Holy Hell. He wasn't a counterfeit bear after all. Not that I would have loved him any less had he been; but I didn't know that.

Watson the dog mistook my ratty old bear for one of his ratty old chew toys. And thus my bear of 24 years was gone, save for a few sea-green scraps and his left ear. There was stuffing everywhere. It was horrible.

But there's nothing to be done. Watson the dog saw the bear as competition and acted like any dog in the wild would: he ate that fuzzy helpless thing.

The bear's coloring had puzzled me for years. Bedtime Bear is blue and mine was an odd green color. I thought perhaps his color had faded over time, but I had a nagging memory of a green lock of hair that I had pulled out, one by one, until it was gone.

Not that it matters now. The only color he is now is the color eaten. I suppose I can dust off my Squishable, Heath Leopard.

And the beat goes on.

It goes like this: Sign in, click on "new post", start writing.

The difference, I think, is the looking backward. This was such a forward-looking device. At the end of each day, my intellectual uprising of sorts, a chance to chide myself and the world. To remember the ones I loved or was trying not to. Forward-looking, buoyed by a delicate arrogance. No good days, no bad days, only my day and the pauses necessary to dream up new distractions.

Just vulnerable enough to keep things interesting.

The dichotomy of Then and Now has found me. Untimely ripped from my womb of ignorant bliss and dashed against the scenery. Cut-out trees with painted hollows falling with flat wooden slaps. Beads of sweat, bright lights and no audience.

There was a time before my brother but I do not remember it. I don't think it was like this.

Then there's this thing. I'm stuck with these things I've written here. Picking through the archives and finding my brother. Once written, a thing is always happening now. That's where I was and where I am trying to return. But the Then is getting farther from the Now. Soon, the day will be replaced. A new February 24th will be painted over the old one. Painted over before I've come back for everything. I am a bad tenant of that last day and all that stuff is still mine just give me a little more time to find a place for it, sheesh. I've been busy with other stuff, is all.

Routine makes my life possible but it fails me now.

Dear HALOW Animal Rescue,

The lady said that dashhounds grow really long and that was his appeal. His back legs had the nerve damage so we cut them off. He gets along real well, he kinda reminds me of a snail the way he drags his rear. Funny enough we named him Snail Number Two.

Dang here this the other night a big old owl tried to swoop him up with his talons but he was still on his chain so he fell back down. Lucky I didn't untie him.

Hes happy though we got a big old yard and part of the house is pretty much yard. Ha, he sure doesn't like the asians. Must be the eyes.

My next welfare check is going right to your store cause I saw that Archie dashhound you got I bet he'll be the longest. Thanks again for giving our family a chance to love here right.

Yers,

Gunk

In my day, wizards paid for their skills in suffering and pain, not tuition. In my day, vampires slept in earth guarded by traps and minions that were more likely to kill you than the vampire itself. In my day, monsters of day and monsters of night were as common as poverty, and God was as scarce as always.

We feared them, yes, and we learned to hunt them. This to ease our troubled minds. This to feed our arrogance; for we tolerate no creature deadlier to Man than ourselves.

I am ill. I hate it. The misery I accept, the weakness I will admit, but the uselessness I cannot abide. I called in sick to work again today. Mostly I won't do that, but besides chasing after a bunch of mutts I also have to talk to potential adopters. No guilt finds me when I am spreading my various pestilences...es across the world from my native lands of Mehi-co, as Fox News accurately reports of all my kind. When I am visibly contagious; that is another matter. I must hide from the world lest they find out.

I hate feeling weak.

When Donaldo was wrestling in high school, he caught ringworm and brought it home. When a scaly patch the size of a dime appeared on my shoulder I was horrified. No fungo-bacterian terrorist was going to profit from my nourishing hide! I burned off the microscopic nuisance. I later discovered the existence of an over-the-counter ointment that was readily available, allegedly also effective at fighting ringworm. I looked into it; nowhere on the packaging did the cream claim to be as anti-fungal as the searing kiss of Man's fire. This reassured me for some years, but eventually I would come to admit that I was an idiot and should stop assuming that all my problems could be burned off.

In non-contagious news, my alleged pit-bull/greyhound mutt of a dog is thriving. The Noobers, Slinky, and Watson all went for a walk today. It was a majestic sight: my horse of a dog blazing a trail flanked by a dachshund and a Boston terrier. It was even awe-inspiring right until I got tangled up in The Noobers's Extend-O-Leash and almost fell headlong into a tree. My new official policy is to hold all the leashes in one hand so I don't get the ol' wrap-around. With this technique, the three leashes braid themselves into a festive braid, instead of turning me into a maypole, or as we Mehicans say, "mayo-polo".

Now my dogs are napping peacefully. The Noobers is dreaming of having his own butler that will scratch his tummy at the ring of a bell, Slinky is dreaming of winning first prize trophy for The Longest-Yet-Most-Useless Dog In The World, and Watson is dreaming of chewing up that trophy and scattering its bits all about the house.

I will dream tonight too, no doubt, and run with my dream hounds. Memory is our quarry; we dig up lost moments like delicate truffles. At times we uncover moments that never did happen; but we will always make room on our table. We are not always hungry for them now. But we were, and we will be again. I have all the time in this world.

After weeks pestering my co-workers and managers with my incessant questions about all aspects of the animal rescue/adoption center, they finally gave in and admitted that they were deliberately avoiding training me because the last three new-hires quit in less than a month. "So this whole time you've just been testing me? Lucky for you I'm used to having no idea what I'm doing." It also helped my case that I began writing everything down in my planner so sometimes I was the only personwho knew what was going on, even though I didn't understand it. Thus, another conspiracy against me fails thanks to my usual paranoia.

"You need to write more..."

-A drunk-ass Donovan. A man may be drunk but that doesn't mean he's wrong.