Rabbits, Death, Etc.

I've never really liked dead things. One time, I had a rabbit named Grace because, of course I had a rabbit named Grace. Anyway, she died. I was about eight years old when I found her chillin in her rabbit pin, stiff as a board. We got her from the flea market near our house where most things are half dead to begin with, so it was kind of a miracle that she lived as long as she did. Anyway, when I found Grace, I grabbed her and attempted to shake her into life again, but it was pointless. Grace was dead, and I was breaking down. To be fair, I had a pretty ugly road with death at a young age because my mom's parents were 46 and 60 when she was born, so a huge portion of my family starting dying before I could really understand what that meant. That, and I had watched Titanic pretty recently, and that whole Rose lives to be really old and then dies thing really got to me as well.
Because death happened so often, I didn't really understand why it happened--to me, death was kind of like getting a cold. People got death, and then you just kind of died. The whole thing was really unfortunate, but it happened, and in my mind, it was only a matter of time before I caught it myself. I carried Grace to resting place that my parents dug for her, and I said a prayer over her tiny rabbit body, and then I placed her in the grave. I wiped the tears from my face, and then I realized: I just wiped DEATH all over my face. Great.
As soon as it hit me, I lost it--like full blown 8-year-old panic attack. My mom grabbed me and tried to explain that my rabbit was with mamaw and papaw and all the other half-dead animals they had gotten me at the flea market, included but not limited to: my dog Sable, my dog Roxie, my cat Tiger, both of my turtles Jo Jo and Urkle, my dad's old dog Amos, and a gerbil that I had once named Conway that died because he got a penis infection. I'm not kidding. But I wasn't worried about Grace's eternal soul, because her name was Grace for God's sake. I was worried about my fragile mortal body that had been exposed to death--not just exposed really, but slathered in it. I wiped my face with dead rabbit hands, and clearly, if that wasn't terminal then I don't really know what could be.
My parents spent the next 16 years trying to persuade me that people don't die by being exposed to death, but I'm not entirely sure that they're right. Regardless, I'm still here, fighting the good fight and trying to stay away from death and all his friends. I actually became kind of numb to the whole death situation. It's been years since I had been to a funeral because a whole generation of my family passed away before I was 16 years old. Instead, I just focus on the random diseases that could kill me instead of actually catching death itself. I call my mom weekly or so to check in because I've convinced myself that I have anemia or a tumor on a lymph node. For a while it had gotten out of hand, and then she eventually called me a hypochondriac. Now, I've blocked WebMD on my browser, and my fear of sickness and death has gotten easier.
Funerals, at this point, are just hurdles. Very sad hurdles, but hurdles, and as my generation has grown up, we've all also grown apart. I haven't seen my entire family together in one place in a long time, let alone the super-extended family. We never did a great job of keeping up with one another because people were having babies or going to jail or in my weird case, relocating to a new location entirely. But I was able to make a stop home after work trip out to California, and when I arrived my mom asked me the dreaded question. "My nephew Stanley died. Will you go to the funeral with me?" I mean, of course I would go to the funeral with her, but the first words out of my mouth were, "I had a cousin named Stanley?" That's the tricky part of being separated from some of your cousins by 30-40 years--sometimes you don't know they exist until they've passed away or in the newspaper for doing something really absurd.
As I pulled what I imagine was probably an illegal U-turn in the middle of the funeral home parking lot, my mom said, "Oh look. There's Roger Dale. I wonder how life's treating him now that he's out of prison." I wasn't sure if she was being sincere or just being a smart ass. Either way, I chose not to recognize it as I attempted to pull my dad's giant truck into a parking spot made for a smart car.  That, and for some reason, I kind of wanted to be friends with Roger Dale. He's one of the few people in my family that's around my age--and even though he was supposedly an accessory to an attempted murder, it's nice having friends, ya know? I finally got the truck parked, and my mom looked at me and said, "No more than 20 minutes. I'm serious. 20 minutes--in and out. Let's go. Oh, and your aunt Wanda got you a souvenir from her trip to the Amish country, so don't forget to grab it before we leave."
I wasn't expecting to go to a funeral while I was in town, but then again, I don't think anyone ever expects to go to a funeral. It's not something you etch into your planner months ahead of time. Stanley was 55 when he died, which is really complicated to explain because that makes him older than my mom. But in short, my mom had siblings that were legitimately having children before she was even born, so she was an aunt baby.
As we walked up to the funeral home, a whole bunch of people sat on the porch in white rocking chairs that overlooked the parking lot/duck pond combo below. I didn't recognize anyone on the porch, but I didn't really expect to recognize anyone anyway--kind of like when you go to a party with a friend. So, as we walked up the steps, I nodded to them and said hello, but they just kind of gave me a really annoyed look--kind of like when you go to a party with a friend... and you try too hard. Come to find out, there were two funerals going on, and I was trying to speak to people that actually weren't in my family (which at funerals, is poor form).
But once someone directed me to the sign in the lobby, I had things a little more under control. I walked into a long chapel, and everyone seemed to be gather toward the front. I inspected the front of the room, but I didn't see a casket. Luckily, they had decided to forego that part of the funeral process, and even though I was well aware that you couldn't catch death, the 8-year-old inside of me was a little bit relieved. But in its place was something terrifying in a completely different way--family that I hadn't seen in years. I was out of practice when it came to this kind of thing. I barely know what to tell my friends when they lose a family member, but it's so much harder when it's your own family. I tried to survey the room, but I couldn't place any of the faces with names, so I just kept walking forward until I reached the cork board at the front of the room.
There were pictures of Stanley and his entire family, made up of people that I may or may not have met throughout the years. I followed the pictures from the bottom to the top until something else caught my eye--a giant flatscreen TV posted up on the wall with a single candle burning. The background was totally black, and the only thing on the screen was a white candle with a single flame. I'm sure it's supposed to represent something, but for some reason, all I could think was, "I mean, could we have just not put like... a real candle or something in here? And who captured this looping video of this candle... like, how do you get that job?" I spun around and stepped on a tiny little old lady who said, "Hi there. I'm Herman's sister. You know Herman," I have no idea who Herman is. "You know there's nine of us, right? Six boys and three girls. Can you even imagine?" I still had no idea who Herman was, and for a second, I thought that she might have made the same mistake that I did earlier, except she didn't see the sign in the front directing her to the correct funeral parlor.
I didn't know what to do, so I told her that I would be right back, but when I turned around again, there was Roger Dale. I immediately felt startled, but I was also really excited because in my mind, I kept thinking, This is my chance at a friend! We shook hands, and he had a really strong handshake, and as much as I hated it, all I could think was, "This is the perfect place for him to kill me because they wouldn't even need to call an ambulance. They'd just embalm me and call it a day." I froze, and I didn't know what to say, and before I knew it, I had lost my opportunity. My mom called me over to say hello to my aunt Connie who made a grand entrance from the back of the parlor. I watched her hug my mom and dad and brother with big tears in her eyes, thanking them for coming. Then my mom said, "Connie, here's Justin." She immediately stopped crying and said, "You're grown." She pulled me in really tight, put her face against the side of my head, and then it happened. I'm not sure if it was intentional, but she just blew... blew her nose with all of her might, directly in my ear.
I pulled back with a flattened smile and touched her shoulder and said, "I'm going to head over here for a second." I felt like people were watching me, waiting to see how I would react to this whole situation. I sat down in a pew behind my mom and pulled a kleenex out of the box sitting in the pew. I shoved it in my ear and leaned forward, quietly whispering to my mom, "Aunt Connie may or may not have just blew her nose in my ear. So, that happened."
My mom couldn't stop laughing, so I had to take my family outside where we congregated with my aunt and uncle that I'm closest to. By the time I got outside to join them, my mom had already lit in on the story about Aunt Connie blowing her nose in my ear, and on the other side of the circle Was Roger Dale, whose much closer to Connie than I am. I wanted to dive on my mom and tell her to stop or to cut the story short, but it was too late. I was making no headway with Roger Dale, and if he didn't smell the fear on me earlier in the parlor, then he definitely smelled it on me now. I felt like I needed to chime in, so I said, "You know, I'm wasn't upset at Aunt Connie for blowing her nose in my ear. I was just... surprised, which I feel like is the logical response when someone blows their nose in your ear." Roger Dale stared at me with the blankest expression and said, "Yeah, that doesn't happen," and then walked away. I knew that the funeral wasn't about me, nor was it supposed to be, but I wanted to fight back. I wanted to explain how brave I was for enduring getting a snot rocket lodged in my ear. I wanted to tell everyone how I was a survivor. But my mom interrupted and said, "Can we smoke on this porch, or do we need to go somewhere?"
Standing off the porch waiting on everyone to finish up their cigarettes, I looked back on the porch, still unable to recognize if any of the people hanging outside were actually related to me. It's almost comical because at one point, every death felt like the world was ending--whether it was a person or a rabbit. And then somewhere along the way, I wasn't able to even tell the difference between who was part of my family's and who was part of someone else's.
I still miss Grace. She was a pretty cool rabbit, but in retrospect, sometimes I wonder if I might have accidentally killed her myself. As an 8 year old, I wasn't really great at feeding things, nor taking care of them. In reality, my parents probably should have gotten me a goldfish, or like... one of those crabs you can get from the beach that legitimately never comes out of its shell. But no matter how mortified I was by Grace's death or the lethal rabbit death disease that she carried, it wasn't so much that I actually, you know, tried taking care of her while she was alive. And maybe that's the whole point of why rabbits and dogs and cousins named Stanley die. Maybe it's about reminding you of what's still in front of you--what you could be taking care of. Or maybe it's just a solid reminder of how many germs you carry on your face. We may never know.

Eight Reasons That I Don't Want To Get Married Right Now

I love marriage. It's precious and beautiful and all those other really sweet words that people like to put in their vows. I look forward to the day that I find someone to spend the rest of my life with because isn't that all what we're looking for in the long run? We want that person that will stick with us through everything because the idea itself is a marvel, and I don't mean that sarcastically. There are days that I wake up and don't like myself, so to know that there could be someone out there that wakes up beside me and regularly sees something inside of me that I don't even see myself... that's amazing.
But, for now, I'd just like that in the "living in sin" sense. Give me someone to wake up with, sure, but I'm not interested in making it official quite yet. This past summer was full of marriages, and let me tell you... the horse is dead. You all killed it; you beat it with a stick, stuck it in a photo booth with a fedora, fake mustache, and glasses with no lenses, pulled it out, made it do the cha cha slide for an unprecedented four times, shoved red velvet cake in its face, then turned it to glue so that you could finish your latest Pinterest project. That poor, poor horse.

8. None of my friends can afford to get me the wedding presents I want.
I've seen you people. Everybody wants to go out, but no one wants to drive because we don't have any gas. And I can see it... I'll be asking for a flatscreen TV or something equally awesome, and your ass is going to roll up at my wedding with a set of coasters. I don't want your coasters right now because you'll be able to say Oh, well. You know things are tight for me right now. I want to wait until you have a good job with a lot of moneys... then I want to hear your excuses. The longer I wait, the nicer the presents I will get. In my opinion, weddings are not about solidifying my love for someone in front of all of my friends. If I haven't done that on a daily basis, then I have no business getting married. Weddings are for presents. The end.

7. I don't have any neat ideas for hipster wedding pictures.
I'm just going to go ahead and get it out there: I'm not on Pinterest. I like the idea of being super crafty, but I'm still cleaning up a glue gun mess from when I was seven. So for the safety of everyone in my life, it's really best if I don't try getting creative at my own hand. But that leaves me with everyone else's ideas. Cropped pictures in sepia of a girl walking around in casual clothing inside of a barn or pastoral setting. That's pretty much where I grew up, and to me, there's not really any unique, quaint sentiment that comes along with it. So, I'm going to wait until something else becomes popular... preferably painted family portraits. Put that in the newspaper and on your save the date. Paint me acrylic or paint me single.

6. You don't have to be married to have babies.
As many of you probably saw on Facebook, I'm expecting. It's true. After giving it some thought and realizing that I've become pretty good at feeding myself, Andrew and I have decided to bring another animal besides Ben into our home. If I have my way, it will be a little boy named Chico. He's four months old, and he's been caged for about a week now. I will walk around with him and refer to myself as "the man." If I can take care of a cat for at least a year without killing it, then maybe I'll entertain the idea of welcoming a human into my home. From what I hear, people that get married get bored after awhile... and when the sex gets predictable, they have kids. Even if I get bored in my twenties, I'm assuming that it's pretty easy to get a baby. People leave them at the park down the road from my apartment all the time. You don't need a spouse to have a baby when you have a nursery next to the basketball court.

5. I haven't had a successful relationship in... oh yeah. Awkward.
My longest relationship that I've had last six years, and now she's married, so that's over. Thanks, Kasi. But even when we were Bo and Hope from Days of Our Lives, our entire relationship was a roller coaster and a half. The last relationship I was in was nursed by too many indie record songs to count. I'm just not too good at making these things last too long, and that's frustrating, so I'm going to assume that without some further practice, I'm probably going to crash and burn... but with a license and a family attorney. I don't have a super athletic-like day then sign up for a 5K... the same theory applies.

4. I haven't met anyone with a super cool last name.
I know, I know. I'm a boy. But listen to me for a minute. You should never pass up an opportunity to upgrade if given the opportunity to, so I'm going to keep my options open. I have a pretty hard last name to beat. Not only is Kirkland a pretty strong name, but it also is the name of a pretty cool furniture store, and it allows me to have my initials be JK. I have a pretty sweet deal, but that doesn't mean there isn't a sweeter deal out there. Don't waste what really conservative folks say is the only marriage you'll ever have by getting a shitty last name or keeping the shitty last name you have. Don't waste an excellent opportunity to improve your drivers license by careless 20-something mistakes.

3. In 44 states, I'm limited to only a 50% selection of who I can marry.
I like my options. If I go to Burger King, I expect to be able to get chicken or a burger. And yeah, it's nice that I have the option, but what happens when someone who can't eat beef shows up and all the chicken is gone. It's stupid and wrong and an ugly, ugly idea to even consider. So, if everyone isn't allowed to get married, then I don't really care to get married either. Getting married seems like purposefully overdressing for a party...  I get it. You have nice clothes, but there's people here who don't. I guess for me, marriage doesn't make a lot of sense if it's only available for a certain group of people. And it's not like it's a crazy assertion to let two consenting adults pay their taxes together and have power of attorney... it's not like I'm trying to marry Chico (which would be a double hit, because he's a cat and a dude). If I find a dude and hit it off, and he doesn't want to watch sports when Grey's Anatomy is one then (gay)me on.

2. Even if it's without consent, I have someone to snuggle with anytime I want.
I forgot to put that I do this in my online roommate profile, but Andrew has quickly found out that more times than not, I'm going to corner him and then nuzzle against him for about thirty seconds or so until I get my physical-interaction-fix. I agree that it's important to have a physical interaction with someone, but I'm going to get a little liberal and say... you don't need a ring on your finger to do that. And I'm lucky because he doesn't try and escape me that often. And when I'm done, he listens to me complain and celebrate my life. Maybe it's a little too I Love You, Man for your taste, but I don't think it's particularly important to solidify a spouse early on as a source of love and support. Call me lucky, but I have a pretty great support system that I never have feel obligated to buy dinner for, and having him around is practice so that I can see what drives people so crazy that they don't want to be around me anymore.

1. I just recently realized that I have no idea who the $&#^ I am.
I mean, yes, there's a base. All of the stories I've written on this blog are evidence of that. But when you're 22 years old and move away from home and know not a single person, you really start having to look really hard at yourself. I came out of eighteen years of living with my parents followed by four years of living on a college campus. Then, you're thrust out into the world and you start proving to yourself who you really can be. And I guess you could argue that you're going to be changing forever, and I suppose you're right. I'm going to maybe be self-absorbed in saying this, but I think that right now is our time. This is your chance to figure out why you are you. And people say, we can grow together, but I want to share my life with someone... not forge it into one. My biggest fear is to look at someone that I love one day and realize that I didn't give them the time to become their own person and know that we have grown apart.

Apparently, I'm No Sarah McLachlan

I keep telling everyone that I want a cat, and in essence, I do. I love the idea of having a cat in the same way that I really like the idea of having over-sized glasses or actually being compelled to read past page 24 of Anna Karenina. I like cats in the same way that I like black coffee or doing yoga or having a legitimate interest in craft beer. All of these things come to mind when I think of ways to describe myself, but actually, those things are all lies. Maybe that's an issue, that I describe myself with interests that sound appealing as opposed to the things that I actually do. But at the end of the day, I think I want a cat because I once had a pretty cool relationship with a cat, and I'm kind of blocking out all the other pet experiences I've had in my life. My cat Skeeter was a boss. He laid around a lot, mostly on his back under the ceiling fan. I didn't really have to take care of him, so it was more like having a really quiet brother that I would talk to sometimes. Most of the time, he didn't want anyone around and considering that he was obese, I didn't really want him on me either. Skeeter and I got along because most of the time, neither of us really wanted the other one around. It kind of worked the same as most of the relationships I had in middle school.
But when it comes down to it, I'm really not a pet person. Most of what I have owned I ended up killing. For instance, when my mamaw died, I had really bad emotional backlash, so my parents bought me a red beta fish. Essentially, you can't kill a beta, even if you don't feed it for like three days. I know because I was really bad at feeding it. I named him George (after George Strait, naturally), and he was good people. After a while, I got the hang of taking care of him, and like most of my pets, he quickly became my best friend. Then, like a thief in the night, my dad bought himself a small catfish. Dad decided that it would be a good idea for them to share an aquarium, so when I came home from first grade and found half of George floating at the top of the water with the other half inexplicably missing, I panicked. Had not feeding George resulted in him eating the top half of his body? When I approached my dad with tears in my eyes, his only explanation was... and I quote, "Catfish domination." From that point on, pretty much everything I owned was destined for some terrible fate.
My dog Sable died of parvo. The dove I found outside our house died from some bird disease. The next dog I had, Roxie, died of parvo. My pet rabbit, Grace, was attacked by one of my dad's hunting dogs. When I buried her, I cried so hard that I covered my face with my hands. It then took a subsequent two years to convince me that I wouldn't die myself via facial exposure to dead rabbit germs. The pet turkey (a seemingly indestructible creature) we had was eaten by coyotes. All the quail we owned started disappearing... years later, I found out that I ate them. However, the most devastating fate was probably the first cat that I ever had, Tiger.
After a moving sermon at New Hopewell Baptist Church, I had acquired what I call "the baptism bug." As soon as I got home, I started looking for things to baptize: action figures, my pillow, my brother Casey... you name it, and I redeemed its soul in the name of Jesus Christ. Tiger, however, was a tricky target. He had been scratching things for some time, and the most logical eight-year-old solution was to wash those demons out of him. So eventually, after hours of work... I caught him. I filled up the bath tub beforehand, understanding in previous attempts, the sound of the bathtub filling up only induced the demons within him. His demons were no challenge for me though. The day that I baptized Tiger was one of my proudest; nevertheless, Tiger clawed his way up my arm, over my shoulder, and ran out the door. I never saw Tiger again after that day.
With a pet resume like that, I was honestly surprised that anyone would ever allow me to babysit their kids, but throughout high school, I babysat two kids who have grown up to be seemingly halfway decent people now. I like to think I had a pretty heavy hand in that. I would make them food sometimes or turn off the television and make them do homework. Essentially, I was the closest thing to Maria Von Trapp that someone could be without making a new wardrobe out of the drapes. So when my former boss presented me with the opportunity to "dog-sit" for her, I embarked on the opportunity with open paws (several puns intended). I had, at some point, blocked out all of the horrible things I had done to animals over the years and assumed that if I could watch kids a couple days a week that I would surely be able to watch dogs.
But it didn't take long to realize that maybe this wasn't the kind of a job for someone like me. When I walked into their house, the couch and chairs were covered in hair, and I mean, if that's what you're into then cool. These people had a baby though... a little tiny human that I had watched eat her own boogers on several different occasions. I rarely ever saw the kid, but I always saw the dogs and it only took me a couple minutes to realize that these dogs are the stars and the baby is kind of like a recurring character. I know that wherever this couple went, they didn't take their baby, but I was also unsure where the baby actually was. After some contemplation, I assumed she was in the mailbox... I didn't check to confirm or deny that theory. My job was the dogs, and that's what I was going to attempt to do. I was instructed to stay in the house with them and that I should sleep there.
After one night of sleeping in the house though, I knew that I would never dog sit again. I don't cuddle with humans, let alone dogs. I have boundary issues, and maybe that means I wasn't hugged enough as a child, but we can't really do much to remedy that now. As I laid there trying to fall asleep, these two full sized labrador retrievers boxed me in, similar to the way that football players would sandwich me in the hallway as a high school freshman. I felt intimidated and uncomfortable, especially when one of them would start pawing against my butt... the dogs, not the football players. After night one, I decided that the best option would be to lock them in the basement at night. It was only like... eight hours. They'd be fine because normal living creatures should work the same way as humans, right?
Wrong. One of two things happen to dogs at night: (1) They poop on themselves mid-sleep or (2) Dogs are oddly nocturnal. I never thought to check the basement the next morning because I was using human mentality. I don't poop on myself when I sleep, so surely they'll be good to go once I get up in the morning. After my four day stay, I picked up my compensation and went on my way. Later that day, I would get a call from their owner that went something like this: Justin, do you enjoy abusing my dogs? I mean, did you even take them outside to use the bathroom or did you just lock them in the basement for the entire week for you to go off and do God knows what? Seriously, what the f*%& did you do this week? You will never get near my dogs again. How would you feel if you were locked in a basement for an entire week? Well, I probably wouldn't mind it because I could get some serious reading done, but that was neither here nor there. At this point in the conversation, I laid the phone down because this was obviously a battle I was going to lose. I began to wonder what exactly was in the basement... did they really poop feet upon feet of feces or was this like... one poop pile left unattended? Maybe my theory about the baby was wrong, and they made the same misconception that I did and the baby pooped everywhere. Yes. That was the theory that I would follow.

Needless to say, I've pretty much stayed away from the idea of having pets since that debacle. I'm pretty sure my name is on a list somewhere that prohibits me from getting in a seven feet radius of a dog and the owner of that list is our very own, Sarah McLachlan. I'm like 98% confident those dogs were alive when I left that house, and if they weren't it was because something terrible had happened between the time I locked up the house the last time and the time that their owners got home. I actually wouldn't have been surprised if they held all their poop that week, unlocked the basement with their secret human capabilities, and went down there and pooped for like two hours straight. Those dogs were evil, and they gave me evil labrador retriever eyes all the time. And as much as I showered, they always wanted to smell my man business, so honestly, I should have remembered to mention how much that bothered me during our conversation about my inability to take care of animals. But I didn't... the past is the past, and all we can do is learn from it. That's why I have the opinion I do about getting a pet. I know that if I got a cat, it would probably meet a similar fate as the others, and even if it didn't, I'd probably try to baptize it in a religious daze and never see it again anyway.