Only dogs count as best friends.

Yesterday I got a phone call at 7 in the evening, a phone cal in which it sounded like someone had died.

Today someone did.

Today we put down my mastiff of over four years.

But dogs aren't just dogs, as some might say. They don't call a dog a (wo)man's best friend for nothing.

I can't count the times on both my hands where I've been crying in front of someone I considered a really good friend, couldn't count the times where I was upset and not a single person asked me why or the times where everyone in a room ignored my visibly upset manner -- tears and horrible sobbing included.

I couldn't lift a single finger for the times I was upset around my dog and she didn't notice. She couldn't ask me why, couldn't ask me what, but she could do the one thing that so many of my "friends" couldn't do: She could tell me that everything was going to be alright.

Even though her breath smelled absolutely terrible and her slobber would sometimes sink deep into my pores, I always knew that she wanted to make sure I was doing okay, always knew that seeing her would raise my spirits from the ground to the roof.

No one else could ever do that.

I could walk into ballroom practice, into my apartment, into work, and have invisible tears.

Writing this, trying not to cry, trying to hide a grieving process from so many people at the loss of my best friend, only makes me realize that I can go home now and cry and not have that comfort.

Only a dog owner would understand that never-ending love and affection. Understand that the loss of someone that has helped you survive so many days can create a massive sorrow that weighs on your heart.

And weigh it does.

The only thing college has given me is a stutter.

If you've ever spoken to me, you probably notice that I stumble over my words more often than I can speak clearly.

Whether I start to say one word and then I stumble into another, or I combine two words together that don't belong, or even if I just stutter over the first few letters of a simple word.

Generally I'm not too bad -- generally people can understand what I'm saying, they gloss over the misstep as if it'll only happen once or twice. But it continues.

It doesn't happen all of the time, some days are clearer than others. But it still happens and frankly, at 20 years of age, it's a little embarrassing.

I didn't have a stutter when I graduated from high school. I could articulate everything quite well, in both English and Spanish.

Now I stumble over "How was your weekend" and "Esta presentación es de dos castillo."

Somewhere between graduation and orientation I lost my ability to speak clearly and I'm still not exactly how. Maybe it's the pressure of graduation into the adult life, or the pressure of class and work, or the fact that I'm about to be 40 thousand dollars in debt for the rest of my life.

Maybe it's pressing down on parts of my brain that let me speak up and speak my mind, maybe it's just twisting my tongue.

Either way, at the rate it's going, I'll graduate and walk into an interview and stumble over my name.

Athena as my Valentine, and why being single on the 14th is actually awesome.

Two things:

Athena is my dog.

I should probably come up with a shorter title, but I'm not really feeling up to that one.

A few years ago I probably would have posted something stupid on my tumblr like this:

I did actually go back in my blog to 2011 to screenshot that post. It exists.

This year I posted something more along the lines of:

A lot has changed, and most of it comes in the form of my apathy towards most holidays. However I am quite more passive about Valentine's day. I don't actively hate it, it just sort of exists. I mean, being single on the 14th is actually kind of cool.

1. You don't have to share your 6 pack.
     Or any alcohol, really. Before the comments about how single people are all alcoholics drinking away sorrows on Valentine's Day, suck it up for a minute, hear me out. Hopefully you're one of those people that buys good beer. There's a difference between drinking cold piss and drinking decent alcohol. I, personally, am not Bear Grylls and enjoy the latter. If you, like me, do not like to share your booze with other people, you aren't obligated to. Otherwise, say you buy a bottle of wine or a bottle of liquor or a 6 pack. You're probably on a stay at home date with your significant other, and are therefore most likely going to end up sharing your booze. I did not.

2. Sure that dress is cute but look at my Superman sweatpants!
     If I could wear these sweatpants for the rest of my life I would be happy. They're warm, they make me nice and cozy under my Snuggie, they're fucking Superman fucking PJs. I will gladly lay around and not put on makeup or dress pants or a necktie or a dress.

3. YOU DON'T HAVE TO SHAVE.
     Literally this should be the only reason that you need. Shaving. Sucks. Whether it's your legs or your arms or your chest or your face or whatever you shave. IT SUCKS. It's time consuming, there's the possibility that you get to cut yourself, sometimes you run out of shaving cream or your razor is too dull or. The list on why it sucks is so long that it sucks.

4. Legitimately you can just watch Netflix all day.
     Of course, I helped someone move on Valentine's day, but if I hadn't I probably would have just sat around watching Game of Thrones. Until midnight. Literally a season of GoT.

5. No presents!
     I think they actually raise the price of chocolate and flowers and teddy bears and all of that shit at least a month in advance, just in case you're stockpiling for V-Day. But if you don't have anyone to buy for, you don't have to spend any money on things that will either go bad, die, or get lost. You don't have to worry about making reservations at some ~fancy~ restaurant, don't have to buy anyone but yourself dinner (which I mean, let's be honest. Pizza and beer all the way), and you don't have to buy any cards. Ace.

6. You can stay home and not have to watch handsy people grabbing at each other.
     I am all for public display of affection. Seriously, go for it. But for some reason during February it just amplifies. There was one year I actually thought that two people were going to take off their clothes and go at it right there on the floor. Or, as Maverick from Top Gun would say, "No, actually, I had this counter in mind."

7. The next day, everything is more than 50% off.
     If you're going to celebrate Valentine's day, do it on the 15th. Or the 16th. Do it whenever the fuck you want after the 14th finishes. It will be so much cheaper and those reservations won't take fifteen minutes + of sitting on hold.

8. Maybe I'm sentimental, but it's hella commercial.
     Valentine's Day is actually a waste of calendar space, but not because I don't think it's important to ~express your love~ or some shit. There are generally 365 days in a year, why do you need to dedicate exactly one day for your relationship/mushy feelings? Why not have that candlelit dinner on September 10th? Or buy that one red rose on June 30th? Why do people need a calendar date reserved for people to be thankful that they're in a relationship or that they have someone they can share time with? Valentine's day exists so that people can spend money and big name flower/chocolate industries can profit off of the expectation that ~love is in the air.~

Fuck that shit.

Be single.

Don't celebrate Valentine's Day.

Run around your house without clothes on.

Stuff your face with chocolate on the 15th.

Let's talk about sinspiration.

Sinspiration in the fact that I don't have any. And that's like a cardinal sin when it comes to trying to pursue a career in writing things. It isn't even the fact that I don't know how to be inspired anymore -- I know exactly what inspired my last few pieces of writing, and I know exactly why I haven't been able to write anything since then.

But first let's talk about the elusive concept of "Love."

Writers love in an atypical way.

When I fall in "love," I fall for the people that inspire me. I'm not strictly talking about romantic love, keeping in mind the fact I've never actually been in a relationship, but a form of love in general: A love of muse.

There hasn't been anyone in my life to inspire me enough that I fall for them and continue to be inspired. I'm not sure if that's my inspiration going on strike after the last six or so muses failed, or if it's just because no one around me is inspiring.

In the past, someone I've been inspirationally attracted to has inspired novels and poems and short stories. There wasn't necessarily any desire on my part to pursue them romantically or sexually, simply intellectually.

I stole snippets of lives, of interactions, moments. Altered them only slightly, turned them into fiction -- immortalized people with words.

And now it's nearly impossible for me to do.

I have a hard time writing three lines of a poem, no ideas for a novel, and nothing in the short story world.

The thing that concerns me is that I have a thesis to consider, something that I'm going to be working on for a year starting in the fall.

And I've got nothing but a lack of inspiration and no one there to set me straight.