Anora Posting

Anora posting

I know I periodically ask people to look at Alice, but I would like to explain why.

That, above, is Alice when she was just ten days old. It was December 2008, and I had gone to Seattle to prepare to die. I was tired, I was dealing with a massive disruption in my social circle, and I was done. So I went to see friends, and to say my goodbyes before I went home and politely made my exit. I had a fully articulated plan, and no desire to tell people about it, which is not a good place to be.

Then we went to visit Betsy, who had recently ushered a litter of kittens into the world. And she put this little blue tabby potato in my hand and said "That's the girl."

And just like that, I decided to live. "Do you take checks?" I replied, and Alice entered my life.

(That makes it sound much easier than it was. Betsy was intending to keep Alice, who was without flaw by Maine Coon breed standards. Seriously, she was the kind of cat breeders work to produce for their entire careers. I spent two months wearing Betsy down before she agreed to let me have her.)

Alice was my first Maine Coon. Alice was my heart and soul somehow walking around outside of my body. She was without flaw. She was everything I wanted in this world, and she loved me as much as I loved her, and I would happily trade a year of my life for another hour with her in my arms.

In 2017, I went to Australia as a convention guest, and when I came home, Alice wasn't right. She was always food-motivated, and she was refusing to eat. I made a vet appointment immediately, and we started the necessary tests to find out what was wrong. Roughly a month later, while I was at another convention, my vet called me.

"I am so so sorry," she said, and the world ended.

Alice had large-cell feline lymphoma. It wasn't a surgically treatable cancer; we were going to have to go through chemo, and hope. So we did. And we did everything it was possible to do. Thanks to my Patreon, there was never a point where I had to decline treatment due to money, and I know what an incredible gift that was. Bit by bit, she faded, but she was still my Alice, and we were still fighting.

Then, on February 13th, 2018, I woke up and she was stretched out along my side from hip to knee, making the worst sound I have ever heard every time she took a breath. I didn't want to let her go. I could no longer make her stay. We left for the vet immediately, and my oncologist agreed that she was done; she was ready to go, and the last gift she gave me was staying by my side, not running and hiding like most cats would.

I held her. I sang "Beautiful Beast" for her. And she went ahead of me to the clearing at the end of the path, to the place she stopped me from going.

I miss her more than I knew I could miss anything in this world. She was my best friend and my favorite thing, and my mother told people I'd lost a child to explain why I would just wander around, dead-eyed and sobbing. Alice saved me when I didn't think it was possible, and I'm grateful; I have no such plans at this point.

But fuck my poor, broken heart, I just want her to come home. And in the absence of that as an option, I want everyone to look at Alice.

Please look at my poor girl.

incredibly self-indulgent fanart of We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian. Nick and Andy I love you.

RB if you think CD drives in computers are not obsolete, but in fact still necessary, despite being artificially phased out

Manifesting Queen's "Princes of the Universe" if Crowley does go the Prince of Hell route.

I love this for them because the lyrics imply them working together to save the world.

how many pings will it take for secunit to stop sulking?