it’s just not great, i’m not enjoying it. but it’s easy, so there’s that.

last night, reading this deeply underwhelming book, i came to a passage where she describes the horror of having to put down her deceased mother’s beloved horse. like every other event in the book, it was deeply melodramatic and overwrought. unlike every other event in the book, however, it had me in tears. fucking bitch.

the horse is old, neglected, and dying slowly, and the narrator finally makes the agonizing decision to put her down. she, her husband, and her brother lead the gaunt, freezing horse out to a tree, tie it to the tree, and shoot the horse square between the eyes, just as they’ve been instructed to do. they could wait until a vet is able to come out, but she decides that she doesn’t want to make the horse suffer any longer, that they’ll do it themselves, no matter how hard it is. they’re told, by people who know, that shooting it right between the eyes is the most humane way to do it, that the horse will die instantly.

but it doesn’t. it starts freaking out, while her brother empties the rest of his guns bullets into his head. the narrator, her husband, and her brother are panicking and screaming, as the horse screams and fights, confused at why they’ve hurt it like this. finally, the horse collapses, struggling for a moment before finally dying. it’s a truly awful scene.

of course, it forced me to remember all the animals whose deaths i’ve experienced, and i hated it.

• Phineas was a budgie who died when i accidentally left the door of his cage open. we actually never got confirmation of this, but the cats must have gotten him. all we found was a pile of feathers. i killed him, because i was careless.
• Rusty, was a profoundly broken dog we thought we might be able to take in when his owners couldn’t handle him anymore. he would attack unexpectedly, even when he was being pet, a consequence of abuse he’d suffered. we lived in a two-story house, and because of pain in his legs he was unable to climb the stairs and follow us when we went up. he was beside himself when left alone downstairs, but he would also attack if we tried to pick him up. no one else would take him, including shelters, because of his issues, so we felt that we had to put him down. the couple we took him from were still, technically, his owners, so the vet had to get permission from them when we took him to be put down. one of them had second thoughts, and the vet wasn’t entirely uncomfortable with the situation, but eventually it was done. the vet assured us that this was the right decision. it didn’t make me feel any better about it.
• Norman was a cat we adopted from the same couple. he was so, so fucked up. someone had removed all of his claws, front and back, so he hated to go into the litter box. in addition to this, whoever had neutered him had similarly botched that. in spite of that, he loved people more than anything, and he fucking hated other cats, except for Maxxx, who he’d lived with in cages at the couple’s house. (because Norman pissed all over the place, they just kept them both in cages 24/7.) he was sickly from the minute he came to live with us, but he lived for a couple of years in which he was pretty happy, pissing all over the house and jumping up into every lap he encountered. finally, one day, he went behind the television and wouldn’t come out, moaning sadly. we took him to the vet and were told what we already knew, and then we let him go.
• Chief was my partner’s childhood cockatiel. she was fussy and stand-offish. one morning, i found her on the bottom of her cage. i knew i needed to tell my partner before i left for school, so i went upstairs and shook her awake. as she came to, she saw my hand held out to her, her dead childhood pet in my palm. i didn’t say a word. there was, probably, a better way to let her know.
• Chester was yet another one we adopted from the couple that Norman and Rusty came from. he was a sad, naked Quaker parrot who was missing all of his feathers except for his wings, head and tail. he had trouble maintaining balance and was extremely timid. he hated being touched so much that his head was often covered in pinfeathers. we always left his cage door open during the day, because we could be confident he’d never leave it. though he was able to fly, he would just sleep inside or on top of the cage, and he liked being allowed to come in and out as he pleased. occasionally, he would get spooked and fly to another cage, but he never caused trouble with the other birds. he just wanted to be left alone. while i was out of town, at school, my partner let me know that she had found him, dead, underneath the cage of one of the other parrots. she sent me a picture of his body.
• we knew better, but we stupidly, impulsively bought a pair of lovebirds from Petco, Dynamite and PJ. Dynamite was bonded to PJ, but PJ rejected her, actively trying to hurt her, and we had to separate them. PJ had rejected Dynamite because she was sick, and she quickly died. she cried for him constantly after they were separated. we adopted another mate for him, Darcy, who he bonded to quickly. when we had to move to Oklahoma for graduate school, we gave PJ and Darcy to a neighbor of my partner’s parents, who left their cage door open and they both flew away. it was summer, but they probably didn’t last long in northern Indiana.
• Zeppo was a huge orange cat. another impulsive addition, but he was an adoption. the woman said he was scheduled to be put down the next day, which may or may not have been true, but it didn’t matter. he was so big and so terrified of us, we had to take him home. he was so scare of us, he hid in a box in the extra bedroom for days. when he came out, he wouldn’t get off the bed, and he even shit and pissed on the bed, even though there was a litter box in the room and the door was shut. after the rough start, he was the sweetest, most gentle cat we ever had. we let my partner’s parents take him, though, because another one of our cats (who was less than half his size) bullied him mercilessly. he was very happy there, quickly becoming my partner’s mom’s favorite. they told us when he got sick, and also that they didn’t want to put him down yet. one day, they said, he let out a sharp cry, and then found him dead. i don’t trust them at all about this kind of thing, so i’m convinced he suffered unnecessarily because they didn’t want to go through the pain of euthanizing him.
• Whitey was another budgie. she was not a nice bird. she picked constant fights with all of the other birds, and she bullied them away from the food, even when she didn’t want it. however, when Phineas came, they bonded instantly, and were never apart. she never flew, like the rest of the budgies, and eventually we realized that she was hurt, not necessarily mean, though there was nothing we could do about it. she started to have even more trouble moving, so we moved her and Phineas into a smaller cage. after i accidentally caused Phineas’ death, she was alone, but we left her in the smaller cage by herself, since she never liked the other budgies, anyway. she had a stroke, and became unable to move hardly at all, so we moved her to a tiny cage, where she could just be on a flat surface and lay down when she needed to and her food was at chest-level. after another stroke made even that too much, we used instructions online to construct a ‘birdy gas chamber’ (a cut up plastic gallon milk container, vinegar and baking soda (to produce Co2), and a tube to connect the two). she went quickly, fortunately.
• Grady was a cat, and he was my greatest  pal. he died suddenly last year. i don’t know a better way to say it: my heart was broken. i won’t try write about it, but i took him to the vet and had him put down. his death was excruciatingly painful, but very quick, something that i’m both devastated by and grateful for. he was the best one.
• Fedor, another budgie, was our first, awful attempt at using the ‘birdy gas chamber.’ we found him, alive, on the bottom of the cage one morning, and it was clear he was almost gone. we searched for a way to euthanize him quickly and humanely and quickly constructed the crude device. we were both crying, but we knew we were doing the right thing. we laid a hand towel down on the bottom of the milk container, so that he would have a soft bed to drift way on. as we held the tube in place on both ends, waiting until we felt like it must be enough time, we noticed that Fedor was moving, which was profoundly distressing, as it suggested that he was suffering. we forced ourselves to hold firm, sure that this wast the best thing to do. however, Fedor’s body suddenly heaved against the side of the container, and through the translucent plastic we could clearly see him gasping for breath, his beak opening repeatedly opening as wide as it could looking for air. we panicked, not knowing what to do. eventually, he collapsed, and we held the apparatus in place for another couple minutes, because we knew we couldn’t start again if we opened it and found him still breathing.
• Pope was Fedor’s mate. (Fedor was gay.) Pope wasn’t really into Fedor that way, it seemed, but he was happy to just hang out and be pals. Pope was a wild man, though; always darting around the cage and running up to everybody and checking everything out. it’s probably what made him so attractive to Fedor. one afternoon, i found him on the bottom of the cage, struggling to move. i carefully took him from the cage and called my partner for help. the cats, particularly Maxxx, were very interested, and i had to repeatedly shoo them away. we debated what to do (taking him to the vet seemed pointless, but we needed to do something), and, as she frantically searched online and we tried to figure out the best course of action, he died in my hand, leaving Fedor alone.
• Odin, the rabbit, only had one eye (hence the name, which i always hated- i preferred to call him O). we never knew why, as the people we adopted him from found him like that, running around outside their church. the vet said he was probably born without it, and the breeder just set him loose, since he was no good without the eye. he had chronic pain from fused vertebrae, but he did fine with the pain medication he received, until he suffered a stroke. the stroke slowed him down, but he adjusted, but then another stroke left him unable to even control his movement, so we rushed him to an 24-hour emergency clinic on a Saturday night. the rabbit vet, located almost three hours away, in north Atlanta, wouldn’t even be in the office until monday, so we had to make a decision, and we decided to let him go. it took more than an hour, as the vet had to give him multiple shots (‘enough to put down a twenty-five pound dog’). after the first one, he stopped twitching in fear, his body going slack in my hands, but he just kept breathing. the vet kept giving him shots, and he just kept breathing, slowly and deliberately. the vet, who i couldn’t stop thinking was doing something wrong (a real vet- one who was able to euthanize animals quickly and humanely, like they deserved -wouldn’t be working at this busted-ass all night clinic, i reasoned), just kept repeating, “This is unbelievable,” and shaking his head. O’s tongue hung limp out of his open mouth. it was really big, i remember thinking. the vet took him out of the room for something; i can’t remember what he said, but most likely something upsetting. as he walked out, he repeated how unbelievable this whole thing was. there was a dog that just kept barking, yelping mournfully. i kept having to leave the room, ostensibly to get tissues for my partner and i, but mostly so i could let my feelings explode for a minute, before pushing them down and returning. he brought O back, still breathing, and we just stood there, waiting for this little bunny to succumb to the massive amounts of drugs in his body. i couldn’t stop thinking about Fedor, and what he might have been thinking as he gasped for breath in that milk container; trying to understand why we were doing this. i wondered if O had that same thought. finally, mercifully, he stopped breathing. as the dog in the back continued crying, my partner and i numbly paid the bill and drove home to Sasha, his mate. “This is unbelievable.”
• Winnie was yet another budgie, and she became egg bound. i found her, on the bottom of the cage, with the egg half out of her. i did what you’re supposed to do, which is take them to the sink and try to use warm water to massage the egg free, but it was no use. as i gently tried to work the thing loose, she passed.
• Norman’s friend, Maxxx, went before he did. he was also very sick, suffering from a rare virus that only dogs usually get that atrophied his muscles. the vet told us that he would need to take steroids every day, and that, though it would shorten his life, made it possible for him to have a real life. every morning and every night, while i fed the other cats (including Norman, who could only eat wet food), Maxxx waited patiently for me to prepare his special food, with his meds mixed in. his breath always smelled like death, and every night he would catch mice (small cat toys) and bring them to me, while i slept. i woke up each morning to an small pile of mice that i would then scatter back around the house. he liked to come up and lay on the pillow, right next to my head. the same cat that bullied Zeppo also picked on Maxxx, so that was another thing to worry about, but he was always happy. the only time he was truly upset was if he got locked inside a room. being inside a cage for years caused him to freak out any time he was shut up in an enclosed space. but then his health began to deteriorate rapidly, and anything he ate made him sick. once something made him sick, he wouldn’t even touch it anymore, so we bought all kinds of food, including human baby food. when he would eat half or even all of a new food, we would be so happy, but then he would throw it up and refuse to eat that food again. he got weaker and weaker, and on a sunday night, we knew he had to go to the vet the next morning, probably to be put down. i went to bed that night, and i shut Maxxx in the room with me. he didn’t cry at all, he just got up on the bed and stared out the window. at one point, he came up and laid on the pillow, like he had always done, pressing his head softly into mine, while i asked him to forgive me for not being able to take care of him anymore. the next morning, i was woken by his sad, strangled yelp. i shot up and to my feet, as though there was something i could do. we went downstairs, and i went through the motions, preparing food for him that i knew he wouldn’t eat (and he didn’t). as we waited for my partner to wake up, and the vet to open, we sat in the darkness together and he let me pet him. i didn’t use a carrier to take him to the vet, i just carried him in my arms. the vet took one look at him and said, “it’s time,” which we were immensely grateful for. after the shot, he went so quickly. my partner left the room with the vet, so that i could be alone with him, and i just told him, over and over, how sorry i was. i was terrified to leave, because i couldn’t stop thinking that, somehow, he might still be alive, and that, if i left, i’d be abandoning him there, paralyzed and terrified. i carefully watched his stomach, and i kept thinking that it might be moving, that he might still be breathing, ever so slightly. when i finally left, i was able to bypass everyone and go straight to the car, because my partner had long since paid the bill and was waiting for me. Maxxx was the first animal whose death i’d experienced since childhood, and that fact, combined with what a big part of my life he had been (taking care of him actually had become a significant part of my identity, by that point), made his passing particularly difficult. my dad actually died less than two months after Maxxx, and i felt real guilt over the fact that i only cried once for my dad (as he was dying, right in front of us, i had an explosion of feeling that i quickly pushed down), but i cried many times for Maxxx, and they were all intense, exhausting episodes. in the end, i failed him. in the end, i fail them all.

so a shitty book, with a surprisingly effective passage. 😑

Dr. Kerry’s mouth hung open. this, apparently, is what you get for trying to help someone out.

i looked away quickly, realizing that my staring at him was making things all the more uncomfortable. the liberal arts assistant continued typing, curtly. it wasn’t clear to me if she recognized how uncomfortable her statement had made everyone.

on the one hand, i guess i could understand. she must have seen an unending parade of students, shamed by parents/teachers/peers, who had made similarly sincere pledges to ‘get it together,’ but who also had no actual, concrete plan for how to accomplish such a nebulous goal. at a certain point, empathy has to turn into exasperation, and then harden into disgust. i can’t imagine that, on the surface, i appeared any different. it was a miscalculation to assume that this faculty member shared her assessment, but maybe she’d also had enough of these mush-headed humanities intellectuals who didn’t have to deliver the cold, hard facts to students as often as she did, and just didn’t care if we were both uncomfortable.

in retrospect, things had gone too easy. i had prepared myself for some real unpleasantness, and i’d been surprised at how smooth it had been. Dr. Kerry had, in fact, remembered me, his face breaking into a smile of recognition when he saw me standing in his office doorway. it felt good, and it felt even better when he expressed optimism at the idea that i might, in fact, be able to dig out of the hole i had dug for myself. i suppose it was easier for someone who had never seen me in a non-english context to imagine that, if i could simply master my anxieties (which were vague and nondescript, to him) then surely someone with my smarts should have no problem. i could just buckle down, suck it up, do some other appropriately vague and nondescript personal work, and things would simply work out, because that’s what things do for good folks who we don’t really know. the fact that i still couldn’t make eye contact with him, my attention continually returning to the multiple copies of the Riverside Chaucer on his desk, might have just seemed like a quirk. no reason that should get in the way of my comeback story. it felt good, like maybe this wasn’t just setting myself up for a final failure. (honestly, i was shocked that i hadn’t flunked out. i really thought that i had.)

when he wanted to walk down to the office of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, i was really grateful. i knew i was going to have to go down there, but i had imagined i would take another day and get myself prepared for it. i wasn’t prepared to go there right away, but this was also a good opportunity, because Dr. Kerry would probably do most of the explaining for me. this really was going so much smoother than i had anticipated.

Dr. Kerry’s familiar, warm welcome had made me reconsider a few things. mostly, it made me remember the time when he called my girlfriend, wondering after me, after i had disappeared during the last spring semester i’d registered for classes. i’d repeated my signature move: registering for a full-time course load, attended the first day of each class, then never set foot on campus again for the rest of the semester. he called Amy (my girlfriend at the time), because she was my emergency contact number, and i wasn’t responding to his calls. Amy played his message for me, and i literally pulled the covers over my head and tried to pretend that i didn’t hear. she scolded me, saying that it was inconsiderate to not respond, since he was going out of his way to check up on me. i replied that it’s his job; he’s my advisor, he has to make the effort, he’s just checking a box.

and that was it. i’d flunked out, and i wasn’t going back. i assumed i’d flunked out. i had certainly given it as good an effort as you could reasonably expect from a person.

now, however, i was reconsidering. he remembered me, and he even remembered the circumstances of my ignominious exit from the university with a surprising (and embarrassing) degree of specificity, though he addressed them with a generous non-specificity. it seemed like Amy was right. Dr. Kerry seemed legitimately invested in me and my success, and i had been very inconsiderate. once all the adrenaline wore off, i needed to remember to feel regret, and maybe think of something nice to do for him that i’d surely never do.

i felt energized as we walked down the hall to the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences office. this couldn’t have gone any better. i recognized the assistant, as i’d had numerous interactions with her- dropping classes, providing proof that i’d been advised and could be allowed to register for classes (required for students on academic probation), etc. -which was concerning, but fortunately she didn’t seem to recognize me. one nice thing about being a massive fuck-up: you’re never an isolated case.

she confirmed that i was still on academic probation and, somehow, not expelled from the university, and i was really starting to believe that i was going to get away with this shit. Dr. Kerry explained the plan we (mostly he) had come up with, that i would only be taking two classes at a time (at least to start), so that i wouldn’t over-extend myself, and the classes i was planning on enrolling in for the spring semester. it would take longer to get myself out of the hole, but the priority, at this point, was to keep from overwhelming myself. it was a safe, pragmatic, and level-headed plan. i felt pretty good about it, and life in general, at that moment.

her eyes moved back and forth between the advising document Dr. Kerry had given her and my checkered academic record, displayed on her computer screen. my eyes continually scanned the room, repeatedly landing on an empty box of yellow highlighters on the supply shelf behind her chair. Dr. Kerry stood in the doorway to the larger main office, but i don’t know what he was looking at.

‘you’ve failed Spanish 204 three times.’

she was probably talking to me.

‘are you sure you want to take that your first semester back?’

instinctively, i looked to Dr. Kerry, like he was going to answer for me. he probably would have, actually, but i spoke up for myself.

‘it’s offered, since its the spring semester. it will be good to get it out of the way, and since the public speaking class is not very demanding, i should be able to concentrate on it.’

she didn’t seem satisfied with my answer, but she began to enter information. this was an unpleasant moment, but i had acquitted myself adequately, i thought. she stopped typing and looked at Dr. Kerry.

‘students on probation often have a flawed sense of what they’re going to be able to handle.’

Dr. Kerry’s jaw dropped. he clearly had no idea how to respond. i mean, this was his co-worker, and she was probably correct, but i was sitting right there. ‘students on probation’ was actually in the room with them. what was he supposed to say in this situation?

a few days later, after cycling and recycling through my feelings, i briefly landed on anger at the assistant. like, ‘fuck you, lady. you don’t know me. “students on probation.” you mean me, right? i’m right here, bitch.’ the brief surge of anger was sufficient to make me share the episode with my current girlfriend, because it was strong enough to make me feel that, objectively, she was in the wrong, and telling my girlfriend about it would give her the opportunity to take my side (which, of course, she did), not just because she’s my girlfriend, but because i’m right, and this woman was unambiguously wrong. no matter how correct her assessment of me and my situation was, it was seriously a dick-move to express it at that moment, to put myself and Dr. Kerry in that situation.

Dr. Kerry wasn’t able to make any words come out of his mouth, and we all just sat and stood there, awkwardly. i tried to imagine what he was thinking. i tried to imagine what she was thinking. i’m still trying to imagine these things.