103: Solve a mystery or re-write history

It has been the a fairly high ranking on the level of strange days. This after I allowed the entire Wednesday to decompress from the semester.

I was awakened this morning by what sounded like a frantic commotion on the main floor. I've grown oddly accustomed to tuning such things out, so I paid little notice and rolled over and went back to sleep. I'd be pretty useless in a housefire.

A little while later I got a knock on my door. Brandon. He explains, pretty bluntly, that his cat Rocky died earlier that morning. It was really shocking. There had been some signs, some stomach troubles over the years, but I guess we didn't see them as urgent warning signs, and even trips to the vet never yielded anything seeming severe. Last night before I went to bed, he seemed to be coughing something up, and this apparently continued all through the night. Sometime around 8, he was gone.

It's hard to take care of pets, to know how serious something is or what to do about it. Would a trip to the veterinary emergency room have saved the cat? (Are they open in the middle of the night? You'd think.) That's the type of thing that's gonna linger a while, although the general consensus is that there wasn't anything we could do. Maybe that's a too-casual viewpoint, but it's at least a lot more comforting than "If you'd taken the cat to Mississauga at 3 AM he'd still be alive." I was having this very discussion with Manda a few weeks ago about pet health.

Anyway, that's sort of set the grim tone of the day. Brandon has gone through a range of emotions. Not outwardly, but he's described them to me. At first he felt that guilt but he seems to have gotten to a place where he can start to move on a little bit. Obviously it hurts. He was as attached to that cat as any person has ever been to an animal without it being too creepy. I often wonder whether animals feel love and affection or they just respond to our conditioning, but in either case you could see the bond between Brandon and Rocky not only in the way Rocky would always concern himself with Brandon's whereabouts, but the way he acted when Brandon was not around... very despondent, listless.

I believe in being honest about death, and part of what bothers me about this one was that I used to kid around a lot with Brandon about how Rocky was my enemy, how I hated him and all that stuff. The truth is, I'm a guy who loves his shtick and that was some of the classic stuff. And while it was partially grounded in reality - Rocky could be irritating, he could be inconvenient and annoying - I appreciated his presence. He was a nice, well-mannered cat. He wasn't quiet, and that was part of my problem with him, and whenever I would taunt Brandon about him I tended to lay it on thick. I regret that those jokes are now gone, and I'm sad that the poor cat, who really was a sweetheart (don't tell my brother I said that) is gone after only 11 years with us.

My plan for today was to go to Toronto and meet up with Jasmin, whom I hadn't seen since the thick of winter. I was nearly an hour late, due mostly to poor planning on my part, as well as the craziness of the morning.

We met up at a Second Cup, and then went on a lengthy walk around the neighbourhood that took us from Spadina to Yonge and back. We talked school, life, poetry, and the reason why I'd come - to Fake ID's. She had a bizarre request. She's going to the opera with a friend, and got discount tickets because she was a student, but her friend is over 30, so... apparently, since he vaguely resembles me, and I'm a student, my ID is a "just in case" contingency.

But yeah, we spent a lot of time talking poetry. Recently I've kinda been getting down on the entire form, just because I was beginning to doubt whether I had anything interesting to say within it anymore, and whether I ever had to begin with. Maybe University, which initially infused me with appreciation for it, has sucked the love right out of me. (That sounds graphic.)

Well last night, Robyn gave me an offer I wish I'd been able to accept, to come to Guelph and do her poetry-appreciation radio program. Like, and read some stuff I'd written. Plus, I'd get to hang out with her for a long while, which is always nice.

Thursdays being as busy for me as they are, even without Fake ID's, cat deaths and job fairs, I was unable to accept, but leaving the door open for a later appearance after the summer smester has begun and I feel comfortable ditching class to read poetry over the airwaves to potentially hundreds of stoned Guelph students. Because I think that idea is far too cool to pass up, and also it's always important for me to be there for my friends, because I may need some of them to be there for me someday.

The last thing of the day was the job fair, which I was dismissive about beforehand, because I have a relaly, exceptionally low opinion of the Sheridan Job Centre. But it's not like I've got anything else going on, so I went and handed out a couple resumes and got some information, so hopefully something comes from that. I just haven't got any delusions about it.

I need to relax tomorrow, and perhaps burn off some of that pesky to-do list. It's gotten a little lengthy, but manageable. This should be a productive weekend. Maybe.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto