I've been staying at Neptune's place for a week, and yesterday when I went home to see my parents and Maki and you on a surprise visit, my mom cried and I thought it was because she was so happy to see me. She'd wrapped you in paper towels and kept you in a small box. She wouldn't let me touch you. But I wasn't afraid. I don't know why I could keep my calm in a situation where I would usually freak out and cry and destroy a few thousand things. I unraveled the paper around you and saw your face. Your eyes were shut so peacefully, your paws close to your cheek, like you were in a deep sleep. It's just that you were cold, and you wouldn't wake up even though I kept calling your name. And then I saw your butt and I knew that wet tail had taken you away.
My mom said that you'd crawled into your favorite pink dino house and slept there on Christmas morning, and then you never came out. I'm feeling all sorts of things, shock and anger and grief and regret that I wasn't there for you. I could have done something, it might have made a difference. But mostly I feel numb. Last night I tried to cry myself to sleep so I would feel better, but this morning I woke up with puffy eyes and I still feel sick to my stomach, like nothing I could ever do would ever undo the emptiness that your departure has wrought in my heart. When I think about you, my chest physically hurts and I have to consciously remember to breathe properly so I don't hyperventilate or get a panic attack.
We buried you under the tree nearest to our apartment, so them government people better not do anything bad to that tree. I wanted to cremate you, but my parents laughed, and anyway they wouldn't pay that much for you. They don't understand that you are more than another one of my possessions. You were family, and I'd taught you so much. I remember when I first met Maki and you; both of you were so frightened by me, but Maki is a glutton and would eat off my hand any day; you however refused to eat anything that had contact with my hand. We'd come such a long way in our few months together; I'd just toilet-trained you properly last week, and when I fed you, you would sit on my hand and happily nibble whatever I gave you. I miss you, I miss how you go absolutely crazy when I give you a piece of tissue to attack and shred with your hamstery teeth and claws, I miss how your eyes brighten up when you smell food, I miss your squeaking.
If I had to remember you by one thing, it would be the squeaking, how you squeak so much at every little thing. I miss hearing you squeak in protest when Maki sleeps on top of you, I miss running out of my room into the living room to see Maki and you, to figure out why you were squeaking. Mostly you two were playing and you were squeaking in excitement. Neptune said that if I were to get another hamster, one of my criteria would have to be that the one we pick out has to squeak. But it made me furious to consider the possibility that anyone could ever replace you in any way, and that made me realize that I cannot ever keep hamsters again. No hamsters could ever be what you and Maki are to me.
Your life is too fragile and too short, and in comparison my memory is too lasting and too lonely. But I don't regret one moment of meeting you and taking care of you. For all the intelligence the human race boasts, I cannot appreciate or accept the simple finality of your death. And you have brought me so much joy and comfort where that afforded by fellow humans was too complicated or too calculated to make sense to me.
I miss you so much, and can only hope that you are in a better place. Goodbye, but only for now, dear Mochi.
Today Neptune and I hung out together and did all the normal things couples do, had all the tiny little insignificant conversations and watched a movie we'd probably forget in a year, shopped for stuff we liked but didn't need and shared a fabulously ordinary meal. But it was wonderful precisely because it was so unremarkable, and I could almost forget that I only get to see her every three months. On top of all the difficulties that a queer couple has to face, we have the long-distance to contend with. This, my dear friends, is the definition of 'star-crossed'.
So we were talking about how one of our parents may be on the verge of discovering our shameful going-ons, and I got upset, excused myself and hid in the washroom cubicle while I wept. Except my plan was thwarted because while Neptune was waiting outside, she'd overheard some chick who'd just left the bathroom telling her boyfriend that someone was crying in the cubicle; Neptune guessed that it was me because I am a crybaby that way. Well, snap. All I'd wanted was that Neptune not see me cry, because I know how much that saddens her.
I asked Neptune what she would do if her parents found out about us. She thought for a while, then replied, "I guess we would have to deal with it like adults. ... I would tell them that being with you is what makes me the happiest, and that if they want me to be happy, this is the only way." She also said a lot more mature stuff but I can't remember all of it because I was too impressed by her emotional maturity (this is the girl who 'borrowed' our vertically-challenged friend's slipper and hid it on the very top of a very tall shelf at the office). I think, though, that we might be wrong to assume that parents only want their kids to be happy. I would not be at all surprised to find that most parents define what's best for their children as being whatever makes the parents themselves the happiest.
***
Unless you have experienced it yourself, you will never understand how drastically the odds are stacked against us. And while you ponder if you should end your relationship because of some annoying quirk or bad habit or power struggle, Neptune and I face something that is not in our power to change, something that at every turn threatens to change us, something possibly greater than all we could ever be. While your journey is one on which you may decide at will which path to take, ours is a continuous struggle against the current, and every step we take forward faces increasing resistance. Those of you who can introduce your significant other to family and friends, who do not have to talk about your special person in hushed tones, who can express affection for each other in public, and can do all this without fear of scrutiny, rejection and criticism... While you couples may plan a wedding, a life and a family together, know that for Neptune and I, all of that is more than we could ever dream of. I do not envision ever being able to do any of that with Neptune because I know I have no right to, not in this world, and I know that while I am writing this, there are people out there raising money to take away any civil rights that may arise from our love. I am not so presumptuous as to expect any form of acceptance. And I would never be as audacious as to be angry at those who condemn us as immoral, lascivious or nauseating; we who chose to be true to ourselves knowing full well what lay ahead, we deserve every ounce of those assaults: We have no prerogative, no permission to complain. After all, we were brazen enough to take that particular liberty in love, an entitlement that we did not have in this world to begin with. I am grateful that I had the privilege of doing so without being stoned to death or having my appendages torn apart. I do not even dream of ever being treated as a human being equal to those so fortunate to be born heterosexual. All I dream of is simply that Neptune and I may hide ourselves away safely, for as long as we can, from those who would tear us apart.
I think I am a hypochondriac. The fact that I made that statement really goes to show how neurotic I am, but then again it would not be proof of hypochondria if I am indeed a hypochondriac. There are eleventeen thousand different useless things that I could be worrying about and I worry that I can't worry about them all, and in doing so, miss out on the worrying about something actually worth worrying about, and then I'd be sorry. Also I am a little messed up in my head right now. It is a very confusing place, which is probably what keeps me blogging: It's so much easier to believe that you actually make sense when you put it in words. You see? This whole paragraph was bullshit but it sounded like I actually had something worthwhile to say.
On to the hypochondria. I came to that conclusion yesterday afternoon, after checking on Maki for the thousandth time that day. Maki and Mochi always seem very frightened and frantic when it rains, and two nights ago during a particularly heavy thunderstorm, I held them hamsters in my palm until I was sure that the thunder and lightning were moving further away. It had nothing to do with the fact that I myself am afraid of thunder and lightning, and found comfort in two hamsters that fit on my palm at the same time. Not at all.
Suddenly, Maki trembled.
I freaked out because I thought she was having a stroke, so I placed Mochi back into the cage and turned Maki around on my palm to face me. She shuddered again, violently, as if scared shitless. She must have shuddered at least six times during the few minutes that I held her, and right after I returned her to the cage, I dove into the wealth of knowledge and useless information that is The Internets (see: cyberchondria) and found that shivering is a symptom of...
HAMSTER DIABETES.
Which made sense to me at that point of time, because Maki and Mochi have become incredibly tame in the past week, and every single time they look at me with those wee watery hamstery eyes of theirs, I CRUMBLE. I stumble and then I give in, I absolutely give in to those glistening eyes and I offer them a piece of fruit. OR TWENTY MILLION PIECES OF FRUIT.
Anyways, long story short: I realized that Maki only shivered whenever I lifted her up and exposed her tummy to the draft, ie. she shivered only because she was cold. Of course my hypochondriac brain could not process this and went on to berate myself for hypochondria, paranoia, insanity, obsessive-compulsive disorder, oniomania, autism, ... The list goes on.
Maki is fine now and has not shivered since that cold, windy night, during which common sense fell out of my brain and got lost along the way.
Also, I got unnecessarily stressed while Neptune was on a flight back home. I don't know if it's because she is so important to me or if it's because I need professional help with managing my various mental abnormalities, but last night I kept worrying about the plane and terrorist hijacking and lizards on the aircraft (she is terrified of lizards), and then I had a nightmare in which I cut the wrong wire and everything was going to be blown up, only it was a reality TV show and instead of the bomb detonating, lots of candy and marshmallows fell out of the ceiling and showered upon the audience. So I woke up in shock and went SHOPPINGGGGGG! Because that is my natural reaction to stress. And I bought my own web domain, which I will update you on another time!
I also cannot sleep right now even though it's 9.30AM, approximately ten hours past my usual bedtime. I'm meeting Neptune and Mrs. In-Law later for the first time in three months, and I am SO EXCITED! <3
This morning you had the hiccups. I DID NOT KNOW HAMSTERS HAD HICCUPS!!!!!! OH. MY. GOD. At first I thought I was hallucinating, so I leaned in nearer the cage and watched you closely. You were asleep, and then I saw your chest moving, and heard your tiny and intermittent squeak, squeak, squeak. Almost too soft to notice. My only regret is that I could not capture it on video before your hamster nose detected my scent and woke up, expecting food. Maybe you were dreaming. I hope it was a good dream.
Yesterday I yet again found myself unable to function as a sane human being, and freaked out because I thought you and Maki were going to die. The reason for that eludes me, but it had something to do with the rose Neptune gave me last August, before she left for studies abroad. Well, that rose had been sitting on my table for the past 1.25 years, which is more than half of your expected lifespan, and dried flowers do not agree with Singapore's humid climate. Neither do I, but then I never get a say either when it comes to these things.
Last night the rose finally came apart, the petals falling off one by one, and I contemplated burning them and keeping the ashes, because I am crazy-sentimental that way? And because Neptune and I bought Maki and you at a local pet store about a year after she gave me that rose, it somehow connected to your cremation. I freaked out and started shopping for local crematory services and urns, and wondered if you would prefer to be with Maki, or be cremated separately. You squeak endlessly when you play with Maki because you are such a vocal hamster, and sometimes when she climbs all over you and grooms you, you squeak very loudly in annoyance and protest, but every night I find you all snug and squished into the same hole as Maki, sound asleep, and I know you love Maki but just don't want to admit it. Unless, of course, when I have one piece of your favorite apple in my hand to share between the two of you. That is quite a different story.
I did not think to question the logic behind the tenuous link I drew between the dried rose and your death, and so after much freaking out, I proceeded to spend a whole hour just watching you and Maki. I was trained in competitive international chess, and what this means is that I automatically calculate and plan my future moves, all the time, every time. Most of the time, anyway. But this time was different. It did not arise from pragmatism, but rather from some distant emotional reserve that suddenly released upon me the unadulterated grief and fear that comes with the knowledge that I will far outlive you and Maki, that one day will come when I have to go on remembering, despite the awareness that you and Maki cannot. I do not think that I will ever be adequately prepared for that, and that scares me.
Hopefully they don't bar me from practice for this
In response to a few emails curious to explore my inability to comprehend or appreciate how our world functions, allow me to elaborate on the nature of my psychological handicap. In a previous entry, I mentioned that:
"...until I was 13 I had no idea one could draw a cow differently, out of free will, and still call it a cow. Because in my head, If you drew it with one less udder or two-dimensionally, with only two feet, it could not really be called a cow. Things happen when you are raised in my family..."
Of course I knew that such a drawing would be a reference to a cow, but it would be merely that: The indication that a perfect and whole cow should have been in its place, baring the human inability to truly convey all that is a real cow; an allusion to a cow or an attempt to mimic a cow, rather than the drawing being a cow in its own right. I know, right? Almost as pedantic (though hardly as brilliant) as Plato's Theory of Forms, which I discovered at 14 and could completely relate to because finally! Someone else who gets me, someone who understands that a drawing of a cow? IT IS NOT A COW!
On to the root of this endlessly nitpicking facet of myself. As most of you readers have realized, my family is, uh, unique. I attribute my meticulous nature (ha! it sounds so good when I say it like that) to my mother, my dear mother who cannot abide by bowls placed at the wrong angle in the dish drainer. Because in this household, there is The One Right Angle at which to drain a dish, and then there are the other angles, which are all wrong, because of various reasons which you are too much of a functional human being to comprehend.
At 5.30AM this morning, she got into an argument with my dad over how to break a few eggs; apparently he was using cracking the eggs over the sink, and should have been doing it over a certain specific bowl instead. The argument somehow drew me into its dark, dark vortex, and I was reprimanded by my mother for allowing my hamsters to poop indiscriminately. Because apparently, I possess the power to control how, where and when my hamsters poop. I have yet to discover how to harness that power.
My mother's influence on me is great because she has always run the family and managed every aspect of our lives, at least until my crazyass adolescent hormones kicked in and demanded independence. But at least there was someone around to establish order (albeit a tyrannic one), because my father is constitutionally incompatible with the concept of order. He randomly swings open the car door on the highway to "air the stuffy car", never mind the thousands of cars passing us by and the possibility that one of those thousands might slam into the car door. Also, he is most reliable when it comes to losing his way, and I have inherited that lack of a sense of direction from him.
And yes, all this barely scrapes the surface of how dysfunctional my family is. But I love them and embrace the various impairments they have given me. I would have so much less to discover, had they taught me more.
My last exam this semester ended 5 days ago and since law school is out of the way (for now), I can finally concentrate on the more important things in life such as contemplating the most utilitarian way of spending time being unproductive, i.e. to achieve maximum unproductiveness in the most productive way. I have spent many hours twiddling my thumbs over this very complicated matter and it has been most satisfying.
Some other things I have been up to:
- Spending time with Maki and Mochi; this is something I really want to do more often before they die, given that their expected lifespans are roughly 2.25% of my own. I realized this during the examination period, and when it suddenly and randomly occurred to me that my first ever pets might die, I mean REALLY die, like pass away cease to exist and perish leaving naught but the distant memory of hamstery love and affection, I freaked out and cried and swore at the law exams. It had nothing to do with the fact that law school is inherently psychologically crippling. I kid! Do not sue me. Seriously though, what is up with the so many things to do that I could not find more than an hour a day to be with two hamsters!? Society, YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF!
- Gossiping with Neptune about the people who gossip about us. We hypothesize that these people simply have nothing better to do, and we find nothing hypocritical in our gossiping about them. You may think that Neptune and I met at work, but you would be wrong! Neptune and I met at the beach one evening, when she was jogging along the coast (she used to do competitive running). I was sitting along the shore wasting time as usual, some distance away from a tiny sandcastle I'd built and the text I drew in the sand next to it in fairytale-cursive font. Neptune ran my castle over, after which I promptly confronted and threatened to sue her. And the rest is history!
- Artsy fartsy stuffs. I have been photographing, sewing, making useless things which I don't need but which are pretty and therefore increase the happiness in my life, and (last but not least) making one dead woman very, very mad at me:
John Singer Sargent, Madame Pierre Gautreau, 1883. Officially ruined forever by Angelique, 2008. Madame Gautreau rolls in her grave and gives me one skeletal finger. But hey, it's the first thing I have ever drawn that actually looks human! If you are wondering how my artistically-challenged self managed this magical feat, you are not alone, because I am also in awe! Neptune gave me a book entitled Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain last year, and it has changed my life ever since. They are not paying me to write this. It is simply that if this book works for me, it'll work for you!
Note that until I was 13 I had no idea one could draw a cow differently, out of free will, and still call it a cow. Because in my head, If you drew it with one less udder or two-dimensionally, with only two feet, it could not really be called a cow. Things happen when you are raised in my family... But that is another story for another day.
- Gaming. I've finished one game so far, the sort of video game normal people take a week or two to complete, but because I am a gamer with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, I completed it in two days with very little sleep. It might be argued that law school was good practice at keeping me awake doing useless things. Hmm! I sense that I am becoming increasingly hostile towards law school. Why might that be???
- Shoppinggggg! I cannot wait for Neptune to return from the US to Singapore with a luggage full of my shopping because certain primitive online stores do not ship to Singapore. Like, hello??? Globalization mean anything to you!? It is 2008! Time to wake up and smell the internets!
- Making pointless lists and being too uninspired to complete them.
It's raining noodles! Hallelujah! And the noodles shall inherit the earth!
If you know me, pretend you don't. If you don't know me, don't pretend you do.
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