Sam

UPDATE: MWF this week. Don't think I can manage more.

Ah hell, I lay odds I'm gonna be crying by the end of this.

So, anybody who can scroll down the page and see my twitter feed will probably already know this. Kind of. So here's the somewhat less abridged version.

Sam was never really my dog, you know? He's a little toy poodle, purebred, not like it matters since the first thing Grandma did when she got him was cut off the breeding bits (with a vet's assistance but still). He had a bunch of genetic problems - his teeth were messed up, his knees were messed up, his heart was failing him for the last five years of his life. Which, see, is why inbreeding is a bad thing, purity or not.

But yeah. So, initially, he belonged to Grandma, and she took care of him, I guess, at least until she passed away from liver cancer. I miss Grandma sometimes, but it's finally distant enough it doesn't hurt so badly anymore.

Then, my Great-Grand-Uncle (I think?) Tom inherited him. We always called the old man Uncle Tom, which come to think of it is part of the name of a book, right? They were basically inseparable, right up until he, too, died - from pneumonia and old age. There's a little bit of a pattern here.

Grandpa took care of him from then on. There's this old recliner in our house, and I've got all kinds of memories of Grandpa sitting in it, learning computers and watching television, whatever. He retired, and less than a year after that, we found out he had lung cancer. A couple of years after that, and he's just gone.

Two days before Sam died, I saw him just -staring- at that recliner, the one that sits empty most of the time anymore. Sam used to sit in it with him, you see.

And now Sam's gone, too.

We couldn't even bury him properly, because of all the snow. We'll do it, yeah, after the ground thaws out, but still.

I was never really all that close to him.

The house seems so much more empty now that the last of the pets have gone.

Paranoid Freewrite

And a Friday Freewrite!

I'm actually considering, with the sheer volume of writing I'm doing right now, to change it back to at least M-F, every day.

Ah well, who knows anyway. ON WITH THE POST!

Paranoid
Freewrite!                      See you.                            Rar tentacles!

I have something on my mind, is it obvious?

You know, I really don't think the whole Slenderman thing is/is not real. Skepticism is extant but still causes paranoia. Go figure. Very suggestible with an already-present tendency toward obsessive thought. lolol.

Scars on an eye                     eyePhone                               water                     Out of
may not cause                    How is                                      damage                  warranty
blindness, just                       time found                            to be                       _
(less complete)                 to blargh and                              killing                    |  \ ET
vision loss.                                 POAST?                            phone                 |_/ AH
                                        smrtfone.                                                                  OMG(s?)
People             How is money supplied by presumably jobless people
Pinatas 4 more  for food and sufficient gas to continue running?  MY WHOLE MEAL COST
personable                                                  $20!                               FIFTEEEN CENTS
portrayals                Snow is very wet                                      If Slendy
                              and also snowy and in addition cold.     turned up it would        FAIL
Blarghing                                                                              be INSTANT hypothermia
in tha                                                                                  death. So cold.
rainz,                SO IF YOU GET OBSESSED
'm blargh     WITH (SLENDERMAN) AND THEN YOU
ing                   LOSE                   SLEEP AND                          Achoo!
in tha              THEN                  YOU HAVE A
rain             DIMINISHED IMMUNE SYSTEM                              COUGH
                     IS IT PARANOIA, SLENDY-SICKNESS,                      OF
                    OR ABJECT STUPIDITY WHEN YOU                        DEATH
                    CATCH A COLD?

Ramen Noodles: The official
foodstuff of runners.

Buy a bike: Ramen is cheaper than gas.
L( X )L 
     ___
|---|_|_
_|_|---|        <---- ((That's a symbol I like. It basically reads HI four times.))

Cold Pain

I remember one time when I was a young child, I was leaving a friend's house in the winter. It was cold, and it was snowing. I slid off their porch and fell into a snowbank, bare-handed. I remember I was screaming and crying because of how much it hurt, and how cold I was.

And how alone.

I learned later that my friend's parents forced him not to come out and check on me, but at the time I had no idea what was wrong.

I just walked home.

Alone.

I bring this up, because my hands hurt right now, like they always do when I get too cold.

The temperature outside is literally 0° Farenheit. I have two pairs of gloves on and my car's heater is running, but the pain in my fingertips remains intense. It is a serious distraction from driving, so despite the fact that the roads are clearer, I feel just as unsafe. This isn't helped by the fact that all the snow that fell yesterday is now blowing across the highway in visible streams of wind.

It is so cold.

So very cold.

Winter Driving

Whoever came up with this idea should have been shot.

It is 7:45 when I leave my house, snow shovel in hand, to greet the day. It isn't actually that cold, but the snow has been falling continuously since last night. Mom is helping me dig out both of our cars.

Speed is of the essence: we both have to get to work this morning. On the radio, I heard that all the area schools have shut down for the day, but that hardly matters to our employers - or our wallets. Our street has not bee plowed, so Mom warns me that I should just take it slow. Going too quickly is an easy guarantee that something will go wrong.

I should have listened.

I can feel myself losing control before it happens, first a little, then a lot. I end up sideways across both lanes of traffic over a small curve in the road, and I felt my tail end plow sideways through a snowbank.

I am lucky; I am still on the road, and I did not hit anyone. I get myself straightened out before someone hits me.

"I can see the road."

It has become my Survival Mantra and a happy lie. I can see two strips of pavement where others have come before me - until I find myself following a vague black shape. It kicks up a cloud of snow so thick I cannot see the road - or anything else, for that matter.

It is a tense drive. The road wasn't especially well-maintained, and my job is actually in the next town over.

It is an incredible relief to see buildings again, and I find myself laughing when I see on a bank sign how early I am.

When I finally get myself parked, I call Mom to let her know I'm okay.

I have no idea how I'm going to get home: the sun will be down before I am allowed to leave.

First Snow

I shove my way out the screen door, pushing snow aside with it as a makeshift shovel, while in my other hand the real shovel hangs useless.

I can't see my neighbor's house; everything is white, and besides that I've left my glasses off for now - they'd be useless before five minutes was out.

I'm wearing two layers of everything - two sweatshirts, two sweatpants, two pairs of socks, even two hoods over my head, with my thick winter coat. Inside I was boiling - out here I'm only barely warm, and snow is stinging my face, the wind whipping the second hood off my head as I struggle to hold it up. No, I think to myself, this isn't Northrend. At least I won't see any zombies.

We have about four inches of snow drifting in places, while others show bare ground: the snow is falling sideways, winds tearing at everything and creating unpredictable patterns. I suppose that evens out to two inches, after all.

The storm isn't over. It's just begun.

Seeing my neighbor, bundled up so that he's unrecognizable, I call out to him. "Nice weather, huh?!" He seems to like long walks. I can't imagine this one's pleasant, though.

He laughs, and I can hear him call back a faint, "Yeah!" before he's gone.

I dig out our small porch and down the front staircase, scooping off each stair carefully. Snow here now means ice here later, though trying to clear anything completely is a losing battle.

Making it down the sidewalk, I discover our newspaper buried halfway into the drift. Rain, sleet, snow or hail, I suppose - that's postmen, but our newspaper carrier seems to have a similar philosophy, so I run to throw the paper inside. I had only one thick pair of winter gloves, and my fingertips are starting to hurt from the cold. I have to remove my winter coat to peel the gloves I have off, then put a second, thinner pair on underneath. I should have done this from the start, I think.

Bundled up again in all of my clothing, I make it down to the front gate. The latch has frozen together, and it's difficult to pry it open. The chain link fence groans eerily as I drag it open.

Mom is seriously thinking of driving ten miles or more to make it to work in this. Apparently the interstate is completely closed, and no one knows how the back streets look. Given the wide stretch of open country that path runs through, I suspect it fares no better.

It takes everything I have to get the front walkway cleared, and a path out to our car as well.

The snow is still falling when, defeated, I run back inside, and the paths I've cleared before are already filling up.