Pensive

I had not been emotionally well for days. It may have been chemical, a factor I could have been considering too heavily. Chemicals, despite being internal processes, are mentally external. You wouldn't blame someone with a flu from being less than their charming selves. So too a mismanagement of dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin should hold me largely blameless.

It could as well have been, or additionally been, that this was Melissa's birthday. She died years ago, but it still feels fresh. I have not ceased to be angry with her, and I don't know that I ever will be, but it is a low simmer most of the time. I remember the adventures we shared, before her mental illness became too pronounced and she ceased her vigor in fighting it. When her addiction could be a quirk of her personality, her survival miraculous in the way of Hunter S. Thompson and Ozzy Osbourne. That is exactly what did end up killing her, and there is nothing to be done now. I saw posts from our mutual friends, noting that they had gone to her grave a year ago. I wouldn't be doing that this year. It is a group activity, otherwise I would visit only if I happened to be in the area and in the mood. It is not a flattering thing to say about myself, but I don't need to be flattered here. I don't have to be okay that one of my best friends as a teenager overdosed on heroin and I am now older than she will ever be.

Additionally, and more immediately personally, this is the day where Amber and I had accepted our kitten Jareth into our home, what she calls his "gotcha day." It would be a month before we got his diagnosis of feline leukemia and only a few more before lymphoma ravaged him and we had to have him put down to end his agony. I could do nothing for Melissa's death, and it came, to me, quickly. Jareth, though, I cared for most of his life. His death was in front of me, by my consent. I try not to think of that moment, but it does come to me, particularly with my chemicals out of whack. I look through pictures of other times and he pops up, riddled with tumors that bloomed within a week and a half. The despair of his final few days. The hope that he would pass peacefully, and Amber wouldn't have to make the decision for euthanasia.

Amber met Melissa a few times, but they were not friends. They were not enemies, but they weren't anything much. While we share most of our friends, Melissa not around enough for that attachment. Jareth was Amber's baby cat. Jareth loved her more than he loved the whole rest of the world. She cradled him, and he adored it, asking to be held and carried, his paws on your shoulder or either side of your neck. It has been rare in her life that something she loved has died. She had cats as a child, as have most, and they have met their ends, but I don't think it was the same. She didn't raise them and invest so much of herself. His initial diagnosis revved up her caring, since she loved him on borrowed time, and it would be through her dedication that he would live.

Only he didn't live, because there was nothing more she could have done. If she could have any wish, she said, she would have this year back. I reminded her that this would mean she had to replay his death, too, but she thought she could have caught it sooner. There was not a time in his life that he didn't have feline leukemia. I don't think that the lymphoma would have been preventable, but her retrospective hope is that I am wrong. In absence of genies, we can't know.

I can about handle my own depression. Saturday, Amber cuddled on top of me as I wept, but I could not attribute it to one cause or other. It was depression and it would find its excuse. Amber reminded me of Jareth. I reminded her of Melissa. I bawled my eyes out. That was that.

We saw her mother for lunch, then some light shopping. It might have been better not to do this. I was in no state for it, but we went anyway. It beat staying in the house, amplifying the other's malaise.

The next day, we go to Woodstock with Sarah T. She had never been there and suggested the trip. I am fine on the drive there. Being in Woodstock, I keep being reminded of Melissa. She used to pull her friends out of school and drive them here. There was nothing much to do but visit a few hippie shops, smoke up, and go home but it was Woodstock. Now, there aren't even head shops. The closest thing that exists is a CBD cupcake shop that replaced the Tibetan goods. I assume she would be affronted, and the cupcakes would not take the edge off that.

Melissa had brought me here a few times -- though I was too good a kid to skip school for this and didn't smoke. With her was the first time I ever visited. Her teenaged ghost lingers, commenting on the giant drip candle or accosting the hippies (themselves replaced by hipster gentrification).

Amber and I are poor company, distracting ourselves and each other while Sarah shops.

When over lunch Amber feeds me a line about how people care about my books despite the evidence to the contrary, I snipped at her and at once regret it. In my mood, I couldn't listen to something schmaltzy. I didn't want to listen to career advice while I had my coconut chicken. I wanted the food to elevate my mood enough that I didn't feel I was sabotaging a summer's day. I know how much the publishing world, at least the section I occupy, sucks. Sarah tries to ally with Amber in this, but she has read nothing I've written and so can't speak to my quality.

Sarah the walking has worn her out and we took her back to her car.

Soon in Xenology: Writing. The Sheet.

last watched: The Haunting of Hill House
reading: Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates