So on the 18th I'd finally managed to get myself settled with my life and really be at peace with everything and stuff has been super awesome.

I've begun to notice a pattern that almost as soon as I post a journal or a Facebook status talking about how great everything's going, something snaps and everything goes out of control.

For example: I posted that "At Peace" journal on the 18th. The next morning, on the 19th, I had a missed call, several texts and an email from my dad telling me that my iguana Thora— who I hadn't been able to bring with me when I moved out of dad's place a year ago— passed away "unexpectedly" from a totally preventable, totally treatable mouth infection that he'd been lying to me about for at least a month and that he, for whatever reason, wouldn't get a damn vet to look at.

Thora was my baby. My five-foot-long and hella tank baby. I was fucked up for days after I heard the news in a combination of grief, anger and resentment both towards dad for not doing more to help her, and for myself for not being there for her, or at least with her when she died.

I still don't know what dad did with her body. I haven't asked. I don't think I want to know. I would have wanted her cremated, so I could keep her in some way, but I know he wouldn't have done that. Either way, I avoided answering his texts or talking to him at all for about three days.

The grieving period, at least, was made a bit easier by having Loki around to keep me company and keep me occupied. Instead of spending every day hiding and crying I've been getting up to feed him, play with him. Even when I did curl up under the blankets to cry and get away from everything, he would come up and cuddle with me. It's times like that that have made me really, really glad I got a cat.

Things started looking up after a few days. The weather was gorgeous, and the caplin were beginning to roll on the beaches for their spawning season so me, my older sister, my boyfriend and his brother decided to head out to Middle Cove with some bags and a net and catch a bunch of fish. With the icebergs all over the place this year the water is still freezing, but that didn't stop my sister and I from jumping in the water in bathing suits and bikinis! We were so pumped to be there, as caplin-catching was a huge annual thing for us when we were kids but then we hadn't been able to go in recent years. It was crazy nostalgic.

In all, we caught about 60lbs of caplin (which is a fuckton of fish, by the way. They aren't very big!). My sister took about 20lbs, me and the boyfriend's brother (since boyfriend is the worst bayman ever and doesn't like caplin) took the rest to split up in bags for our respective families and then fry up and each as much as we could. I'd like to say I was sick of caplin at this point, but that would make me a liar.

So things went downhill, then back up again, and work is still trying to drag me down again because the company I work for is awful, depression is coming and going and my sex life has been practically nonexistent as a result, but I'm starting to gather all my lost marbles again. It's really helped that I've gotten the first dozen or so WIP pictures of my neoprene mermaid tail, too, which I'm really excited about! <3 The estimated time of completion on that, by the way, is the end of the second week of July, so if everything goes well I'll have it in my hands by August and will be able to get at least one kickass outdoor swim+photoshoot out of it!

So basically, it's been a weird couple of weeks. But I'm managing to hold my head up!

... Now if I could just get the cat to stop attacking my legs long enough for me to actually get some sleep...