Why I Am Not A Veterinarian: Part III

Don't worry, I'm getting to the point.

So all throughout high school, my plan was to be a veterinarian. I took the appropriate classes, AP Bio and chemistry, all that shit.

Went to a college with an excellent biology program. I even worked at a zoo for awhile as an assistant keeper. People would take their children there and point to us while we cleaned up after camels and wallabies and cougars and such and say, "Now son, this is what you'll do if you don't go to college." All I could think of was, "Bitch, the only reason I'm here is because my professor gave me a recommendation, and I'm a volunteer." Most of us were.

So science in high school is completely different from college. In high school, you know, you're distilling water and pouring shit in cylinders and making moles out of floss and felt.

But in college, it occurred to me: I wanted to be a doctor. Not just an animal doctor, I mean, I will be giving dogs drugs and creating medicine and researching shit and cutting things open.

For me, the act of dissection was depressing, but never gross, and it's not like I'd never skinned a rabbit before (feeding time at the zoo was always a party). When you make sure the lives of animals are a part of your life, their deaths are a part as well. It's inevitable. After watching old schoolhorses get euthanized and newborn fawns freeze to death (deer and elk from South America have a reversed gestation period, so fawns are born in November and some can't handle the cold)...I mean, there's only so many carcasses you can throw on the back of a truck before you get desensitized.

The problem is this: I am not good with knives. "Steady" and "accurate" are two words that lie in constant opposition to my everyday behavior, so I'll just add them to the list of shit that we know I am not. I wasn't allowed to cut my own birthday cake. Ever. Ask my family, go ahead.

Balancing equations was never a problem (not that it was easy, but I could learn those things without directy injuring someone). I had a grasp on the theories and how they needed to be proved, and I can memorize shit pretty well.

But the practical application of what I'd learned in class? I fucked up every single time. Constantly staying late, redoing labs, having pissed off partners. Accidentally slicing open pigeon veins, dropping kidneys and kickin 'em across the floor. My hands were never steady, my flask always boiled over, nothing ever properly oxidized. Even when everything in the experiment went smoothly, I inevitabley skipped a critical step, and instead of white powder I'd have Silly Putty.

Oh, and I am horrible at writing up lab reports, because I'm incapable of professional writing. This goes along with my inability to follow directions.

I can't even bake cookies, or pancakes. Not if measuring is involved. Once things become exact, I become fucked.

The biggest issue, I think, is that I've never been good at playing the game. Teachers want things to be done this way: well, fuck that. I'm better at doing it this way. And then the teacher says, you did very well, but that wasn't really the assignment. Well, fuck you, Teach. Directions erections shmirections, is what I say. My way is more fun and you know it. It wasn't about rebellion, either. Maybe a little. That was just a pleasant side effect.

It's like that at work too, co-workers can attest to that. I'm pretty sure I drive them nuts, because I am not good at professional behavior (but then again, that depends on your definition of professional. I find my behavior more professional then theirs, so it's all fucking relative, now isn't it? Go stamp your own damn envelopes, because that sign I made is fascecious, and there's no way I'm doing it for you, since I'm not your assistant. Fuckwads.)

This is when my uncle says, "You think you can just run around doing things however you want. That's not how the world works. I don't understand your head. Why can't you just be normal? There is a way for people to behave. You can't just live in the sky." Shut up, Uncle Dick, I'll live there out of spite.

And that is why I am not a veterinarian.

...

Route 66 Ratings: Arizona, 23 points, or: Now I Have Two Guns

>The rest of Arizona was a nice drive. Even though there's still a whole lotta nothing, it was like, interesting nothing, since the temperature dropped by about fifteen degrees the farther east we drove. Thank fucking god.

Stopped in Two Guns just before sundown so I could run around and pretend I was a gunfighter for a couple of minutes, peaking around corners with my hands for revolvers as I stared down imaginary Apache, while MoLinder waited in the car with the cats. I guess the derelict gas station with toppled pumps and scattered bonfire remains was a little The Hills Have Eyes in her head. But I didn't just want painted water towers, I wanted to head down into the ruins at El Canyon Diablo, because, I mean come on...when you pass a place called Devil's Canyon you are obligated to investigate.

Basically, if I lived in a horror movie, disaster movie, or monster movie, I would be the first to die, since I'd be the dumbass going, "Oh come on, what could happen?" right before I stuck my head into a cave or climbed up on the roof of whatever and some big and scary went all Cloverfield over my ass.

That is, I would try to climb up on the roof of whatever and most likely fall on my ass, because I lack grace, but not gut. A dancer I could never be, but that doesn't mean I never idolized Cyd Charisse.

MoLinder would have been the heroine, then, as she ran away to save her precious cats.

But then again, I'm stubborn as fuck, so perhaps Cloverfield monster would like, take one of my legs and leave me pinned on the scene, yelling like all fuck for someone to "get this wall off of me, you sons of whores," and then perhaps MoLinder would come back and find me crushed there, and get that soccer mom adrenaline rush like when their kids are glued under minivans, and I'll get blood all over her car as she took me to the nearest hospital where I spent several weeks with phantom limb syndrome and learned to walk with a fake leg.

But we didn't have time to find out test my probability of survival, and just drove by the ruins and took pictures instead of heading down in the canyon.

When MoLinder saw that there were actual ruins and not just a broke ass gas station and graffiti, she got really excited, and agreed that were we cat-less, she would definitely want to explore down there.

MoLinder ain't no pussy, she just has common sense.

Basically, Arizona was pleasant.

Oh, and last night I had a dream that I was getting chased by giant, sharp-toothed, shaggy-haired hippos and ape-horse centaurs with long spindly fingers and we had a Mexican standoff in the fountain at Millenium Park. Wierd that it happened last night, and not after my mock gunfight. Hurmmm.

Heroes is tonight and I'm all geeked out.

...

Reedick.

'Member how I wrote this post several days ago about how everything is connecting?

So, basically the past two weeks have been ridiculous.

I'm attributing all of it to the fact that Phil moved back from Vermont.
That = shenanigans.

Birthdays, weddings, road trips, fights, ruined lives, the ushe.

Numerous conversations about the superiority of Jack Links to other forms of jerky, about Phil and his cougar sugarmama, about Savvy and the fact that she's destined to become a cougar, about how my boobs get loose, belt buckles kick ass, about how we kick people's asses, constant Buffy marathon (that's what you do in the summer when you don't feel like heat: Buffy marathon) where Buffy kicks asses, so basically nonstop ass-kickage, dive bars, Juicy Juice, cheaters, warm beer that you leave tapped in your backyard for two weeks that makes you look like a cougar, Those Guys, just thumbs, Arbor Mist, can't turn, dudes who blow my mind with their face and that video from the Six-Million Dollar Man where he fights Bigfoot keeps popping up in conversation...

And today I find this.

What what.

...