new york pride, plus other kvetching and kvelling

i got a lot of vitamin d last weekend. i spent saturday in a park in flushing with the shelter adoption van. for part of the day, i was handling two dogs at once. thank god one was a sedentary pug and the other was a chilled-out little poodle. i really saw the difference i made with the pug. i suspect she'd been abused (and had also been used as a breeder dog) by her former human. she was so scared to have anyone touch her at the beginning of the day. by the end, she was snuggled up in my lap with her eyes closing and a big smile as i pet her. it really means a lot to me that so much affection from me, the other volunteers, and all of the folks who came by the van, had such an impact. it will really allow her to be adopted more quickly. we're resocializing her to be a dog who expects to be treated well, because we at the shelter will make sure that she's NEVER mistreated again. we are always careful about who we adopt out to.

on sunday, i had my first new york pride parade experience. i didn't just see it; i was in it. my friend and her girlfriend work at an organization that provides support to queer youth. the organization was a contingent in the parade. lots of the kids, many staff, and some volunteers marched. we also had a float. it was amazing to support the kids and to be a part of this experience. there were shitloads of people all along the parade route. we walked 60 or so blocks. i noticed that many of the folks watching the parade were people of color. some had flags waving from caribbean, south american and african nations. there were also lots of folks who'd come in from the tri-state area. i wouldn't be surprised if there were folks who'd come from other regions of the u.s. and from other countries to see this huge parade. is it the biggest pride parade in the world? i don't know. all i know is that the few elite queers, some of whom happen to be in the business of writing in magazines and on blogs, are DEAD WRONG when they say that pride is "passe", "unnecessary" and "boring". maybe for your new york privileged queer ass it is. you make your big money and have your chelsea condo, and gay rights don't seem like such an issue anymore. nah, you're doing fine. why is anyone yelling about gay rights and marching in these parades nowadays? it's so 1990s. well, here are a few things i have to say to you privileged queer folks, whose declarations of the waning importance of pride i've read on blogs and in articles: YOU ARE A PRIVILEGED FEW. MOST QUEER PEOPLE ON PLANET EARTH FACE A WHOLE HELL OF A LOT OF HOMOPHOBIA AND HETEROSEXISM TO THIS DAY. nice for you that you have your circle of friends, and great job and wonderful apartment and little havens in chelsea or the west village or park slope. but, most queer people in new york city are NOT AT ALL as fortunate as you are. most of us are from families and from backgrounds and live in neighborhoods where it ain't fucking okay to be queer. most queer folks in the u.s. DON'T live in the safe havens one can find in the big apple or in san fran, etc. maybe it's more acceptable to be queer in a certain demographic (which happens to have control over what is printed in papers and magazines and has more access to blogging and the like). so, just because your bougie ass is now doing fine, you're throwing in the towel on the gay rights movement? thousands of your fellow queers here in new york are still struggling terribly. just ask some of the kids at the organization i marched with. just ask the folks screaming along the lines waving trinidadian, puerto rican, brazilian, venezuelan, nigerian, russian, polish, korean flags. their home cultures may be totally unaccepting of queer folks, but these people had the opportunity to feel totally safe among this lgbt community on the day of pride. the people from homogenous suburbs around the area, along with folks from the large swaths of the u.s.a. where conservatism and conformism reign supreme, were sure as FUCK not thinking that pride was "passe". so, please stop being so fucking selfish and ignorant, and proclaiming that pride and the movement for gay rights is "old" just because you THINK you don't really have to deal with the prejudice anymore. if you truly are for gay rights, you will fight, scream, march and dance until EVERY LAST QUEER PERSON on planet earth can TOTALLY live in peace out in the open. you may think that everything's peachy-keen for you, but remember this simple saying: "NO ONE IS FREE WHEN OTHERS ARE OPPRESSED".

to kvell a bit more about pride: i loved screaming, waving, blowing whistles, dancing, hugging folks, laughing, supporting, watching fierce vogue moves, and helping to create a huge and awesome NEW YORK PRIDE 2007!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

other news: my job is great. the lawyer i assist rocks mah world. i have one more week here. she wants to keep me longer. she says she'd permanently hire me if i weren't going back to school, but i don't think the company is going to pay for me to stay here after the new paralegal begins work after the end of next week.

i might move on sunday or monday or something. it's not for sure yet. i still have soooo much packing and cleaning to do, and i don't yet have the keys to the place. mr. j is at a leftist conference in atlanta until monday. egads! oh, well. my friend from whom i'm currently subletting isn't coming back until the third week of july. still, i wanna move soon!!!

more animal news: i found a dead squirrel and a dead baby bird. i put the bird on top of moritz's grave. i left the squirrel alone. i can't deal with another squirrel burial. fireflies visit me every evening around 8:45-9 p.m. i'm so happy to watch them! there's an ancient cat that comes around the house nowadays. i wish he'd let me pet him.

things are progressing with getting ready for school. i am signing up for "early arrival" health insurance through the school. i'm gonna get an id card. my e-mail is set up. et cetera. YAY!!!

i wrote a letter to PETA in response to ingrid newkirk's fat-phobic and rude letter to michael moore. i got a condescending e-mail response by a man from PETA, whose name i won't mention, who backed up newkirk's sizeist blitherings and said he knew that it was possible to be vegan AND fat: there were lots of unhealthy vegan snacks out there, after all. Here's my response to him (via e-mail): "Thanks for your message, ____, but I still find some fat-phobia in your message, and I think that PETA as an organization has issues with fat-phobia and the objectification of women. As for the fat-phobic comments in your message: not all fat people gorge on junk food, so if you meet a fat vegan, please don't assume they're gorging on potato chips and vegan chocolate. There are many issues affecting weight. A lot of the vegetarians and vegans I know are fat. Some are skinny. Some are average. Whatever. You guys at PETA need to focus on health, not weight. PETA is totally buying into the whole thinness obsession that *mainstream America* has (I emphasize mainstream because many subcultures here, and many cultures in this world, do not glorify thinness). PETA's literature on vegetarians, its advertisements, and its website graphics show only pictures of thin or average-size people. This does not reflect the diversity of folks who are compassionate eaters. Just remember that size discrimination is the most accepted form of bigotry in our country nowadays. Fat people can be very healthy. I am one of them. Thin does not equal health. Sometimes, the attainment and maintenance of thinness involves very unhealthy eating habits. I know some veg folks whose animal-free diets mask eating disorders. There are many fat folks who are that way because of gorging on animal products. I have also personally seen many thin or average size folks who never see a green thing on their plates. The issue of weight and diet is much more complex than society would like us to think. There are many industries making millions off of these simplifications. I wish that PETA would be more progressive and aware of the bullshit simplifications that society peddles about people. It also needs to spend more of its energy on educating people as to the cold hard facts of animal suffering. Scantily-clad women who are beautiful in a Barbie-esque way aren't necessary. I'd like to see more PETA funding going into its investigations and exposees. It would be great to see more blatant truths about factory farms, fur farms, circuses, puppy mills, etc. to be broadcasted through every medium by PETA. PETA needs not contribute to the dumbification of American media by resorting to the kind of advertising crap that swells our collective consciousness. And if PETA wants to show images of healthy, happy veg folks, please include healthy people of all walks of life (yes, including the healthy veg fat folks). Thank you for your time." yup, looks like this ass-kickin' fat New York veg gurl has just entered PETA's radar screen. I have lots more respect for the way HSUS goes about things, but I will continue to support PETA for the things it DOES do right. This needs to be heard by the kind of asshole "animal rights" people who are totally ignorant of issues of cruelty and inequality in the HUMAN race. let me educate you assholes: ANIMAL RIGHTS AND HUMAN RIGHTS ARE INSEPARABLE. some of you animal rights folks don't get that simple fact, just like many of you human rights folks are so fucking ignorant and callous about the issues of the other millions of species we share this earth with. wake up, people.

gotta go for now.

Hangin' Out at Tar Beach with Mr. J

Big news: I am going to spend July and August with my friend Mr. J. I have a place to go to in July! An awesome, wonderful, big apartment on the top floor of a building, with a fire escape outside of the kitchen window that takes one up to Tar Beach. Mr. J lives farther west in Queens. His roommate had to go to California on short notice for some summer work. Mr. J sent out a mass e-mail yesterday morning about how he needed a roommate and asked us to let him know if we knew anyone who needed a place. He didn't know that I hadn't found a place to go to in July, and he didn't know I'd be willing to sublet for two months before I found a more long-term situation. Well, I called him ASAP and set up everything, and my subletting will begin on July 1st. :) I love Mr. J. We can talk deeply about serious issues, and we can have a ball laughing and dancing and doing impersonations. It's gonna be great to live with him. I'll have much more time to hang out with him. I don't normally see him that often because he's so busy and because I'm still physically affected by my grief and it's such a production for me to get to his house from my lair. So, now we get to hang out more often! :) It's also gonna be good to move from this remote location to a much more accessible area of Queens before my final move to Manhattan. His neighborhood is really cool, with lots and lots of stores, restaurants and other things I like. The subway is ONE BLOCK from his building! YAY!!! I think it will be easier for me to find housing as a student in the Columbia University area/Upper Manhattan for September 1st. And now I have two months to find something! :) Oh, and friend-of-a-friend is chafing my hide. Now she's saying her work friend will probably move in in August and could I move in in October? And she chooses who my roommate will be? I just e-mailed back to tell her that this situation won't work for me, and that I wish her the best with everything. It's a great apartment, but it's not meant for me. I will keep on trying to get everything set up for September...

I bought the diet drug from Walgreens.com. I am waiting for its arrival. I want to start on it on a weekend, in case there are side-effects. I want to lose weight. Really, I do. It seems impossible for me to do, but I'll try. I look at women on the streets as I walk, and I love to see the voluptuous ones. Truly, I think that voluptuous bodies, male and female, are the most beautiful. I do NOT want to be thin. I want to stay a voluptuous lady with big thighs and hips and soft curves all over, but I want to be smaller than I am now. I would like to be 180 pounds again. 180 seems like a lot to some folks, but it's not a lot for me. I'm tall, I am sturdily-built, and I am buxom. That's my body type, which I inherited from my African ancestors who were some of the ones who actually survived the extreme conditions of The Middle Passage and lived through backbreaking labor on the rice plantations of South Carolina for centuries. That's my body type, which I inherited from my Scandinavian ancestors who had long ago been great warriors of the sea; who had braved long, harsh winters, had settled on dramatic landscapes, and survived many famines. That's my body type, which I inherited from my Native American ancestors who survived the violent genocide and the diseases that Europeans had brought over. You wanna know why I'm so sturdily-built? Because my foremothers and fathers went through hell and survived it. They were anything but frail.

hose me down

i wanna be reborn through a well of water gushing out. i wish i could start from scratch with my body. erase all abuse it's taken, both from me and the world i've lived in. i'm disappointed with myself. diet and abstinence from alcohol have not been working these past few days. i am going to begin the new diet drug that all the buzz is about. i'm not gonna name it here; i don't want links to my blog through my mention of that drug. it'll force me to give up my vice of eating pizza. if one does not eat a super low-fat diet on that drug, one has things coming out of ones butt uncontrollably. i am grateful that i control when things come out of my butt, and i want to keep it that way.

my temp assignment is good! laid-back and easy. not too hard to get to. easier commute than the one to south street seaport; harder than the one to the music venue. eh, i'm not complaining, though! i am assisting a lawyer at this assignment. she is soooooo nice. she is very appreciative of all the help i give her. she says she used to be a paralegal, and she knows what it's like to do the stuff i'm doing, but i don't think that's the main reason why she's so nice. i think she's nice because she's just a nice person. she was probably born that way. i love nice people! i'm a nice person, and i appreciate it when others reciprocate that kindness!

the firefighter that i was shagging has contacted me again. i had not returned his e-mail a while back because he'd flaked on me a few times. well, this time, he happened to write to me during a particularly horny spell i'm having. i chewed him out about flaking on me and how shitty that is, and how i won't have any of that anymore. he apologized, explained away, begged and sweet-talked me, sent me a picture of himself with all of his big, juicy goods exposed. jesus, was he trying to kill me? well...maybe i'll see him again. he really has to be on his best behavior before i decide whether he gets to have some more of this.

no luck with apartments yet. don't know if i am going to get to live in friend-of-friend's apartment. met a woman who wanted to see if we'd make good roomies. i have the feeling that she thinks i'm weird...and maybe would not be 100% into being around someone with my personality. yeah, i am weird, but all in a good way. some people just don't get me. i feel in my gut that she's one of them. yeah, i don't think it will work out. so...i am thinking that i am having no luck with finding someone to share living space with, and maybe if i don't get this deal with the friend-of-a-friend, i'll just go ahead and look for a studio apartment. then i could get one that allowed pets and i could get a cat. :) yeah, fuck it. i'll just venture out on my own. i don't have time to find that elusive person i'll get along with. i need to find a place. i've never lived with a stranger before, probably because i knew how hard it would be to find a compatible roomie in a pool of unknown people. yeah, if f-of-f doesn't let me sublet, i'm soooo looking for a studio.

i like to kvetch

i finally got a call from the temp agency about a three-week assignment. guess what i was doing when the call came? interviewing at another temp agency. guess who called me later that day? the temp agency i had signed up with even before the one that's hooked me up the most, which i haven't heard from in months. isn't that fucked up? why was no one calling me two weeks ago? and now when i'm trying out a new agency, my phone starts ringing. well, i took the three-week stint, which begins on monday. my ebay sales continue to be really sluggish, even though i have over 80 things on there, including some really cool dvd box sets. i just don't understand why they're not going.

the brother and sister, as i expected, did not choose me as the person they wanted to room with. today, i saw the apartment of the friend-of-a-friend, and i thought everything about it was incredible. i really, really want to live there, but i'm not expecting to be chosen. the other two places i was rejected for were not totally ideal, so i wasn't too upset when i was passed over, but i will really feel let down if i don't get this one. i dunno how she's gonna choose who will get to sublet her place. i just pray that it'll be me. i am also meeting a woman on monday who i'll talk to about perhaps joining forces and looking for an apt. together. my friend from whom i'm currently subletting just gave me the name of another person i can contact about whether we'd make a good team. i have four weeks max before i have to be out. i want to have something settled as soon as possible!

i am really, really fucking ready to love someone and share my life with him. not having him is breaking my heart. i wish he'd appear. there are two men i now love and one of them is dead. the other one is in okinawa with his girlfriend, and anyway, he isn't in the emotional place where he's made peace with what happened between us in the past. i find myself thinking too much about him sometimes, i guess because he's now the only man who is alive on this earth that i feel love for. i just wish that someone i could actually be with would come along VERY FUCKING SOON. the other day, i saw this man on the subway who i thought was drop-dead gorgeous, and when he smiled, i just about sank onto the floor of the subway car. i haven't had that reaction to a face in so long! this man's smile was so incredible. he might not be gorgeous to the general population, just as andy and alex might not be anything special to look at for most people (but are devastatingly beautiful to me). he was breathtaking to me, though, especially when that sweet smile crept across his full lips, softening his entire lovely face. he was latino, and specifically looked like he was probably puerto rican. anyway, he was with his girlfriend. he treated her really sweetly. i could tell they were very much in love and were really happy. i want to be head-over-heels in love again. i want it to last. i want it to be with someone who i consider to be my best friend in the whole world. i want him to stay living on this earth and not die on me. i want him to be soooo handsome in my eyes that his smile will be the most incredible thing i see. i want him to have the same reaction to my smile. i want to feel like i could cuddle him forever and never get sick of it. i want to see my future children dancing in his eyes. i want him to get as upset over the mistreatment of humans and animals as i get. i want us to laugh a lot together. i want us to someday live together where i can do my social work/animal-assisted therapy/wildlife rehabilitation. maybe he'll be a social worker/animal-assisted therapist/wildlife rehabilitator, too. maybe we'll found our own organization for troubled kids to come live and work with and take care of animals. maybe one day, we'll have a baby black bear in our rehab facility. maybe i'll get to hold the cub in my arms.

i want to have a fulfilling life working with people and animals, and i want to have a wonderful lifelong relationship. i have so much love in my heart to give to another person. i would be such a loving, committed, supportive, kind partner. i hope that god lets me give those gifts to one of the other humans on this earth. is he wondering where his future partner is? is he wishing she would come along? who is he? where is he? when will i meet him? is he also wondering who i am, where i am, and when he'll meet me? i want to rent an airplane that scrawls messages across the sky and tell him i'm here. i wish god would give me a sign that my future partner exists and that i won't be a lonely widow for the rest of my life. i know that alex does not want me to be a lonely widow. he wants me to find love again. i think god keeps showing me that part of my reason for being here is to help animals. i was born with a great love and sensitivity for animals. i also feel like god put me through all of the hardships i've faced to make me strong and compassionate enough to help all different kinds of people. i hope that i also get a sign from god that a really special man exists for me, and that he will be in my life in the future. maybe my interactions with my doctor, my friend's brother-in-law, mr. exmo, and the beautiful man on the train are god's signs to me. i guess i'll keep my heart open and eyes peeled for more signs. and then there's my english friend, who is unwaveringly kind and caring towards me. he thinks i'm wonderful just the way i am, inside and out. maybe his treatment of me is also a sign from god. my english friend says and does little things that make me feel like things are going to be okay after all. he told me the other day that he's reading the first harry potter book in latin. i dunno. thinking about him reading harry potter in latin makes my soul smile. :) he also updates me on what kind of chocolate he's currently eating. he's a chocoholic. he's so utterly and completely true to himself and to others. i love it. anyway, i've just gotta have faith that my special one is coming soon. i'll try not to lose hope. i'll try to keep my heart wide open.

what the fuck to do?

i'm really freaking out about where the fuck i am going to live. if i cannot find a fucking roommate, i might just get a studio apartment. the school gave me enough loans to factor about $1,500 a month for all living expenses, which is waaaaaay more than i need. well, if i'm taking out the fucking loans, and i can't find a place to live by say, the end of next week, i might just try to get a studio apartment. there are some being advertised that are the same price as rooms in 2 or 3-bedroom apartments with roommates. yeah, i'd be paying more for utilities and shit, but at least i'd have control over how i lived.

the leftist guy e-mailed me today to tell me he went with someone else. he seemed uncomfortable with me from the get-go, even though i am very friendly and personable. *sigh* well, obviously he has issues, cuz i did nothing weird or wrong.

the flakey friend-of-a-friend called me last night. i am gonna see the apt. on saturday morning. she says there are others she has seeing the apt. i hope so much that she chooses me as one of the two who sublet from her for the next 1 1/2 years!!!

the brother and sister haven't gotten back to me, but they probably won't choose me. i dunno if i'd be happy there, either. i dunno.

still no word from the temp agency. i gave up calling them. i called another temp agency that had contacted me a few months ago, and i am going to interview with them tomorrow morning. in the afternoon, i am going to columbia to the off-campus housing office and ask for help. tomorrow evening, i'm seeing another room.

ebay sales have been shitty the last two days. :(

idag är skit

today is shit. nothing is going well, except for that i'm doing okay on ebay.

i don't have temp work. this is my 7th day of not having any. i keep calling the woman at the temp agency, but she does not answer or return my calls. did someone complain about me for something? have they decided not to give me temp work anymore? if so, why don't they just TELL me that?!?!?

i thought i had over $2,000 coming to me from the other part of my retirement savings plan. i thought it was coming to me in a lump sum like the other part did. no, i was wrong. this part of the retirement money is being paid back to me in 10 installments over NINE YEARS. so i got about $300 from them, but they got my bank account number wrong, so i have to get them to reissue the transfer to my account.

i saw a room in an apartment on saturday. a brother and sister. they are nice and the apt. is nice, but the general living space is so plain. i love to decorate, and i have a feeling that my decorating sense would not be welcome there. i would also feel like i'm the odd one out since they're brother and sister and i'm the newcomer to their space. i e-mailed the sister on sunday and asked about what she wants in a roommate in terms of being a new person coming into an already established household, and how she wants the newcomer to fit in. she hasn't written back.

i saw another room last evening. straight white guy with really leftist politics. nice apartment. it seemed like he was awkward and maybe uncomfortable around me. i dunno if it's because he's never had a female roommate before (and has a girlfriend who might not like him having a female roommate?), or what. i don't know what he thinks of me. he's a vegetarian and very neat and clean and has a great decorating sense and would welcome a roommate's decorative additions. i e-mailed him today and told him i felt good about living there. i do, except for his awkwardness. maybe he's just plain shy. i dunno.

the third person i've been talking to is the friend of a friend who is being flakey with me. it seems like she has an incredible living situation, though. does she not understand that i am in limbo and her flakiness is truly unhelpful to me?

yeah, so, this $2,000 i thought i'd be getting is nonexistent now, and i honestly don't know how i'll pay for first month's rent and deposit in a place, and if i keep on not getting temp gigs because the fucking agency has decided to drop me without telling me, what the fuck am i going to do?!?!?

and my partner is dead, and i couldn't be with his family for it, and i feel very fucking alone in my grief, and everything is fucking shitty. it's all fucking shit. and i drank last night. i bought a pint of rum and made cuba libres and got drunk and poured the remaining 1/3 of the bottle down the drain, and felt like drunk shit. it did nothing good for me, just made me angry at myself for screwing up staying sober.

i wonder if i'm not getting temp work anymore because someone complained about me to the temp agency. what did i do wrong? the last assignment i was on, i was only there in case the admin. assistant had to leave in an emergency (his father is sick). they had no work for me to do. for seven workdays, i did nothing because they had nothing for me to do. during those slow days, i checked my e-mail and ebay a few times on the computer of the woman whose desk i was using (she was on vacation). on my last day, i cleared the internet history and the temporary internet files. did she complain to the temp agency that i did that? did they decide i was a bad worker and that they would not give me work anymore, but then the agency woman won't face me and tell me that?

i feel like a failure at everything, and i am really scared that i am going to fuck up graduate school and not become a social worker cuz i'm too fucked up, and then have tens of thousands of dollars in student loans to pay off. what if i fuck up once again on something big that i try? will my life ever work out well? will i ever succeed at life? or will it continue to be one big failure after another?

A Day of Grief and Healing

It's been three years since I heard Alex's friendly, gruff voice and his thick, musical Swedish accent. Three years since we shared hugs and cuddles. Three years since I've looked at his living face. He was my best friend. I just wanted to be around him all the time. I felt so close to him that I felt like we were two parts of a whole. How could one part of a whole be dead and the other be alive? How can that happen? How could he have gone somewhere I can't really fathom? I can't wrap my mind around the two of us not sharing the same reality. I remember what my friend said to me when she came to visit me in Stockholm shortly after Alex's death: she said that maybe Alex and I are still in the same reality but now we exist in it on different levels. Her statement really rang in my spirit. She took me on a hot-air balloon ride over Stockholm. I think she might have wanted to help me be closer to what it's like to be on the pure spirit level of existence. She was living in Berlin at the time of Alex's death. She knew when he died, even though it would be two days until I called her and told her the news. On the day he died, she was taking the U-Bahn and got off at Alexanderplatz by mistake. Something just brought her there. When she came up onto Alexanderplatz from the U-Bahn, she suddenly began sobbing. Her spirit knew.

I think my spirit knew that Alex would die before any of us even knew he was sick. I remember two times when Alex and I were hanging out before his stroke when everything seemed fine, and I suddenly began sobbing uncontrollably. I sobbed my heart out and he would hug me. I felt this huge well of sadness inside, and it was sorrow over Alex. I didn't understand why I felt so much sorrow, but I did. It's like I was grieving for him, even though he was alive. I remember how, as I lived with him that autumn, I would dream of him at night, and the dreams were incredible. They felt like the aboriginal paintings of "Dreamtime", and in my dream, "Dreamtime" was filled with pure and incredible love between Alex and me. I mean, pure spirit love, with all of the living world things sifted out. There are no words to explain purely spiritual things like that. It's extemely hard for me, living in this material world in this physical body like I do, to sift out all the crap and feel the pure spiritual state that the deepest part of me is always in. That pure spiritual state is where Alex and I still meet. Our spirits will always be entwined in love and friendship of the deepest level. Being in this physical state in this material world, I miss Alex's presence here. I miss it so very, very much.

I finally buried Moritz this morning. I dreamt that the plastic bag with Moritz in it had somehow magically taken itself out of my refrigerator and put itself in the middle of the floor between my sleeping area and the kitchen. It was Moritz's way of saying, "Gurl, you need to bury me now. It really is time." So, I woke up and dressed in Alex's sweatpants and t-shirt (which I often wear around the house). I took the bag containing Moritz out of the fridge and opened it, scared of what he'd look like after months of cold storage. he looked almost exactly like he had when I put him in there, except that his little black eyes had sunken into his head. I went outside and dug a hole a couple of feet deep right under the bottom of the big tree under which I had found Moritz sick last autumn. I carefully laid him at the bottom of the grave, and I told him that it was time for his body to rest and go back to where it came from and be protected by the tree roots that would surround it, the roots of the same tree that had provided him with acorns and a safe climbing structure and shelter during his life. I saw other squirrels jumping and climbing and twitching their tails and scavenging for acorns in the yards around me. No doubt these squirrels are Moritz's relatives and friends. I told Moritz "thank you" for being my friend and that as much as I'd helped him, he'd helped me. I placed a paper crane, that I had folded for Alex years ago, in the grave with Moritz. I delicately placed moist, cool earth over his body and filled up the hole.

I understand the underlying reason why it took so long to bury Moritz. I wasn't ready to say goodbye. I wasn't ready to say goodbye to Alex, either, but I had absolutely no control over Alex's body after he died. There were all of these legal rules and regulations and medical procedures and cultural factors and familial wishes that separated me from being as close to the body of my partner as I wanted to be. I wanted to have control over what happened to that body I loved so much, but I had none. He had an autopsy (which I wanted him to have so that we could determine why he had suddenly died). He sat in cold storage for a few weeks in the hospital (I never saw him during that period). He was transported to the crematorium/funeral home in his neighborhood, a process that I was completely disconnected from. He was cleansed and dressed and sewn up so that his mouth and eyes stayed shut. I had no part in that. They put him in a simple wooden casket and brought him into a room for us to say one last goodbye. Why were these strangers in control of my loved one's body? Why did they determine who, what, when, where and why when it came to the body of MY loved one? Why were we kept so far removed from the final processes done on the body of OUR beloved Alex? I wanted a part in EVERY SINGLE THING that happened to Alex's body after he died, but I was kept so far removed. His family chose to cremate him. This broke my heart, really. His beautiful body would be turned into ash. Only a pile of ashes would remain of this body I loved so much. I don't even know WHICH DAY they cremated him. I was so far removed. We didn't even get to bury his ashes ourselves. The funeral home/cemetary people dug the grave, brought out the ashes in an urn, let us simply TOUCH the urn (not let us HOLD it for HOWEVER LONG we wanted to), and then THEY put the urn in the earth. THEY friggin put earth over his remains, not US. It was like losing Alex doubly. I don't understand this far removal from death that occurs in some of the world's cultures. Why are loved ones kept so removed from what happens to their departed ones' bodies? I wanted to be there for the autopsy, I wanted to see that he was okay in cold storage, I wanted to be in the transport van that took him from the hospital to the crematorium/funeral home, I wanted to be there when they got his body ready, I wanted to be there when he was cremated (though I would have preferred him NOT to have been cremated), I wanted to be there when they put his ashes in the urn and brought the urn out to the grave site and dug the grave, and I wanted US, his loved ones, to hold the ashes and be alone with them for as long as we needed (without some funeral home person looking on), and be the ones to put them in the ground and put the soil over them. I wanted a part of every single thing that happened to Alex after he died, but I was helpless. With Moritz, I had complete control over what happened to his body after his death. Maybe Moritz sort of symbolized being able to have the freedom and access to go through bereavement with a body on MY terms. I think that finally putting Moritz into the ground on the anniversary of Alex's death was a way of dealing with my feelings over what happened to Alex's body after his death. As I lovingly tended to each aspect of preparation for Moritz's burial, it's like I was taking back control and preparing to bury Alex again: burying Alex again through the loving care of a squirrel I'd tried so hard to save the life of. Today I buried Moritz, and in a way, I buried Alex, completely with my own hands and on my own terms. He knows that.

Rest in peace, little Moritz Squirrel.

Rest in peace, sweet Alex. I wish I could have been much more a part of what happened to your body after you died. Jag älskar dig så jättemycket, lilla gubben. Jag saknar dig varje dag, varje timme, varje sekond. Önskar att vi igen ses i Nangijala. Kära älskling, jag älskar dig för alltid.

all the little animals

WARNING: the first part of this post is about dead animals.

okay, this whole finding sick and dead animals thing is getting more and more upsetting. yesterday i walked to the post office to mail out dvds. everything was fine. on the way home, i stopped by a bodega to buy paper towels. as i rounded the corner to go back up the side street to my lair, i spotted a squashed pigeon in the road. this must have just happened while i was on my errands; the pigeon was NOT there when i'd passed by minutes before. okay, seeing an animal that has turned into "roadkill" is very upsetting to me. what was even MORE upsetting was that the pigeon's friend, family member, or partner was walking around and around it, pecking once in a while to try to get it to move. and who says that only humans grieve? sorry, but this living pigeon companion was walking around and around the dead pigeon, the way i saw aerial footage of a baby elephant circling around and around her mother who had just been killed by a poacher. obviously, elephants are much more intelligent than pigeons, but don't tell me that birds don't have feelings. it's why i won't eat your chicken or your turkey. it's why i decided, as i stood there in awe at this avian display of grief, to open my roll of paper towels and pick up the dead bird with some of them. i had to wave some cars around me cuz i was in the road. the living pigeon didn't back away until i picked up the dead one. it was still warm, it was bloody, and its intestines had come out of its abdomen. i tried not to look. i took the bird down the street to a grassy area and put it under a tree (the same tree where i'd put a dead baby bird a couple of weeks ago). a woman saw me do this and got on the phone to her friend. i hope she didn't call someone to throw the pigeon away. just let it go back to the earth, people. by the way, i STILL have not buried moritz. i'm soooo scared that the family upstairs will catch me digging in the front yard in the middle of the night. *sigh*. well, the little guy needs to go back to the earth where he came from, and tonight NEEDS to be the night. i can't put this off any longer. my dead animal experiences remind me of the film "all the little animals" with john hurt and christian bale. christian bale's character is the kind of boy i'd want as a partner: sweet, gentle, kind and sensitive. it doesn't hurt that he's incredibly beautiful as well. the kind of boy i want to be with would walk around a flock of pigeons, not through it. the kind of boy i want to be with would be upset at seeing a dead pigeon in the road. the kind of boy i want to be with would never drive like a fucking asshole, plowing into neighborhood cats, pigeons, squirrels, and other little animals. he'd get pissed off at such drivers.

i haven't had temp work all week. i have luckily had a very good week on ebay. i am praying that the sales keep on going well so that i make enough money to make up for not having had work this week. i hope they'll have something for me next week. i'm getting worried. if they don't get anything for me, i'm going to another temp agency. this is what i hate about temping. i was getting it regularly for the past few months until this week. :(

i have a couple of roommate prospects, i think. one for sure. i am going to meet the people on saturday. it's a brother and sister who live in inwood. they seem super-nice. :) i don't mind living in inwood. it's a very short commute from there to columbia. if we get along well, they'll want me moved in on july first. i can do that! i thought i had another lead from a friend of a friend, but her correspondence with me has left off, and i don't know why. well, i've used my extra time this week to keep packing up and cleaning. in my cleaning, i found a picture of andy and me together in high school. i e-mailed the picture to him. i couldn't help it: i also wrote him a long message. oh, mah gawd. i was reminiscing so much about how things were in our town and our region when we were little. it's changed soooo much since then. i bet i reminded him of things he hasn't thought about in YEARS. i feel so much like amelie for doing that for him. i imagine andy having a look on his face like dominique bretodeau did when he found his childhood keepsakes in the phone booth. i told andy about the soda shack dream and how it reminded me of the old things that have since been rotting or torn away from the landscape of our hometown. i told him about memories i have of him; memories from when we were in nursery school. i'm so glad i finally got those memories off my chest. i don't expect a reply from him. the dominique bretodeau expression that i know will appear on his face is enough of a reward for my good deed.

i'm listening to sam cooke's "live at the harlem square club" album right now. i feel as if i am in a soda shack on the side of the road down in the deep south, and he's performing for a small, intimate audience inside the shack. i'm drinking a grape nehi and fanning the humidity off of me. sam cooke died long before i was born, but as i lay here in my lair in new york city, in spirit i'm right up there in the front row, hanging onto every soulful word and note coming from sam and the band. i don't know what's perspiring more: sam's forehead or my soda bottle.

i've been alcohol-free all week.

I Chose the Soda

I haven't had a temp assignment yet this week. It freaks me out each day I don't have something. Because of that, and because I am moving soon, I am trying to get rid of my eBay inventory ASAP. I have almost 80 things on there right now. I lowered the prices on many of the shit I'm selling. Not by much, but enough for me to look even better against all the competition. In the last 24 hours, I've sold $60 worth of DVDs. I hope to keep raking in the bucks at that rate. I dumped a bunch of new releases on there today.

I went outside into the heat to mail out DVDs at the post office. I wanted to stop at the liquor store on the walk home. "Just this once", I told myself. Yeah, "just this once" is what I keep saying, and how I keep drinking. Well, I passed the liquor store twice, on the way to and from the grocery store. I bought a 2-liter bottle of diet orange soda and a 20-oz. bottle of wild cherry seltzer. I got taco shells and hot dog buns to use with my soy taco filling and my tofu pups. I didn't buy the alcohol. Too bad they don't sell Stewart's or Boylan in my neighborhood. They have Caribbean soda, but I'm very Americentric about soda. I want the American classics. Last night I told Alex that I would try my very, very best not to drink at all. He doesn't want me to hurt myself. I know it pains him to see me hurt myself. My birthday present to Alex is to try my very best to choose something unharmful over alcohol. His father was such an alcoholic that he had a liver transplant. Did I ever mention that I hate his father?

I was so depressed and sunken yesterday and today, until I received an e-mail from his mother this afternoon. She thanked me for the cards I sent to them in the mail. The tides turned when I read her message. I remember how she and the rest of his family saved my life after he died. I think we all saved each others' lives. We got through those first acute months by leaning on each other all the time. It was so hard to move back to the States, to New York City, where it seemed like everyone was so cold and uncaring. I wish I could be there in Stockholm with Alex's family this very moment. I'll go as soon as I can. I was thinking I could go visit them with some of this retirement payout. No, not when I have to move. No luck so far on finding a roommate. Shit. I'm partially packed already. I'll continue to pack tonight. I'm gonna start on a "Kitchen" box next.

I'm gonna go do laundry and take out recycling now. Bye.

alex's birthday and a wet day for moritz

it's alex's birthday. he would be 29 years old. he was 9 months younger than me. he was conceived around the time i was born, in a sommarstuga in dalarna. i sent sms messages to his mother and brother. i didn't call them. i didn't have the emotional energy to talk to them. i feel very shitty that i am here alone, far away from alex's family. i literally COULDN'T go visit. i have no money for it. not even space on my credit card. nothing. for alex's birthday last year, i took my dad and sister out to eat a nice dinner at a swedish restaurant in manhattan called "aquavit". we toasted alex. this year, i am all alone, hungover and feeling like hell on alex's birthday. the third anniversary of his death is on the 10th, a sunday. i don't wanna be alone that day. maybe i will volunteer with the dog shelter and then have a special day with my dad. maybe we can go back to the brooklyn botanic garden. i think my dad said that the roses are blooming there now.

it's been raining, and the ground is wet and ripe for digging. i need to bury moritz. i will do it in the middle of the night tonight. moritz is the squirrel i tried to save last fall. i had found him in front of the tree in my front yard, wheezing and not running away when i came near. i rushed him to a rehabber in manhattan, but the rehabber couldn't save him. he died the next day. he's been in cold storage all winter and spring. it's time to lay him to rest under the tree where i found him, in the neighborhood he called home. by the way, i found yet ANOTHER dead baby bird laying in the middle of the sidewalk. i put it on the grass to the side. i also spotted a limping stray cat, but i could not get close enough to catch it. it ran-limped away. the spca probably wouldn' t be able to find the cat, so i didn't call them. i also found a rooster inside an electrical power station by the train station near my house, and i didn't know who to call besides the farm sanctuary, but they are located upstate. i dunno. seems like these animals are hell-bent on crossing paths with me when they're in need of help (and i often feel helpless to assist them). i'm very reluctant to call animal care and control for these issues, since animals sent to them usually end up euthanized. i dunno if the spca could have picked up the rooster. hopefully, another good samaritan helped save the rooster.

i was very sick from a hangover today. i went to a wild party last night, and ended up drinking cuba libres and spiked punch. i was as drunk as a dog. i also drank on friday night with the crazy ladies from the job i quit last august. i didn't get drunk, and i didn't even want to drink that night. i just didn't want to have to explain myself to them. i felt ashamed and embarrassed. but my health is more important than keeping face. i need to tell everyone that i am not going to be doing social things revolving around drinking anymore. i wanna see my friends, but i don't wanna drink. or, if i do go to a party, i wanna come prepared with some bottles of stewart's or boylan diet black cherry sodas. i fucking LOVE my sodas, guys. i need to be vocal and honest with others about my drinking problem. i need to take good care of myself. the good thing out of this is that none of the drinking i did this weekend was alone. i used to drink alone a lot. that's how i did most of my drinking: sitting alone outside on the stoop at night. no more drinking alone. no more social drinking. no more drinking. i love my sodas.

i love you, alex. i feel so empty, and i feel so far away from you emotionally. i hate feeling like this. i hope that i can have a conversation with you tonight. today is such a special day.