not falling down

I had two fears come true in the last twenty-four hours. This morning, I wasn’t looking, and for the first time ever I got on the wrong bus for work. It took me another three hours just to get back to where I started. I don’t know how late I’ll be here tonight.

And last night my fish finally winged his way to The Land Where Fish Are Eternally Blessed. I don’t really know why–this was about the best his life has ever been. I’ve been changing his water regularly, feeding him once a day, and he hasn’t been moved in weeks.

When he first started acting oddly, Maria and I googled frantically for betta diseases, and checked him for all the symptoms. There was a little while when we thought he had a fungal infection, but we proved ourselves wrong. For all appearances, he was a perfectly healthy fish, except didn’t swim around–he just hovered at the top or sank to the bottom of the bowl. He was still breathing when I left for work yesterday morning, and he wasn’t when I got home.

I never liked the idea of flushing fish, so we gave him a burial, in a small cardboard box lined with paper towels. Maria suggested putting some of his things in with him, which we did: some of the red glass stones from the bottom of his bowl, and the little ceramic tank goblin.

We closed the box, said thank you and goodbye, and slid him into the trash chute. I think it came open on the way down, because it made a lot of noise, like stones hitting the walls. I was proud of this; he went out like a rock star.

He was only a fish, but since I’m a human, I ascribed to him more importance than fish usually get. He was a constant in almost-a-year of rapidly changing roommates. He was a dependent at a time when I very much needed to take care of something, as a means of being okay again myself. This was something Amanda knew, magically, empathically. In three years of gifts, he was the best she ever gave to me. I very nearly named him Hope.

I might get another betta eventually, but not until I have a bigger tank, a heater and a water filter. Some of the stuff I read while I was looking for symptoms the other night made me wonder how he lived this long at all (but then again, I’ve wondered how he lived through a lot of things).

He only started really flaring at a mirror a week and a half ago: he was learning to stand up for himself. When I had loud music on near him, he’d dance to it, out of time. He was quite a lot like me, or what I’d like to be: shy, red, beautiful, effortlessly able to forget.

Idaho died.

So Richmond suddenly has a coffee house. It’s called Live Wire, and they’ve got a logo and that browny-orange paint on the walls. There’s a stage up front and an XBox in the back, and they’re so hip they’re standard.

This is distinctly unfair. I’m moving to Louisville more or less for good in two weeks, and my mom is selling her house, so I’ll probably never live in Richmond for any length of time again. And now they get a coffee house, when I’ve been hoping and wishing for something of the sort for like ten years.

It looks like it’s doing good business, anyway. I can only imagine the hipster pressure that must have been building up all this time, without a hot spot in which to smoke and chill, and it’s clearly on the loose now. Two of Caitlan’s friends (well, my friends too) played guitar and sang their original songs tonight as Horn-Rimmed Pop Explosion, which is not a bad band name at all, and I was happy to see that Erin Mic (another GSP refugee) works there now. It beats Wal-Mart.

So yeah, we went to see that, and then I came back here and gave Idaho’s bowl a thorough scrubbing. I realize that he’s a betta and used to dirty water, and could probably care less if his bowl is sparkling, so it’s much more about my aesthetic sensibilities than his quality of life. Then again, so is owning a fish.

And for the record, I can’t believe I’ve kept him alive this long (or rather, that he’s stayed alive in spite of me). I know bettas are hardy, but my family home is known in fish circles as The Pit Of Death By Morning. We used to kill fish faster than they made new ones. I thought it was a religious obligation.

Coffee house hangouts! Fish stories! I’m such a damn blogger. If I start recommending obscure brands of spinach, please shoot me.

Ultimate Frisbee is the new running. I get about the same workout, but it takes three times as long, and the whole affair is a lot dirtier. I also get to publicly embarrass myself, in that I (really, seriously) can’t throw or catch. On the plus side, I keep taking my falls on the same two places, so I bleed a lot!

Saturday night was the First Annual Drama Formal, and also the public debut of DJ Jazzy O’Badkins (that’s me). It was mostly cute little froshers, and they only stayed for maybe an hour of the allotted three, but at least they were there for tracks 6 - 18, what I consider the best part of the mix (on which I spent about six painstaking hours). You can see the HTML version if you want. Yes, I started it with Chumbawamba. I was being retro! I make no apologies! Nobody was there yet anyway!

My baby sister Caitlan, who wields the powers of all Adkinses combined, has decided to go to Georgetown, back in the little hamlet where we were all born. I still would have liked it if she’d picked Centre, but now I can say that our family has conquered all three important Kentuckian smallliberalartscolleges. O’Doyle rules!

The heat appears to operate entirely independent of my control, turning itself on sometime around 10 am and turning itself off around 10 pm. The knobs on some of the radiators don’t turn at all,and the ones that do turn have no effect. I wasn’t under the impression that this was how radiators worked! Evening is interesting, at least, as I have to open windows around 6 and turn the space heater on again by 11.

Things that have distracted me lately:

• “…our machines have to keep grinding over it, the grit in their backwash sandblasting the blood away.”

• “Ah, it’s just someone sitting there, because you don’t see dead bodies, you just don’t.”
• The same girl who recommended Anthropology told me to look for this band Relient K. She didn’t mention that they were a Christian band at the time, which is probably a good thing; I enjoy being Catholic, but I don’t listen to Christian music (anymore) because, as a rule, it sucks heartily on anything you have available. It wasn’t until I borrowed their CD from Ginger, my Joe Egg spouse, that I realized they a) rocked and b) had songs about Jesus and stuff. Then I got to this track called “Down In Flames,” which is a straight up slam of Christians in general by a self-aware Christian band. It’s even got a disclaimer at the end. I can’t get enough.
• Also, they have a song about Lion-O.
• As the only one of my friends still here for the break, I’m taking care not only of Idaho but of Meghan’s turtle and Ken’sred-bellied frogs (plus their cricket-based food source). The resulting situation can be seen camwards.

if Ihad a penny for my thoughts
I’d be a millionaire

Today is my brother Ian’s birthday! Happy birthday, Ian! Ian is no longer a teenager, and if hewere predictable he’d probably stop stealing people’s lawn ornaments now. Ian is anything butpredictable, though, so he may or may not continue stealing lawn ornaments. He’s amadman!

(I’d link you to his website there, but he currently has a beautifully written and really sweetpiece about me on his front page and I’m too embarrassed. Remind me again another time. It’s a neatsite, and has dinosaurs and spacemen.)

More ways in which the world is a wonderful place: Ken blew me a new fishbowl! Out ofglass! Ken can do anything. The bowl is huge and perfect, and Idaho tends to get lost in itand do backflips. Were I to spontaneously develop gills, I think I’d move in next to him.

ALSO! As you may have noticed from the link above, Ken finally obeyed my command and got himself a LiveJournalor something. Hooray for you, Ken! Now make me a sandwich.

two guns, botharms
feelin’ like Fonzie

First: Hooray, a boring fish entry!

Idaho is… well, pretty fishlike, intelligence-wise. He’s beginning to learn that when I sprinklesomething in his water he can probably eat it, but I’m not sure whether he’s actually made anyconnection or just goes up for air at regular intervals.

It’s been a long time since I had to take care of anything (even if such care is really minimal),and he’s a gorgeous animal. I wish I could get him to flare up and show off his green undercolorsmore, but when I do the “look there’s another fish” trick with a mirror, he tries to run away asoften as not. His bowl is maybe five inches in diameter, so that’s a tough trick to pull off.

So he’s stupid but lovable, occasionally spastic and a bit of a wuss. Either he’s already pickingup my personality or I’m picking out the bits of behavior I want to see, but he’s still a greatcomfort to me. I almost named him Hope, but I think that would have been a little too obvious.Idaho suits him much better anyway.

Next: Hooray, a boring running entry!

Jon kindly pointed out today that I’m not sweating as much when I get back as I used to. It’s true,though I’m inclined to attribute it to cooler weather, but I am going farther and faster than Iused to. The increase is a lot more noticeable than it was last fall. You’d think I was running twoand a half times as often, or something.

I’ve picked out a route that takes me down to Danville High–through most of downtown, but on aside road–and then back up probably another third of a mile the other way. The hills are fairlypainful in places, and I have to run on the “wrong” side a lot if I want a sidewalk, but at least Idon’t get smiled at as often. I stillhave no idea how far I’m running, but it’s farther than it used to be.

I realized as I finished this up that running and fish are two things that cause my body to becomequite upset with me, though the latter comes more from eating them than feeding them. I’mincreasingly convinced that I’m fish-intolerant. I like fish, and even if I didn’t I’d stilltry to do the Catholic thing during Lent, so that kind of sucks. Add my cat allergies and you’vegot a regular collection of Things I Like That My Body Hates. Which isn’t a bad name for analbum.

Meta-journal! My entries are a lot longer when I’ve already run and feel warmed up and loose, andthey tend to contain fewer italics too. I should take up yoga.

I kickit root down
I put my root down

Amanda and Jon got me a betta! Like the fish! They just about made my year. I haven’t decided whatto name it yet. They inform me it’s a boy, but I think it’s going to get some kind of proper nounanyway, so that may not matter. (Does it ever, with fish?)

I’ll put up pictures soon, but right now I’m enjoying Amanda’s mullet too much. After that I think the fish may just take overeverything.

“The Fish Take Over Everything” is a great name for a band.

Update 1614 hrs: Idaho! (is the name of the fish!)