A Deal's A Deal

The artistic thing to do would be to make this deliberately obtuse. Try to seem deep and mysterious; brushed by the feathers of the heralds of the gods. It is cold, and I am weary. The story can tell itself.

The night my dog died, I couldn't sleep. Every story of the house reminded me of her. The first floor when she was a pup, confined as she was by the staircase and her strong but short legs. Her deep dark eyes shining up at me as I ascended to sleep. How her tail would wiggle as she slept with her chin on the first tread, anticipating in dreams the family's descent.

The second floor she mastered by stubborness. I hadn't loved her until she peeked into my study. The fire was low, and I was about throw into it my entire manuscript when she tried, and failed, to leap into my lap. Pitying her pudgy belly and deep gaze, I picked her up. She sat still for a whole minute. Stoic, she sniffed at my overly-romantic tale of love and deception, sitting stillborn next to my typewriter. She whined, and pawed at the keys.

"deft"

Deftly, good or ill, be quick in your actions. (I wrote, and from here on I will)

At the end of our lives, we do not tally up the right or wrong of things, but the why. Thus, be deft in your actions, swift in your judgement, that those of us waiting to react can do so.

Tallies are for the scorekeepers. We, the privileged few, are the players. Given our lines, we can but interpret, and wiggle an eyebrow or two in defiance of the text.

That is what you taught me, silly pitbull puppy. And if I weep now, it is for the loss of you, and not because in all my intellect, I taught you nothing that you, blind and eager to love, already knew.

I always knew she would break my heart.

My poor baby girl. The cancer had spread quickly. She died peacefully in my arms.

Watson seems fine, but he knows, I think, that she was the only one tough enough and stubborn enough to be his friend.

I will be brief
Our love
Was bigger on the outside

Everything is dying. Well, two things. Seems like everything, sometimes.

El Guapo, Aka The Noobers, Aka Guapo L. Dog, died on Saturday.  Put down, actually. I saw him on Friday, I think. I tapped on the window at  my parent's house, as I always do when I am too lazy to reach into my pocket and grab my keys. He didn't bark. And he didn't seem to recognize me. Didn't respond to my calls.

He was already somewhere else.

Now, I lie in bed, in my own home, with my own dogs. They hog the sheets. The ever-blowing fan chills my bare shoulders. It feels good; I lifted the 40-pound weights I keep in the bathroom and trip over every morning and my shoulders ache a bit. I'll be too cold soon, but any attempt to pull the blankets 'round me will disturb Leela. She'll growl coldly, as if she never loved me, and storm away. The only time I see her fierce, or fear her ire.

Watson I can slide around all day. Though the larger of the two, he is far more graceful.  Trusting, too. I cradle him in my arms and gaze lovingly into his eyes.

He tolerates it. It's hard to be adored, I think, without lacking a sense of self.

Can't go around loving people; it makes them realize what they are.

Sometimes I think of my tech and my toys and my tattoos and how I see them as an extension of myself, or at least what I convince myself I am, and how they're just things and anyone could own these or draw them on their skin and how my identity is a dull veneer of consumable products and advertisements for an idea of myself that I want to exist in a tangible way, but wasn't that the point of my consciousness, that it isn't a thing that can be seen or touched but only perceived as it bursts forth in thoughts and actions, creates and strives, and turns every human interaction into an impromptu symphony of invisible instruments.

Sometimes I think of my tech and my toys and my tattoos, but only sometimes.

I just dreamt that I was standing in front of myself and one of me was yelling "In the past three months, how have you gotten better?! How have you gotten better?!"

This dream brought to you by cold brew coffee and mezcal cocktails from Welcome Chicken and Donuts, for those mornings when you don't want to decide if you love yourself or hate yourself.

Photo credit: Mai-Linh Le

A few days ago I sat down to explain to Ender and Remy why it's so difficult to defeat Chtulhu (they were fighting my crocheted Chtulhu and my Gipsy Danger). I got a piece of paper and drew a dot, then a line, then a cube, and explained the fourth dimension is time. "In the stories, Cthulhu exists in even more dimensions." I drew more points on the paper, connected them to the cube, to themselves, and to nothing. "Oh," Remy said, "that's why people who see him go crazy." I felt like dropping the pencil like a mike. My work is done; their monster hunter training is complete.