Ghal!" I don't really know. At the time it was funny.

So, this morning I was feeing my hamster and to her/myself yelled "Good Morning Baby Ghal!" And, then, I looked at the Fiesta Mix I've been feeding her which labels itself as "More Protein! More Fun!" Wait...what? My hamster food is "More fun?"

More fun than what, and secondly, why do I care? What? Who marketed this stuff?
Then again, I did buy it.

Slice of Slice

In accordance with my general desire to constantly make lists, sometimes I just list my top five favorite things of this moment in time. Right now:

1. "MmmBop" coming up on shuffle. It always makes me think of dancing in LaMa's room in 5th grade. That and Joseph Gordan-Levitt because I thought he was cute on Third Rock and he had long hair like Hanson.
2. When Muff accidentally calls Blanche Muff.
3. Jergens lotion that gets my skin through the harsh Elsah winters.
4. White Noise which I am currently reading and enjoying.
5. Having a computer on my lap in my bed. Can't take that for granted.

On the title: This is a slice of my life, and I've been enjoying how The Sitch calls me "Slice"--originated by swapping my first letter of my last name with the first letter of my first name.

Caffeney Kathleeny

Blanche and Alice

When I was nine one of my closest friends was nicknamed Caffeney Kathleeny because she was just about the most joyful child you could meet. She laughed and bounced all the time. There was always some kind of activity at her house--a goofy game or a silly snack. Hee Hee! Such fun!

One day I brought my hamster Thomas into class. Everyone got to marvel and pet it before I put it in its running ball. It toddled all over the classroom during our math time. It was fractions. We were doing them on the board, Kathleeny kept getting wrong answers. She'd ask for help--more confusion. Our teacher made several personal trips to her desk as the rest of the class waited in patience. Kathleeny started to laugh a lot, a lot, a lot. She turned redder and redder until tears burst from her beet face. "I just don't get it!" she sobbed while kicking her legs wildly.

Thomas was right under her feet. She kicked him clear across the room.

Four Hammys

THOMAS was my first hamster. I got him after school one day in second grade. He was brown and white and very sleepy. He was a good sport, and I don't even remember when he died.

JEFFERSON was my second hamster. He was white with red eyes--an albino. He was fiesty. He ran a lot on his wheel, and he would sometimes bite. He liked to stand on his hind legs a lot. But, I still loved him. He started acting very sick and jittery around Christmas when I was in 5th grade. The vet told us he had a tumor and would die without surgery. We could not pay for a hamster surgery, so he got sicker and sicker until I found him frozen in his cage December 26th. I was crushed. My dad told me I could get a new one whenever I was ready.

FRODO was my third hamster. I demanded him out of the blue spring of my eighth grade year. I brought up the promise my dad gave me after Jeffie passed. He was gold and rather friendly, but I was going into high school and didn't have much time for him. My dad ended up being his caretaker. When he moved out, I forgot to feed him a lot. I remembered it had been a couple days during Hell Week of 42nd Street (the first time I was in it sophomore year of HS). I went to get his dish and found Frodo dead. I'm pretty sure I killed the guy. I still feel guilty.

BLANCHE was brought home yesterday afternoon. She is dark grey and very tiny. I love her already, my new little baby.