A Special Day

Today would have been Vally’s adoptiversary. I couldn’t remember which one.

I can figure it out of course. The diploma above me says 2013. Vally as a new addition helped me through those last two semesters, so I must have adopted her March 15th 2013, meaning today would have been our 8th together, but it took exactly that reasoning to get there.

I’ve always struggled with this. When I see something coming that I don’t particularly relish, I start trying it on mentally. Putting myself into the mindset of already being there, as if that’s going to somehow prepare me for when it really arrives. When Vally was 5, I started bracing for her to be 6. 6 sounded like an adult dog, way outside of puppy or young territory, so I would imagine that she was 6 already. I would hold conversations in my head as if she was six and research the food I’d need to switch her to because she’s six and wait for her to catch up on hikes because she’s six now until I honestly couldn’t remember if it was practice or if she had actually turned six. I practiced for it so much it became real in my mind before it needed to.

How exactly did that help? I’m a fucking idiot sometimes.

Being a rescue with no known birthday, her adoptiversary was the big day. We went all out. I would grill steak, broil salmon, marinade chicken, put together a couple puppy friendly sides, and make Vally a plate of her own. We’d eat together at the table - her one day a year she was allowed on a chair and to eat off a plate. It took her some time every year to accept that I was letting her, and I’m sure it was bad training for me to allow it at all, but I didn’t care and I wouldn’t now either. For one day a year I could treat her as the equal counterpart I saw her as. I could put away the alpha hat required of me as a good dog owner and let her be equal. I always saw her as equal. Often greater. But I had to wait to show it.

Last year, March 15th just happened to be the day the world stood still. It was the last day I worked in the office. There were several weeks of preparing, of course. We had seen the shutdown coming and been working overtime to try and get things ready for remote work. But it happened a week or two before we predicted, and it just happened to be on Vally’s special day. With all the uncertainty and mystery around what was happening, how widespread it was, what the effects were, it didn’t seem wise to go to the grocery store to pick up filet mignon and salmon and chicken breasts. I decided, given the circumstances, the special feast could wait one year. We’d do it up even bigger next year. Maybe make a couple days of it.

I skipped her last special day.

The rational side of my brain doesn’t hate me too much for it. I think missing that one feast to be able to spend every moment together for her final 9 months on this earth was a tradeoff I’d have made every year had I been able to. But I do wish I’d have been able to see her look longingly yet confusedly at the plate of food in front of her one more time. Those are some really good memories.

Is it even possible to pivot to a general thought organizing life update with my eyes all teary like this? I guess I can try.

Life keeps going. First vaccine shot in my arm a week ago today. Was a relatively smooth process, took about an hour in Walgreens from stepping into line to the end of my 15 minute observation period. I was a little sleepy the following day and my shoulder was sore, but otherwise no real side effects to speak of. I feel like I opened the floodgates on vaccines - seeing that IT workers are (probably?) group 1C got Jimmy to go, got others at work to do more research and find that we can probably be considered essential manufacturing which led to about 25 warehouse workers and our CEO to book appointments. I gave Casey some tips that led to him booking an appointment and getting his first shot. It’s all kind of happening at once, and it feels like the tide has finally turned. End in sight. At least, the end of total isolation. I’ll still be a little cautious, but at least I can start seeing friends and family again.

Second shot was scheduled for 4 weeks out at the same Walgreens, but as they gave me Pfizer I wanted to keep it closer to the recommended 3. I scored another appointment at a CVS on the 31st in PA for my second dose, which is closer at 3 weeks and 2 days. It falls just after my birthday, so I can at least not hit side effects ON my birthday, and it’ll give me 5 days of immune system response before the High Holiest of holidays - Steakster.

It does seem a little silly to jump the gun on friend hangout by a week for a made up drunken holiday tradition. I spent the last 12 months being strict, making only one or two exceptions to keep myself safe, why cut it short and take any risk, however small, a week shy of the finish line?

Well, because we skipped it last year. And I already know how skipping Vally’s adoptiversary turned out. I’m not making that mistake again.

I got a mixed Xmas/Birthday gift from C on Aloy’s second visit. He commissioned his artist friend do a canvas painting of Vally on her bench. I bawled. Oooooh I fucking bawled. Opening the wrapping to have that smile looking up at me was just too much. Thankfully Aloy was there to come up and give me hugs (she’s a dope sometimes, but very empathetic), but god it hit hard. My walls are all pretty full from obsessive decorating over the years, but there was one wall spot that needed something added and it just so happened to be the wall directly over the corner of the bench where the original photo of Vally was taken. Perfect. Destiny. The more I see it the more photorealistic it seems to get. It’s a sobering thing having there some days, but I’m ok with that. A nice reminder and memorial.

Second Aloy trip went well. Lots of long walks. Lots of puppy energy. She was a bit of a menace by the end, likely because I won’t let her off her leash to zoom around on walks the way Casey does so she was all pent up, but it was good natured menace. Imagine she’ll be coming back on Steakster. Gonna have to watch her closely with the new recliners.

Oh! Recliners! So I got the swatches from the chair guy after two weeks of waiting AND… decided that the darker red would work OK. It is darker than expected, and may even be a little to dark for the walls, but I decided that I can always repaint the walls. Ultimately, the brighter red looks like a fisher price racecar seat, and at over 4 grand for recliners I’d rather get the classy looking seats and repaint to match if needed. Those chairs should be arriving into port in a container tomorrow and will hopefully be ready to ship my way by this weekend. I should have them, in and ready to go by the end of the month. It’ll be a Steakster miracle.

So in an attempt to cheapskate my way into a whole-home speaker setup without spending hundreds of dollars per speaker on Sonos shit, I had spent years collecting and gathering google Chromecast speakers. JBL, Harman Kardon, Polk., I tried a ton of different ones as well as the standard off the shelf Google variety. This worked great - I had multiple speakers in every room for a fraction of the cost of sonos - but the holes in my plan started showing pretty quickly. Different manufacturers implemented the protocol differently, so a JBL speaker might be near silent at starting volume while a Polk might be rattling the redneck neighbors’ Dale Earnhardt commemorative plates off their walls. Even more problematic, when trying to play music across the whole house, I could be trying to set up a speaker mesh of 15-20 endpoints. Often this would glitch, stutter, and fail. It got to a point where I stopped using them much because it was a headache more often than it was music. Not ideal.

So after replacing the polk bookshelf speakers in the gym with some bigger JBLs a couple weeks ago, I was left staring at the polks and wondering what to do with them. After some searching I found a $20 chinese amp on Amazon that got great reviews. I hatched a plan to run speaker wires through the ceiling above my bedroom and install the polks at the corners. This would replace 5 wifi speaker endpoints with just 1, and reduce all the electronic and power cord clutter. In the same mindset, I went and found a used set of vintage Bose 141’s to match the pair I still have from my middle school days. I went with Dad to Montgomery Ward’s then to spend every dime I had saved for months on a stereo for my room, and ended up with a sony 3 CD changer stereo and the Bose speakers. With a matching pair, I’d now be able to install all of them in the corners of the living room. My retro, quirky living room with retro speakers. Yes please.

Soooooo I did it. Saturday was spent fishing speaker wires into the living room floor, up above the basement gym ceiling, up into the floor on the far side of the living room, and up the walls to corner speaker mounts for the Bose. Sunday I put four hours in fishing more wire from the attic above my master closet to the four corners of my bedroom. Today I received a slim subwoofer and got it installed in the living room - you can install these damn things under couches, if you can believe it - and it sounds AMAZING. I had been worried about the admittedly subpar Bose 141’s when they first went up. The response cutoff is much too high a frequency to live on their own. But the sub went in under the couch and performed so well I immediately ordered another for the bedroom. From 7 speaker endpoints to 2. Simplicity is it’s own reward sometimes.

I’m already using them more. More music around the house is important.

Trying to get back into the workout game is still difficult. Two and a half months in to my abdomen feeling completely broken and I’m 95% sure that my Psoas theory is right. I tried to do some basic stretching, glute med, air squat work today and immediately felt the sides of my lower stomach cramping and my lower lumbar getting tugged like crazy. I don’t know if I tweaked it that workout or it just tightened up on over the course of a couple days, but it’s gonna be a fair bit of strengthening the surrounding hip and glute structures and stretching the psoas itself to get myself back into form.

Oh well. It feels much better not being in the dark about what it likely is. I’ll deal with discomfort and struggle. It’s the worry that comes with uncertainty that breaks me.

Dad was going to be in town on Tuesday and Wednesday last week. I know because he texted to ask if I was up for a visit. I really didn’t want to see him. I’ve basically given up on being able to have any sort of meaningful relationship with that fucking asshole. But I find myself still trying on the off chance that maybe he comes around - he is my father after all - so I allowed it. Told him I was a little tired on Tuesday after my vaccine dose, but that I’d be around from 5pm onward on Wednesday. I got a response saying that he MIGHT be around but he might also have to go to a job in Annapolis at 2 and he’d have to let me know. Fine. Whatever. I have no idea why you’d suggest it if you’re potentially busy, but I didn’t really want to see him anyway. Just let me know.

2pm came and went and I didn’t hear from him. 5pm did the same. It was 6:30pm when he texted. Not to let me know what was up, but about something completely unrelated. I ignored him. Serves me right for even cracking that door. What an fucking asshole.

Work on editing together the Minecraft VR footage has started. It had been some time since I really got into the idea of our cringey co-op VR youtube channel, but Casey got back to editing together our footage of The Forest and so I set out to tackle Minecraft. It’s mostly only marginally funny. I’m not sure either of us feel particularly funny at the end of the winter after a full year of pandemic isolation and everything else that’s been going on, but I don’t think the point is necessarily to be very good. Just to chronicle the VR adventures we find ourselves on and put them out there in case someone might get a chuckle out of them one day. Even if that someone is just one of us. It takes a lot for me to put something out there that I know isn’t particularly good, but so be it. Maybe this is as much a mental exercise as it is a potential youtube channel.

Oh, and earlier this evening I was playing through Harmonix’s Audica, the rhythm game that mixes Beat Saber with skeet shooting, and I hit the 31st best score in the world on Post Malone - Better Now. I’ve moved into around the 350th highest cumulative score among all players. I recognize it’s not a big install base, but it still feels pretty cool playing a physical rhythm game that takes coordination and timing and ranking like that. Feel like I’m gonna be getting into score chasing the way I used to with Rock Band. Pretty OK with that.

I had an interesting conversation with Music Sister a week or so ago. While we grew up best friends, things had been pretty strained between us starting around college. She had come to UMD as well and lived a life that bordered on monastic. She would never drink, didn’t go to parties, didn’t really hang out with friends, and was generally in a mad rush to graduate early. That, in and of itself, is fine. Whatever. You do you, sis. But one afternoon I received a pained call from one of her close friends asking if I would come pick her up. Turns out the close friend had come to UMD to visit sister, and sister only wanted to stay in her basement apartment, bake cookies, light candles, and write poetry. Not a big partier or drinker myself I’m sure her time with me wasn’t the pinnacle of college nightlife, but we went out and had fun at least. Possibly a little too much fun. I dropped sister’s good friend back off the next morning.

I don’t think that sat well with Sister.

The next thing I knew I was hearing stories about sister going to parents and telling them what a party animal fuckup I was being in school. About the SEVERAL girls I was seen on dates with. About the ALCOHOL I had consumed on more than one occasion. Debauchery, the lot of it, and the parents must be notified. Apparently.

So the tensions built either way. Even as sister got married and had two kids, ready to live out the rest of her days as a stay at home housewife. Even as she pulled an instant 180, dumped the husband, asked Mom for help with her kids, and started sleeping around rather prolifically. Certainly more than I ever have. Even as she jumped from house to house on other people’s dimes because she was gonna chase her own music career with her kids’ dinners on the line. Even as more kids started showing up with some guy none of us had ever even heard of prior to baby daddy title.

As you can imagine, these were two extremes and too extreme.

I think what had always rubbed me the wrong way about it was the lack of apparent humility about all of it. I never saw any cracks in the facade. She would go from one extreme knowing without a doubt 100% that she was right and others were wrong for not living that way (as evidenced by going to the parents to tell them of my mild escapades) to the other extreme in the blink of an eye without so much as an outward “whoops!”. The fact that my mom had given up on her dream of moving out on her own and moved all the way back from Texas to help my then single mom sister try to get by seemed to just pile on further. You’re not doing it on your own even when you have kids on the line, you’re making our mother continue to parent long after she should have been able to go out and get on with her life, can’t you at least be a little humble about it at times!?!

Well, I got a text the other day. Sister had some poetry she had written. Some previously that she had touched up now, but mostly more recently about past experiences. It was a little raw, a little revealing, and she was worried about how Mom and Dad would take it if she published it. I let her know that it’s not really about Mom and Dad to choose what she should be able to share, so long as there isn’t anything super revealing about them personally in there. Sister said she didn’t think so, but it’s hard to tell when she’s that deep in it. Would I maybe read it to see?

… Oh…. uh…. I mean?…. Sure. I can do that.

So she sent it to me. Several poems over a couple dozen pages. Took me 30-45 minutes or so to go through it. Parts were a little weird to be reading as an older brother. The bits about how our parents’ quirks and lack of compatibility when we were young impacted her. About some of her inner thoughts and feelings about events that happened to all of us growing up, thoughts and feelings I was unaware of. But also bits about the ongoing tensions that the relative lack of blowjobs had introduced into her high school relationship. The stresses of having two kids and no money. Laughing at herself for not being able to hold down a steady job as an adult. Being aware of and ok with, if slightly sheepish about, some of her escapades sleeping around as an adult trying to make it in the music industry.

And you know what? As a whole? It’s fantastic.

Like, brilliant. Not every one, some better than others, but the vulnerability in some of the details shared mixed with the self awareness regarding some of the questionable moments and the overarching story that the individual snippets imply was really an inspired read. After one or two poems, I wasn’t reading to be helpful anymore, I was reading because it was compelling. And, on a personal level, it was all of that self awareness that I thought I should have been seeing over the years coming out at once. The outward appearance of knowing that poetry and cookies in a basement apartment was correct and going out to bars for drinks and conversation was wrong was suddenly broken. The vulnerability that we couldn’t show towards each other all these years fell back into view somewhat all at once.

And on that note, I went ahead and shared the link for this journal. Because, really, they’re kind of the same coping mechanism aren’t they? Oversharing in a place that people could potentially see to try and be known to the world. To break out of what people might see us as and get who we actually are, all our mistakes and worries and insecurities and problems that tend to drive people away if you just start telling them details of in person. After all these years of doing things so differently, we wound up at the same place trying to feel better about where we are.

It was good. I’m glad she shared. And while I doubt she’s gonna spend much time reading anything here in the future, I’m glad she took a minute to read a little of what I’ve been writing. And if you happen to be here Sister, you’re a really fantastic writer. I still intend to attempt the more poetic style you’ve gotten so good at. In fact, that long-ass story in the last entry started with what I intended to be my first attempt. I still might in the future. I spent several pages doing my typical long form stream of consciousness watch as my brain tries to untangle the things it’s been working on schtick, but the whole thing started with the realization that, with both Ditz and Ice Queen, I spent years yessing their no’s. Only when I finally said no myself did they respond with a yes.

See? That’s an interesting revelation, but I have absolutely no idea how to convey it well with any sort of brevity. Never been my style. But I’m gonna try at some point. Even if it winds up being as terrible as my attempts to write lyrics have been in the past. And it likely will. Oh well.

Wrapping this up for the night. So sad that I didn’t get to prepare Vally another plate this year or last, but thankful for all the extra time I got to spend with her instead. Daylight savings time, spring weather starting, I’ve figured out my latest health stuff and can start working on fixing it, and vaccine in time for big friend holiday. Things are gonna be OK here. Even if every fiber of my being braces for catastrophe at even the slightest hint of optimism, that doesn’t change anything. Things are gonna be OK.

I miss you, Vally, and I love you forever. Happy Adoptiversary.

-M