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.

Why social media has saved my life.

Some people use social media as a cry for help.

I am one of those people.

I wrote a post when I first started this blog about how I once felt so close to a group of people that I no longer wanted to throw myself off of a roof.

Today, for the first time in a long time and the first post of the new year, I'm no longer in that place. I'm locked away in my apartment, glad that I'm too paralyzed by myself to leave. Which I guess that paralyzing anxiety is good in one aspect: I won't do anything stupid. With the exception of publishing my greatest secrets on the internet in this post.

It isn't a secret that I struggle with anxiety, but maybe it is a secret that most days getting out of bed for me is hard. It's the most difficult thing I'll have to do, because sometimes ignoring the world is so much easier.

That's why I have the internet.

You can shit on and dog everyone that uses places like Tumblr and Twitter and Facebook and Snapchat and every single social networking site, but sit the fuck down before you do because you don't know a damn thing about that person.

The internet is generally a safe place where I can write and publish my fear and anxiety (and let me tell you, there's enough to go around for everyone). Generally I don't get shit for it. Generally I get strangers half way across the world telling me that I'm a wonderful person or that I'm beautiful or something to make sure that I don't do something I'll regret. These are the people, strangers, that have kept my head up.

Not the people I see on a daily basis.

The people that I see on a daily basis probably couldn't tell if I had laughed so hard that I cried or if I was so damaged that I couldn't stop myself from crying.

In real life, I can sit and stare at my phone for hours on end, going through my contacts, wanting and needing someone to talk to. I come up with absolutely no one. In real life, I don't actually know who cares about me enough to want to sit with me and listen to me talk or cry -- no one has ever been that person for me.

In the real world I don't know who I can call to save myself, because I don't know that they will try.

Fascination with modern crime shows

For the past several days the two hottest things on my twitter feed have revolved around Miley Cyrus at the VMAs and Breaking Bad. Since I could not possibly care any less than I already do about Miley, let's talk for a minute about the second thing. And hell, why don't we throw in a few others as well.

Let's talk about Breaking Bad, Dexter, and White Collar (since these are the ones that I happen to watch). Not too many people watch the last, so the primary focus will be on Breaking Bad and Dexter, but I happen to enjoy the witty banter between the two main characters in the USA show so I feel like mentioning it.

Breaking Bad is, according to wikipedia, "the story of Walter White, a struggling high school chemistry teacher who is diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer at the beginning of the series. He turns to a life of crime, producing and selling methamphetamine with a former student, Jesse Pinkman. Walter's primary goal, when he begins manufacturing the methamphetamine, is securing his family's financial future before he dies."

Dexter, with the same source, "centers on Dexter Morgan, a blood spatter pattern analyst for a fictional Miami Metro Police Department who also leads a secret life as a serial killer."

White collar, similarly, is about a conman that agrees to work with the FBI catching criminals to get out of prison.

These are shows about crime, specifically criminals. They differ considerably from shows like Criminal Minds or CSI or NCIS, solely because the criminals are the main characters.

But they're great because we root for the bad guy. 

People want Walter and Jesse to get away, even though we know they'll probably end up in jail or prison. We want Dexter to escape to some country that doesn't extradite to the United States, even though he will also probably end up in prison. 

What this goes to prove is that perception plays more of a role in life than we intend to let on. These shows, with main views on the lives of these criminals, show just that. The daily life of an average human being, with a little bit added on.

People are fascinated with the concept of breaking the law, but, in a sense, are much too afraid to do so themselves. Watching someone else break the law is amusing and not at all dangerous. There's no chance you can go to prison for sitting on your couch watching Walter White make meth or crossing your fingers in hopes that Dexter won't get caught by the same people he works with. Unless you're pirating everything, of course. 

But we're fascinated by murder weapons and motives and why people do the things that they do, if only because we're explicitly told, throughout our lives, not to do them. Mother tells us not to do drugs, the law tells us we aren't allowed to kill people.

Yet there's a desire somewhere deep down to engage in things like this, the forbidden fruit. It's been human nature since the written times of the bible with Adam and Eve.

Wanting to break the law is in our nature, yet we value our lives too much to do it ourselves. Thus we turn to watching the shows from the safety and comfort of our own homes.

So sad and slow?

"We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone - we find it with another."

Writer Thomas Merton gets the attribution for that quote right there.

Not counting celebrities and men that I just like to stare at, I've been seriously attracted to probably about six people in the nineteen years that I've been around, give or take one or so. Considering how many men I've been around over the years and how many people are around on campus, how is that possible? How can I see people walking around and not just be instantly attracted to them?

Let's just say you go to a car lot to look for a new car. You see some pretty nice vehicles that you would consider buying, but you don't just go over to a car and immediately say "This is the one that I want for the next five years of my life."

No. You get in the car, you inspect the interior, you get to know the car's history and the mechanics or the vehicle. You give it a test drive and you weigh your options, and only then do you agree to buy the car.

This is how I look at men. Sure, I can look at men just as often I look at the Aston Martin website, but that doesn't mean I'm signing my life away immediately. Looking is nice, but learning is even nicer.

Of the six +/- men that I found myself attracted to, they all have one thing in common.

No, they don't all look alike or have the same personality. In fact, as a writer, I can give you chapters and chapters of how each man is different from his predecessor and how each could sink a ship in his own way. That's what I do.

Every single one of them, however, had the same beginning. We were friends. I got to know the mechanics and the interiors before I fell for the car.

People might consider that a high standard.

I consider it a good bit of skepticism before I invest time in something.

People are always talking about how time is valuable, about how life is short, but if life is so short, why would you waste time on something you know for sure won't pan out? Why would you spend time with someone you don't value to his/her fullest? Or someone that doesn't value you?

Why would you buy a car without looking into it, only to have it break down and get a flat tire, to abandon it on the side of the freeway a month later?