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Last week, untroubled, drinking Irish-whiskey lethe, forgetting words as soon as they were spoken and not really minding, I thought it would be easy to go where I intended to go. But sometimes arriving in a good place means going to a lot of other places first. And you just have to wait that shit out, brother. And sometimes waiting that shit out is worth it. Sometimes it's the best part.

So I went outside in the morning dark. The town already wide awake, excited, true. Like the quick intake of breath. Like the root and the stir. Like the clutch of a tongue-tied pinky swear. And packed purposefully into layers of clothes, I went chasing the down and the din.

And in those moments—before, during, after—I think we all found ourselves in the place we had gone searching for. And that was the place we wanted to be.

Today, I start the early things. The bedroom air is cold. By the bed, Honey tumbles over herself and makes morning sounds. Snorts. Collar clangs. She paws at my hands. She pulls herself across the berber carpet on her belly. As I put on socks and crocks, she angles for a tummy rub. I give in. We go downstairs and outside and then return and I put food in the bowl and she eats it.

And then, a switching on: of breakfast, of coffee, of radio. I stir up the grits. I try to stir up the living things. C is showering upstairs. Then her footsteps. Then her lips touching mine goodbye.

The heater begins it's loud surge from the night's off, pushing warmth through the vents. The oven hisses and I stand near it and look out the window. Outside it is all hard and freezing and beautiful. I click in the button on the espresso machine. I listen. I wait. I breath.

Moses thinks there's no such thing as arriving someplace you didn't intend. He says you find what you seek. He says it's that freakin' easy. I tell him I hope he's right. That there's a lot that's good here. But there's a lot I miss. And a lot I just don't get.

He thinks I will. He says he has a good feeling about me. But I'm not sure.

link to this | comments (5) | File:  TheLine  Chewing 

Right now, I have several pairs of wearable jeans. But not one of them is my favorite. My favorites all have big holes in them. And that leaves me with no old standby to wear to anything that isn't a Poison concert or my monthly Grunge Club social. Even then, it's really just too cold to wear these swathes of denim. So instead, I wear one of The Others.

The Others are okay, but they ain't my favorites. They've survived this long because they're not. Something about them doesn't set quite right with my ass. And my ass objects to this.

There is still one pair, though. A little high in the ankles, but good for the house. Speckled with paint and dried things I can't discern. In these, I do the dishes with headphones on. For some reason, this activity helps me focus. I need more things in my life to help me focus. Because I'm horribly unfocused these days.

Smoking is another activity that used to help me focus. I think because it helped me remember I was going to die. And made now seem more urgent. This was always a double-edged sword for me. I don't smoke anymore. And now never seems very urgent.

My todo list has fifteen items on it. I have to add "read [insert title of current book I'm reading here]" as a todo item. Otherwise, I won't do it.

Writing is not on my todo list, because I will do that whether I put it there or not. But methinks I should add it to the todo list. That way, after I've done it, I'll feel something other than blinding futility.

Blinding Futility would be a good name for a rock band. Much better than Poison.

Last week, I remembered that I could delegate things. And this made me happy. And optimistic.

Optimism has been elusive lately. She hides in shady back alleys. And cavorts with men much tougher than me. Men who probably own several pairs of favorite jeans. All of which probably set right with their asses.

For the most part, I've stopped frequenting shady back alleys. Because I no longer carry a shank. Which is sort of tragic, really. I have been known to carry a flask, though. And I guess that's something.

Before going to bed, Honey will often set her bone on an object of mine—a book on the floor by the bed, or a shoe, or a sock. I'm not sure what it means, but I like to think it's got something to do with love. Last night, she dropped it on a pair of my jeans. She probably didn't know or care that they weren't my favorites.

link to this | comments (4) | File:  Writing  Honey  Chewing 

Late at night, when I'm in my office and only the halogen arm lamp above me is on, Honey will sometimes catch a glimpse of my reflection in the sliding glass doors and she'll start barking her deep burglar-alarm bark. I'll assure her that it's only me, but she keeps at it, the hair standing up on her back, until I can finally snap her attention away from the reflection and show her that look, I'm right here, Honey. And she will look at me, pupils big and dark, her brow creased with worry. Then she'll look back at the night glass casting my reflection. Then back at me. And she will huff and sigh and make this agitated noise, almost like speaking and almost like howling. And she will come over to me and nudge me with her nose and put her paw on my leg and wag her tail. Like she is so goddamned happy. So relieved that I'm there. Because, holy crap Daddy-O, did you see that? There was somebody who looked just like you outside. And that was some scary shit, man.

The funny thing is she makes this mistake again and again. Because she doesn't get that it's an illusion—that I'm the thing she's seeing out there. And the fact that she gets so upset, and then so visibly relieved when she sees me ... it kind of cracks me up. Because otherwise she's a smart dog. She can sit and lie down and roll over. She can lift her front paw in the air when she's prompted to "wave." She knows how to fetch her leash from the doorknob when it's time for a walk. But the whole reflection thing, it just escapes her every time.

And I love that about her. And I get it. I do. Because we all have those things that we just don't grasp. We all have those mistakes we make, over and over.


Despite what you may have heard, I am not a dog. I walk upright. I understand the truth about mirrors. I'm a reasonably intelligent guy. And I can do any number of tricks. But I've got these mistakes I keep making. I've made them as long as I can remember, and I've yet to learn the trick of how to stop. And actually, if I'm going to be honest, I don't really want to. Because sometimes I like to make them. Sometimes, I set out to make them—on purpose.

And I used to get angry at myself about this. I used to huff and howl and scream at my reflection. But all that did was make me go hoarse. And so now, more and more, I just laugh. And I drink to forget. And I resolve to myself that I will do it again as soon as I can. Because the mistakes define me, brother. The trick is learning to deal with the consequences. And I guess that's the whole point. And I guess I kind of like that.

link to this | comments (5) | File:  TheLine  Honey  Chewing 

Saturday morning, up early. Some hurried grits. A vitamin and a pain killer. This is the way things start. Then C and Honey took me to Newark Penn, where I caught the Northeast Regional to Union Station and transferred to the Metro Red toward Glenmont. Much on the docket. Some minor apartment fixes on order. And some holy (and unholy) communing with friends and family. I was ready.

It began with a late afternoon feast of sauce served atop a mound of pasta, meatballs, and spicy sausage. (The heavier bits were just filler. Like any true Italian family, we were really only there for the red stuff.)

Then, belly full, and my sense of what was right and good in the world renewed, I boarded a metro car at Glenmont and took it south to somewhere in the DC diamond to play ball with this blond blogger who's all the rage down there. She told me she got held up returning some shoes at Neimens, but I suspected "returning shoes" was actually code for "a quickie." And so I let myself into her place and was greeted by a fur coat on a white leather couch. And man oh man, the most intoxicating velvety scent, like flowers and vanilla and grapefruit ... only infused with sugary pornographic undertones. So I read Martin Amis to the art on the walls and the coat on the couch and the pump heels on the floor and together we all waited for our hostess to arrive. And I downed two Stella Artois and coolly pretended to ignore the other distractions in the flat, because I feared I might actually be on camera and playing live in a sticky-walled, coin-operated booth somewhere.

Thus began the second feast that night: a traveling alcoholic buffet that took us from the hoppy nose of an Irish Harp, to the chilly wet island fuzz of Stockholm Absolute Peach Vodka, then to the French fields of Dom P, and on to the dark and dirty St. Louis basement of Everclear Grain. Actually, this last stop is suspect, and you probably shouldn't take my word for it, but I would not be surprised if there were some 151-proof involved in an otherwise innocent looking round of shots.

And let me pause here to mention that there had been a hard rain earlier that night and the DC sidewalks were wet and the the windshield wipers in my soul were still flapping wildly back and forth in sync with the song that had been on my iPod. And that song was So What by Pink. And if you're raising your eyebrows at that and thinking about passing a little bit of judgement on my ass, then ... so what? I've got my rock moves, brother, and I definitely don't need you tonight.

Let's move on ...

Very tall drinks ordered at a hotel bar, where SB and I were joined by FreckledK, and where it made a whole lot of sense to me, as it often does in these situations, to order a round of shots. And since tequila had recently played an upsetting role in my complete dissolution this past July, I thought it was only fair to SB (and the physical and moral integrity of her bathroom) that I stick with something more mild, like Lemon Drops. Only I think some cruel fucker had taught this bartender that Lemon Drop shooters should be mixed up with pure, unadulterated Everclear. Because the shit kinda burned going down and Lemon Drops—they're supposed to be sweet, man. And all this lead to Freckles stealing the mic from the strug-ah-lin cantor who had been choking out his playlist at half the proper tempo. And she got up on stage and delivered a sizzling a cappella lounge act full force at SB, a number so filled with girl-on-girl innuendo that it brought tears to my eyes and warmth to my heart.

And speaking of pure, this is about the point in the evening when we were picked up by a wedding-white stretch Hummer, tremendous in its indecency. Inside, multi-colored laser lights danced on the ceiling and in our hair as we sipped OJ and Peach Vodka from plastic champagne flutes while reclining on those magnificent dark seats. And not being partial to the Peach Vodka myself, I imbibed Bud Light from a can. Because I'm all freakin' class, people. You understand this?

The Hummer came compliments of an exuberant Fauntleroy who was also the one responsible for delivering us to the birthday party of a 22-year-old girl who I'm sure was a lovely person when she wasn't shit-faced drunk and bubbling up spittle on herself. The party was on the top floor of an all-too-swank club full of imperially coiffed twenty-somethings sodden with red bull and vodka. And here's one thing I learned that night, thanks to Freckles: a good way to start a fight in this kind of atmosphere is to pop open the birthday-girl's bottle of celebratory Dom P. You know, the one and only bottle chilling on ice, which the honored inebriatée herself was supposed to open at the stroke of midnight. And a truly great way to carry off this coup de grâce on your wallflowerdom, in case you're taking notes (because I sure was), is to slide that cork out so gently it's like you're making love to it, and then pour yourself and your friends a glass. And then it might help matters further if you offered a toast to each other for your incredible good fortune. And one more toast to the devil for bringing you to this cross-roads in the evening.

But these are merely suggestions. You should try to stretch your creative muscle, because I'm sure this doesn't begin to exhaust all the myriad possibilities. The bottom line is if you hit it just right, the vibe will turn ominous and menacing, and the people whose party you just crashed will begin whispering about the three uninvited assholes who just got into the Dom P and what the fuck were they doing here, anyway?

And then what you'd need—and this is terribly important, I can't stress it enough—is a Peacemaker, a sort of Ringleader of Debauchery, if you will, somebody who's got her fingers on the strings at all times and can pull and tweak them as the situation calls for it. Somebody like SB ... to pay for the champagne and smooth things over with the natives. Then you could take your newly-acquired bubbly outside where you would be told that no, you could not drink it directly from the bottle and what were you anyway, animals? Obviously you needed to use plastic cups in an establishment such as this. And so you would take some of those cups and stake claim on a table and alternate taking sips and pouring some out on the sidewalk to mourn your loss of propriety. Because if you're hearing a kling-klanging sound right now, it's the sound of Klass ringing loud and true and ... unadulterated through the DC streets at 2 am.

Somehow we made it back to SB's flat and found sleep. And the next morning, shell-shocked and twitching, I stumbled to Starbucks for the acquisition of caffeinated beverages. And this managed to score me enough points to get invited into SB's bed, where we sipped, together, Naked, and I fumbled with the remote control, searching for the button that read "art-porn and football."

Oh, god.

Peach Mangosteen Bliss, brother.

And I mean every word of that.

link to this | comments (9) | File:  Weekend  Travel  Debauchery  DC 

Saturday morning, up early. Some hurried grits. A vitamin and a pain killer. This is the way things start. Then C and Honey took me to Newark Penn, where I caught the Northeast Regional to Union Station and transferred to the Metro Red toward Glenmont. Much on the docket. Some minor apartment fixes on order. And some holy (and unholy) communing with friends and family. I was ready.

It began with a late afternoon feast of sauce served atop a mound of pasta, meatballs, and spicy sausage. (The heavier bits were just filler. Like any true Italian family, we were really only there for the red stuff.)

Then, belly full, and my sense of what was right and good in the world renewed, I boarded a metro car at Glenmont and took it south to somewhere in the DC diamond to play ball with this blond blogger who's all the rage down there. She told me she got held up returning some shoes at Neimens, but I suspected "returning shoes" was actually code for "a quickie." And so I let myself into her place and was greeted by a fur coat on a white leather couch. And man oh man, the most intoxicating velvety scent, like flowers and vanilla and grapefruit ... only infused with sugary pornographic undertones. So I read Martin Amis to the art on the walls and the coat on the couch and the pump heels on the floor and together we all waited for our hostess to arrive. And I downed two Stella Artois and coolly pretended to ignore the other distractions in the flat, because I feared I might actually be on camera and playing live in a sticky-walled, coin-operated booth somewhere.

Thus began the second feast that night: a traveling alcoholic buffet that took us from the hoppy nose of an Irish Harp, to the chilly wet island fuzz of Stockholm Absolute Peach Vodka, then to the French fields of Dom P, and on to the dark and dirty St. Louis basement of Everclear Grain. Actually, this last stop is suspect, and you probably shouldn't take my word for it, but I would not be surprised if there were some 151-proof involved in an otherwise innocent looking round of shots.

And let me pause here to mention that there had been a hard rain earlier that night and the DC sidewalks were wet and the the windshield wipers in my soul were still flapping wildly back and forth in sync with the song that had been on my iPod. And that song was So What by Pink. And if you're raising your eyebrows at that and thinking about passing a little bit of judgement on my ass, then ... so what? I've got my rock moves, brother, and I definitely don't need you tonight.

Let's move on ...

Very tall drinks ordered at a hotel bar, where SB and I were joined by FreckledK, and where it made a whole lot of sense to me, as it often does in these situations, to order a round of shots. And since tequila had recently played an upsetting role in my complete dissolution this past July, I thought it was only fair to SB (and the physical and moral integrity of her bathroom) that I stick with something more mild, like Lemon Drops. Only I think some cruel fucker had taught this bartender that Lemon Drop shooters should be mixed up with pure, unadulterated Everclear. Because the shit kinda burned going down and Lemon Drops—they're supposed to be sweet, man. And all this lead to Freckles stealing the mic from the strug-ah-lin cantor who had been choking out his playlist at half the proper tempo. And she got up on stage and delivered a sizzling a cappella lounge act full force at SB, a number so filled with girl-on-girl innuendo that it brought tears to my eyes and warmth to my heart.

And speaking of pure, this is about the point in the evening when we were picked up by a wedding-white stretch Hummer, tremendous in its indecency. Inside, multi-colored laser lights danced on the ceiling and in our hair as we sipped OJ and Peach Vodka from plastic champagne flutes while reclining on those magnificent dark seats. And not being partial to the Peach Vodka myself, I imbibed Bud Light from a can. Because I'm all freakin' class, people. You understand this?

The Hummer came compliments of an exuberant Fauntleroy who was also the one responsible for delivering us to the birthday party of a 22-year-old girl who I'm sure was a lovely person when she wasn't shit-faced drunk and bubbling up spittle on herself. The party was on the top floor of an all-too-swank club full of imperially coiffed twenty-somethings sodden with red bull and vodka. And here's one thing I learned that night, thanks to Freckles: a good way to start a fight in this kind of atmosphere is to pop open the birthday-girl's bottle of celebratory Dom P. You know, the one and only bottle chilling on ice, which the honored inebriatée herself was supposed to open at the stroke of midnight. And a truly great way to carry off this coup de grâce on your wallflowerdom, in case you're taking notes (because I sure was), is to slide that cork out so gently it's like you're making love to it, and then pour yourself and your friends a glass. And then it might help matters further if you offered a toast to each other for your incredible good fortune. And one more toast to the devil for bringing you to this cross-roads in the evening.

But these are merely suggestions. You should try to stretch your creative muscle, because I'm sure this doesn't begin to exhaust all the myriad possibilities. The bottom line is if you hit it just right, the vibe will turn ominous and menacing, and the people whose party you just crashed will begin whispering about the three uninvited assholes who just got into the Dom P and what the fuck were they doing here, anyway?

And then what you'd need—and this is terribly important, I can't stress it enough—is a Peacemaker, a sort of Ringleader of Debauchery, if you will, somebody who's got her fingers on the strings at all times and can pull and tweak them as the situation calls for it. Somebody like SB ... to pay for the champagne and smooth things over with the natives. Then you could take your newly-acquired bubbly outside where you would be told that no, you could not drink it directly from the bottle and what were you anyway, animals? Obviously you needed to use plastic cups in an establishment such as this. And so you would take some of those cups and stake claim on a table and alternate taking sips and pouring some out on the sidewalk to mourn your loss of propriety. Because if you're hearing a kling-klanging sound right now, it's the sound of Klass ringing loud and true and ... unadulterated through the DC streets at 2 am.

Somehow we made it back to SB's flat and found sleep. And the next morning, shell-shocked and twitching, I stumbled to Starbucks for the acquisition of caffeinated beverages. And this managed to score me enough points to get invited into SB's bed, where we sipped, together, Naked, and I fumbled with the remote control, searching for the button that read "art-porn and football."

Oh, god.

Peach Mangosteen Bliss, brother.

And I mean every word of that.

link to this | comments (9) | File:  Weekend  Travel  Debauchery  DC 

In many ways, New Jersey has been a good move for C and me. C loves her job and I've discovered inner peace and existential understanding through yard work. Oh, and we have some great kitchen drawers. And while our neighbors are a little yellow-bellied and talk funny, they're friendly and very welcoming. Still, it's no secret that if I had my choice, if it were not for careers and matters of economics, I'd be back in DC in a heartbeat. But life has brought us to the Garden State and, I've got to say, aside from the constant ache I feel in my ass from being repeatedly violated by our township on our property taxes every three months, it ain't all that bad up here. When we go to the store, we have a much greater selection of pasta sauces to choose from and most of my neighbors have last names that end in a vowel. What more could a half-Italian kid ask for? Also, we're pretty much guaranteed snowfall each winter, something I always missed in Texas (and even DC). Factor in that I'm a 30-minute train ride from NYC, which makes it easy for me to begin some evening classes at NYU, and it all adds up to an overall net gain. Bottom line: I can't really complain.

But there has been something missing from our lives here. Something that used to bring us great joy and that we really took for granted for so long ...

Awww, Dave. Stop right there. You know we don't go for those sappy displays of affection, so let's just keep it brief. You miss your friends back home (both in the DC Metro and the Lone Star). Well, we miss you, too man. We ...

Chipotle.

Oh my God we've fucking missed you, Chipotle. It's left an empty spot in our heart not being able to make the five-minute pilgrimage once or twice a week to one of your holy locations, where we would sit at one of your stainless-steel alters and give honor unto thee while we feast upon a heaping bowl of rice and beans and naturally raised, antibiotic-free chicken. And chips of the white corn variety. Lots of white corn chips. Up until about two weeks ago, we actually needed to drive about 45 minutes to get to one of your places of worship. And that just didn't seem right to us. It somehow ruined the spiritual experience to have to travel that far. And it weren't good on the environment, either.

But all that changed a few weeks ago as C was driving home down Route 10 and noticed those eight beautiful letters spelled out on the side of an otherwise useless strip mall filled with a hot dog hut and a Michaels and a Best Buy and an all-you-can-eat chinese buffet. There it was! Grand Opening: Chipotle. And less than a ten-minute drive from our house!

The first thing C did was call me with the news.

"Guess what?!"

"What?"

"Guess what I just drove by?!"

"What?!"

"It's so wonderful. You'll never guess."

"For the love of God, say it woman!"

"Chipotle!"

"Oh, my lord ... that's .... that's ... amazing."

"I know!"

"... I ... I just ... I mean, I think I need to sit down."

"Breath, Honey."

"It's just so much to take in ..."

"I know. I just pulled over and had a good cry."

"C?"

"Yes?"

"I love you."

"Oh, I love you, too, Honey."

Oh, how I wish I could describe the joy that filled my heart at that moment. Suddenly, I knew it was all going to be okay. Maybe our economy was falling apart and the world was entering a powerful and scary financial crisis. But by God, we had a Chipotle in our neighborhood. We had nothing to worry about. Things were going to work out.

God had not forgotten us.

Since it opened two weeks ago, C and I have visited the store a total of five times and I think we're finally over the religious zealot faze. We're finally speaking in complete, rational sentences that don't end in ... "do you feel like Chipotle?"

And let me add, in case you think me cold and callous, we do really miss our friends and family back home, too. And please don't judge us for our love of Chipotle. If we had a decent Tex-Mex place up here, we probably wouldn't depend on it quite as much as we do. But desperate times call for desperate measures. And Chipotle is our tie to the Mexican comfort food of home. Please understand.

Now that our bellies are full, we really do miss you guys.

Really.

link to this | comments (9) | File:  Food  Friends  Moving  NJ 

He told me the panties belonged to a stripper. I guess that's supposed to make me feel better. It doesn't. They weren't mine. And while I guess it's possible that they're ... his, I don't think that's it.

I mean, they weren't exactly... Tide clean, you know? And he doesn't wear that brand of perfume. Anyway, if they were his, he would have just told me that. Jesus, like that's the kinkiest thing I would have known about him?

So ... I mean, you find women's underwear in your husband's gym bag while looking for car keys. This freakin' black thong. God. How unoriginal. He doesn't even like thongs.

Anyway.

You find this thing, and it's definitely not yours, and so you're supposed to think ... what? That, I don't know, it's just ... some stripper's?

"Yeah I got it at that bachelor party."

"But I was with you at that bachelor party. I never saw any dancer giving you her thong."

"It happened while you were with Andy. She slipped it in my pocket. I barely noticed."

"Front or back?"

"What?"

"Pocket."

"Oh, uh ... I don't ... front."

"Front? ... Front? Really? You're gonna go with front? And claim that you barely noticed?"

Shrug.

See what I mean? Doesn't add up.

Anyway. Shit. Not a good week to quit smoking.

Then the other day he tells me about this conversation he had with one of his fictional characters. What the fuck? He says he was just shooting the shit with this guy. Chatting on the front porch. And so I'm like, ha, ha and I'm waiting for the punch line and I'm looking at him like you're kidding, right? But he's not. He's dead serious. And he's telling me he knows the guy was real because Honey saw him, too. She actually ran over to him at the fence. And so he says they talked about yard stuff and storms and dead things. And they drank beers. And he shows me how yesterday he had five beers in the fridge and now he's got three.

Like that proves anything. Jesus Christ.

Anyway.

I've been thinking that maybe he's been a little paranoid lately. Like maybe he's been over-thinking things. I mean, more than usual. And then this?

But this latest thing has me really concerned. He says he keeps seeing this guy in the back yard. Usually early in the morning. Big bushy beard ... doing something in the dirt near the trees. But when he goes out to talk to him, he's gone. And at this point I don't really believe him. But then again what if there is somebody out there? Forget sleeping. So then he says the guy reminds him of Moses. And so I ask him, "Moses? Like, from The Bible?" And he tells me no, that this is another character from a story he wrote in college. And my stomach kind of turns when he says it. Because there's no irony there. And I'm hoping it will be there. But it's not. And he says something about how he never got that guy right. And I'm not sure what he means by it.

Now he's getting up earlier and earlier and he's walking Honey sometimes even before the sun comes up.

Anyway.

I'm just worried. About him. About the thong. About Moses. About all of it.

This was definitely a bad week to quit smoking.

link to this | File:  TheLine 

It was a barnstorm of a weekend in San Francisco, where we flew for the wedding of a close friend ... C's first wedding as a "groomsperson," and she was dang cute in her suit and tie. Friday was a 26-hour day that began in the dark hours of morning at Newark Airport and ended at a North Beach strip club. The devil built Columbus and Broadway out of discarded bottles of original sin, brother. And he called it good. Believe.

And I woke up Saturday morning at a time that was afternoon back home, and read some news about a little hurricane named Ike that had bore down relentlessly on a town called Galveston. And thought about how, at the same time, 2,000 miles northwest, the g-stringed pelvis of a little stripper named Mia had bore down relentlessly upon the struggling remnants of a soon-to-be-married bachelor's soon-to-be-arrested libido. Flooding streets. Flooding veins.

And the soundtrack was Telephone Call from Istanbul, man.

Sunday ceremony out at Stern Grove by the Golden Gate. A wedding officiated by a pirate. Drove home via the 280, recovering from an 11:30 am Bushmills buzz, with the fog sticking to the trees like cotton on broccoli spears, carrying my love for this city on its back.


A red-eyed flight back to the Garden State to pick up a hoarse Honey at the PetSmart. Thinking about our next transcontinental wedding trip in May (these things can be habit forming). This one in LA, where my college roommate will be hitched. And this time I'll be the groomsman, and the lap dances will be ordered somewhere on the Las Vegas strip, and sleep will be put on hold for a more convenient time.



link to this | comments (0) | File:  Weird  Weekend  Travel  Friends  San_Francisco 

The book says that accidents will happen with these puppy creatures, but I had no idea how quickly the shit would drop. Literally. On my kitchen floor. It took all of twenty minutes for that first turd to fall. And it really fell, flat and hot and reeking like something dishonest, on the dog's water bowl. Dog's aren't supposed to crap on their own water bowl, are they? Don't they know about not shitting where they eat? I have to assume that normally she would not have considered this option. But this wasn't a normal time for her. And in the altered mental state she was in—still a bit out of sorts from having just been spayed a day earlier, and now finding herself in a strange home after a strange ride in a strange truck with a strange guy sporting a strange goatee on his strange face—for her, up was down, right was left. Water bowl was poop depository.

I accept the blame, because I didn't appreciate just how finely-tuned an instrument was the puppy digestive system. The book does indeed say that when a puppy eats, it will immediately need to poop. But I figured "immediately" meant, you know, something reasonable. Like within a half-hour. Turns out pups are supremely unreasonable. And immediately ... means immediately. If food goes in, poop is going to come out. It's actually kind of beautiful in its simplicity, when it isn't happening in your kitchen.

Anyway, for this pup, disoriented and maybe a bit scared, if poop was going to come out, it might as well go in the water bowl. I think this is why I have always been a cat person. I don't care what altered state of mind a cat is in, or how scared it might be, or if she happens to be riding the crest of a blue-fuzz, anus-tingling pot (catnip) high, that cat won't be shitting in her water bowl. Under the bed, maybe. Or behind the sofa. Or in the closet. But not in the bowl. Lord no. Not a cat. That would be barbaric.

Let me back up a bit ... I was supposed to pick the pup up around 4 pm on Tuesday. Thinking ahead, I had asked the foster parent not to feed the pup her afternoon meal so that she'd have an empty stomach for the ride home. The book informed me that this was a good idea. The book is full of good ideas. And we're going by the book. But it's impossible to remember everything you've read in this book. Because it's full of the kind of detailed information that only somebody who has raised dogs all his life could possibly absorb. For this reason, we have a backup book, to clearly outline the basics. Even with these two books, I can tell it's not going to be enough. Because knowledge washes over you—as knowledge is apt to do—slowly, like one of those energy-saver light bulbs that are so popular these days. It takes a second to heat up, but then it burns strong and bright.

See, I remembered the food-in, shit-out rule. I did. I just remembered it a moment too late.

When the pup and I got home, I took her right outside to pee in her pee spot. Then I showed her around the house. Then I fed her. Check. Check. Check. Man, going by the book is easy. If I keep on like this, there won't be any accidents and the dog will be potty trained tomorrow! Idealism is such a neat trick our minds play on us.

I texted C:

Got home. She peed outside. I showed her the house and she's eating. I wasn't sure how much to give her.

I sent that message and watched her eat a little while. Then I started another text message. I've still got the incomplete message in my 'Drafts' on my phone. It begins like this:

She cried a lot in the truck ...

See the ellipsis at the end there? That wasn't actually part of the message. I added that in. It marks the exact moment when I looked up to discover this pretty pup, so cute and cuddly, squatting over her water bowl and taking a dump. As the book tells one to do in situations like this, I did not scold her. I just raised my voice. I intended it to sound strong and confident and alarming. Like this: Ahhhhh!! But I think it came out sort of questioning and confused, tinged with a bit of plea. Like this: Ahhhhh?!? Are you kidding me?!? I just lifted her up and took her outside. Once there, she promptly set to work not shitting. Instead, she decided this was a perfect time to hop around in the grass and look cute and play and do just about everything else but expel poop from her butt.

I brought her back inside and went to work cleaning the bowl. I'm not sure how many fractions of a second transpired upon re-entering the kitchen before another round of poop, this one more explosive and terrible and foul, began flowing out of this innocent-looking puppy's ass onto the floor.

The book says when you clean up puppy poop you should make sure the pup doesn't see you do it. Otherwise, she might come to think of you as her maid.

Probably some more good advice. But once again, too late.

I canceled the text I had been composing to C and began a new one:

PLEASE BRING ODOR NEUTRALIZER.

So ... in case it's not clear already, C and I have a new pup. And her name is Tawny, for her color. She's half German Shepherd and half Pit Bull. (A little heavier on the Pit Bull.) Her story is that she was rescued several weeks ago from a crack house somewhere in Plainview, NY, where she was living with her sisters and brothers underneath a porch. She and all her siblings were taken in by the good folks at All Star Pet Rescue in Linden, NJ, where they remained for the last several weeks until C and I saw her photo on the Internets and got all mushy-hearted over her. She's only eleven weeks old, so she's got a lot of growing yet to do. She has pretty eyes and a beautiful coat and she's really very smart (aside from that water-bowl pooping incident, which we won't bring up ever again.) She fetches balls (and kongs) like a pro, and one out of three times, if she's not too distracted, she'll sit when prompted. (Actually, this might be completely accidental.) Her favorite thing in the world is to sit on my lap and chew a bone.

We have commenced the crate training, so hopefully she'll be house-broken in the next three weeks. That's also around the time she'll get her final round of shots and can go out and explore and meet other dogs in the neighborhood.

The book says she should be getting lots of human contact right now. But that's been sort of a problem since we don't know too many people here yet. So hopefully this doesn't mean she'll be afraid of visitors. Since she was rescued at such a young age, she probably didn't inherit any emotional or psychological trauma from her poor, early living conditions. And that's really great. Because it means I have a clean slate upon which to instill my own neurosis and powerful psychological baggage. Yee-haw!

UPDATE: We've changed her name to Honey. Tawny just wasn't working.

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You'd think that on its second mow, a brand new mower would be hungry to eat some grass. You'd think it would just be getting warmed up.

Apparently, my mower decided it had had enough of this grass-cutting shit. It died on me yesterday.

My neighbor, Ax (not his real name), was outside later that evening and I walked over to our fence to tell him my bad news. He and I are establishing a relationship not unlike the one between Tim and Wilson on Home Improvement. I'm Tim. Things tend to break when I get my hands on them. I go to him seeking consolation and advice. He's Wilson. He's older and wiser and he just knows shit. And dammit he's got a great freakin' lawn.

Ax also owns a classic muscle car, which he showed me the first day we met. I have to admit, it's pretty sweet. And shiny. Ax works on it in his free time. Also, he drives a Ford F-350 4x4, a truck that continually lobs taunts over at Remington from Ax's driveway. Damn bully trucks. The only thing that's a little pansy-ass about Ax is he's got two Dachshunds. I mean one would be unfortunate. But two is tragic.

As I walked over to Ax, the two "dogs"—a term I use loosely—greeted me as they always do, with furious barking and yipping. Have you ever seen a Dachshund when he's furious? It's kind of like when real dogs are being playful. Because of the commotion, Ax didn't hear me too well when I said, "My mower died." I could tell by the expression on his face and the way he said, "I'm so sorry" that he had misunderstood me. So I bent down and offered the dogs my hand to sniff, which shut them up. Then I said, no not my mother, my mower. God, who walks up to his neighbor, who he's only known for a couple of months, and says with a sort of flabbergasted, aw-shucks, can-you-believe-it atttitude, "guess what, my mother died." Nice weather we're having, isn't it? He must have thought I was crazy. Oh well, it won't be the last time for that. He'd better get used to it.

So I'm not sure if I set a record for killing a lawn mower, but I was going to look into it. I brought it back to Fred, who doesn't seem like so much of an angel to me anymore. He went to start the thing, only to find that the pull-chord wouldn't budge. Like I said, it was fed up. He admitted that this definitely seemed a little fishy. "But don't worry about a thing!" he said. He would figure out what was going on and I wouldn't have to pay for a thing. He's damn right I'm not paying for a thing. It's a Toro. And I bought it last week, remember? I wasn't worried about paying for things. But I do want to get up all this thatch I raked up the other day so that I can get some seed and fertilizer on the lawn before it rains this weekend. I'm on a time crunch, here Fred. I can't deal with mowers that die on me on the second mow, brother.

So if I find out more bad news today, and I can't get my mower back, I'm going to ask Fred for a replacement. And if that one dies, then I'll know God is pissed at me for last week's post. Maybe I should go ahead and apologize now.

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