My super-friend at the shelter and I were having an email conversation after my meltdown on Sunday, and she said, “I don’t think you’re irrational. I think you’re angry. I wish more people were angry and we could channel it, make it into something productive.” And something in my brain went ding. My modus operandi when I’m angry is to seethe, stew, cast aspersions onto everyone (including myself), and curse the world.
But, by design, anger is a motivating emotion—it can drive us to action; that action can be harmful or productive. Like my friend said, we just have to channel it in a positive direction.
I wondered, what productive actions can I take? My thoughts jumped to this Facebook note from the Coalition to Unchain Dogs, which is enormously powerful (the note and the organization). But I immediately got overwhelmed thinking about “the hard work of relationship building and education”. Made me want to stand in the middle of the living room with my hands on my face, which is my modus operandi when I’m overwhelmed.
I backed up. If I wasn’t emotionally equipped to build relationships and educate people right at this moment, what could I do? I follow Carolina Care Bullies on Facebook. A few days ago, I saw that they had pulled a blue and white pit from a shelter but had to leave her sister behind because they didn’t have a foster family for her.
And I fretted, ate compulsively, and scratched at my face, which is my modus operandi when I’m nervous. Three dogs is so many dogs. What if she didn’t get adopted? What if she didn’t get along with Redford or Violet? Could I afford it?
Then I thought about my friend Kate K. Every year, she makes the same New Year’s Resolution: Say yes.
So I said yes.
I'm picking Buffy up on Saturday.
Maybe that can be my new modus operandi: Say yes, and see what happens.
DW’s foster situation is not working out. Apparently, he’s shown some “barrier aggression”. “What does that mean? Fence? Crate?” I asked my girl inside.
“Yes, something like that, but they didn’t tell me exactly what,” she told me. He stayed in the crate at my house just fine. I wonder what happened. Can spending a couple weeks in a cage at the shelter made a dog squirrelly?
Also, he has heartworm. Treatable, but expensive.
So many strikes. I hope it’s not too many to get him adopted, but I have a bad feeling that it is.
The fortune-cookie fortune that rides around in my wallet, occluding my face on my driver’s license photo, says, “Look for the dream that keeps coming back. It is your destiny.” I think I put it there two years ago.
The Independent Weekly ran this horoscope for me a while back:
Even if you’re not sick, you need some medicine. What kind of medicine? The kind that can transform what’s pretty good about your life into something that’s really great; the kind that will super-animate your merely average efforts and blast you free of any lackadaisical attitudes you’ve come to accept as reasonable. This medicine won’t come in the form of a pill or a potion, but rather will be produced by your own body if and when you slip away from your comfort zone and go out to play in the frontier. Be your own doctor, Libra. Break your own trance. Crack your own code. Escape your own mind games.
It’s been on my fridge since May 2008. I moved last year; it must’ve come with me from Hillsborough. I don’t know—sometimes these newsprint divinations, these cookie runes, they speak to me, and I just hang on to them.
As I was tidying up the other day, I found a fortune on a very dusty dresser that said, “You will be lucky in love.”
And I scoffed. I did.
I said something like, “Psh.”
Being 36 and single in this society makes one feel decidedly unlucky in love.
But I really am trying to be more thankful these days, so I thought, OK, what if I take romantic love out of the picture? If I take romantic love out of the picture, I’m a leprechaun-rabbit’s-foot-four-leaf-clover-heads-up-penny in love.
See, there’s my family: my dad, who is my greatest advocate (and provides much amusement); my mom, the offerer of sage advice, even if she doesn’t remember giving it; my sister/best friend; my brother-in-law, of the Magic Lawnmower Sauce and other timely rescues; my brother, the shifter of paradigms; my sister-in-law, an unsuspecting classmate at Carolina who I badgered for seven years to marry my brother before she finally gave up and did (I must tell that story sometime); and their progeny, including a nephew I got for Christmas! (When I told a co-worker that, he did a double-take. He thought I said I got an Eff You for Christmas.)
And then my friends, who make every day awesome, who inspire me and make me laugh, who know better than me, who let me stay at their houses even though I can be a disaster of a house-guest, who do silly things with me, who like me despite my being self-absorbed, impatient, and mean-spirited. …I could link/name-check all day. If I didn’t link to you, I’m thinking of you, and if I haven’t yet written about you, there’s a very good chance I just haven’t figured out how to express how dope I think you are. Man, I love you fuckers.
And of course, two of my very favorite people, Violet and Redford, who I love so much it sometimes startles me.
I’m pretty sure all these people and dogs love me back in equal measure, but even if that ain’t the case, I suppose I’m lucky in love regardless.
Look what I saw walking down the street yesterday.
I made a U-ey and parked about forty feet away from him. I said, “Hey!” and squatted down. When he turned around, I put my hands out to the sides. He broke into a slow gallop and flopped himself into my arms.
He was a little shorter and thinner than Violet, maybe 50 pounds; his head, however, was like a damn double-wide mobile home. He wore no collar, but he wasn’t dirty or too skinny. I gave him some stale crackers that a friend had left in my car a couple months ago and looked around. Nobody was out looking for a lost dog. In fact, no one was out on foot at all. That street is really trafficky, and people drive way too fast down it so I hoisted him into the Outback and took him home.
I was a little worried about introducing him to the pack. Redford has been less-than-mellow at times lately, and Violet’s knee is still all jacked up. Plus, Double-Wide was intact, or unaltered, as they say…whatever, he still had his balls, which can translate into aggression.
But I let Redford into the backyard with him anyway. They scampered and cavorted. Redford fussed at him a little bit, but DW quickly submitted, and the pecking order was established.
"Handsome-off," said my buddy Phil.
I switched out Redford and Violet, and
guess who got along like gangbusters.
I reluctantly—reluctantly because I was already wicked fond of the little guy—sent a message to my neighborhood listserv, left a voicemail with Animal Control (they were closed for the holiday), put a post up on Craig’s List, tacked a “Found” notice on the neighborhood grocery store’s bulletin board, and uploaded photos to Facebook. I asked everyone who walked by my house if they’d heard of anybody missing a dog. One girl said, “Oh, he’s been out for a minute. I seen him yesterday.”
The little guy didn’t know any commands, not even “Sit”, and when we headed out for our two-and-a-half-mile neighborhood loop, he acted like he’d never been on-leash. He jumped around, snatching the lead in his mouth, and criss-crossed a million times, wrapping me up in a nylon boa.
He wasn’t totally housebroken either. I kept hearing Violet do her Enforcer Bark, the one she uses on Redford when he’s about to take something off the counter or he’s standing too close to me while I’m cooking bacon. I’d turn around and find everybody staring at each other, and I couldn’t figure out what was going on. Later, I found little yellow drips on the floor and the bookcase and the chaise and realized Violet was being the big sister.
I got a response from Craig’s List, but it seemed spammy, and the pics they sent of their “missing dog” looked nothing like DW. Indeed, a second email came in this morning from a different address but with the same pictures of “Cowboy”.
Late last night, I spoke to somebody who knows about these things, and that person said, by law, strays have to be turned in to the shelter in case somebody’s looking for him. They keep him there for five days and then do temperament testing to see if he can be adopted.
So, I just went to the Animal Protection Society of Durham. DW tried to make a girlfriend first thing. Balls. But he was really nice about it. If he’d had the ability or know-how, I think he would’ve sweet-talked her a little first.
They scanned him for a microchip. I wasn’t surprised to find out he didn’t have one.
I have a friend who works at the shelter, and she said she’ll keep an eye on him. She even said she’d consider fostering him if it came to that.
And then I said goodbye to DW, and they took him in the back. And I boo-hooed.
On my way to work this morning, a squirrel sprinted across the road toward the car in front of me. It missed the little guy by a hair, but when he got across to the other lane, a truck tagged him. He ran to the edge of the road where he launched himself in the air, cartwheeling toward the bus stop, as if he could fling the pain away. I was going, “Oh no! Oh no! No no no!”, and blood pumped through the veins inside my elbows making me feel nauseated and weak. I had trouble gripping the steering wheel. By the time I looked in my rearview mirror, he was nowhere in sight.
Lately, I’ve seen a lot of lists floating around the internet. Things like Three Rules for Life, Five Things to Stop Doing in the New Year, and 12 Things Happy People Do Differently. I started thinking about that last article and, since I have a terrible memory, decided to do some research on myself via my blog.
1. Express gratitude. I searched for the terms ‘thankful’ and ‘grateful’, both resulted in “No posts found”. Hm.
2. Cultivate optimism. Ditto, ‘optimism’ and ‘optimistic’. Yikes.
5. Nurture social relationships. Ever since I learned about the importance of appreciating my friends, I think I’ve done a good job of nurturing social relationships.
7. Learn to forgive. I simply don’t do this, especially with myself.
8. Increase flow experiences. The author describes this as “completely engaged in the activity that you’re doing”. I’m working on it.
9. Savor life’s joys. When I’m not clinically depressed, I can.
10. Commit to your goals. Yes. But I don’t set goals nearly enough.
11. Practice spirituality. No results for ‘spirituality’, but apparently I say ‘god’ in nearly every goddamn post. Usually within the word ‘goddammit’.
It’s time, folks. Amy is going to trade in her DumbPhone. The other day a friend of mine said, “What do you DO without a SmartPhone?” I told him I have to look up directions to a place before I leave the house. And if a question pops into my mind, I just have to sit there and be curious about it. Honestly, how do I live like this? It’s barbaric.
But seriously, I’m thinking of going paperless-calendar for the first time in my life. I’ve had a daily planner for as long as I can remember, and I’ve resisted the digital calendar for years, but it seems a little ridiculous now that it could be available so promptly and easily. Also, I dig those bitchin photography programs where you can make your pictures all sepia and whatnot. Not to mention GPS and indulging my curiosity at every whim.
So I’m going to get an iPhone. (Some of you will exclaim, “No! Get a Droid!” to which I will respond, “What is that I don’t even.” But go ahead, do your worst to convince me of your heathen ways.)
The question is, do I pay the extra $100 to get a 4S? From what I understand, the only major difference between it and the plain old 4 is Siri, a $15 app that’s been around for two-and-a-half years but recently got bought up by Apple so they could make a brazillion dollars on it. (I know a guy who knows this stuff.) And as cool as it is that when you say, “Tar,” Siri replies, “Heels,” she and I also seem to have political differences.
Are there other magical things I’d be missing out on if I didn’t get the 4S?
(Also, I just looked it up, and I’m eligible for an upgrade on February 17… I don’t think I’m going to last that long.)
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So here it is: I want to have your babies. Why? Because you’re awesome. You’re smart. You have a job. You get along with your family. You drink in moderation. You’re not super-religious. You may not be an Adonis, but you exercise and try to eat healthily, and I find your unconventional visage just delightful to look at.
Most of all, I want to bear your progeny because I find you hilarious. I don’t know, something about the things you say, I just laugh and laugh, and I know that our synergy of humor is what’s going to get us through that night seven years from now when the littler kid can’t stop shitting the bed and the other, inexplicably, decides on that moment to contemplate the meaning of death. “What about Redford? Is he going to die?… Wait, what about ME? I don’t wanna die!”
Oh man. That night’s going to be so terrible. Thank god we can joke about it.
Why should you want to be my baby daddy?
Look at that rack.
In the spirit of full disclosure, it’s not quite that phenomenal without significant structural supports, but it’ll feed your spawn, and in the meantime, enjoy!
Also, I’m smart and fun. Ask my friends. Then again, if you ask anybody’s friends, they’re probably not going to say, “He’s kinda dull. And surly.” But seriously, I’m smart and fun.
So what’s my damage? Why am I 36 and never married? It might have something to do with fear. Not fear of commitment, necessarily, but fear of committing to a bad thing. Or, more, fear of committing to something that starts out good and turns bad and then just living with it because it’s easier than changing myself or my circumstances…
I guess that’s just fear of commitment, isn’t it? OK, well, I don’t have time for that crap anymore. I’ll make a pact if you will that we’ll make it good or we’ll make it done and speak fondly of each other after the fact.
(In addition, I’ll tell you, I have an ugly little habit of withdrawing when I’m stuck or scared or mad—totally unintentional, and I never even realize it’s happening until way after. But I’m working on it! And now you know about it, so when you see it, you can be like, “Hey, where you going?” And I’ll apologize and we can have make-up sex. NB: I reserve the right to pout for 2-6 hours before the make-up sex.)
Listen, I really don’t want to be a single parent. Like, not at all. But I’m just crazy enough to do it. I will fucking go to a sperm bank and read their bullshit profiles and choose some jizz that’s purportedly from Johnny Depp’s doppelgänger but probably really from a Danny DeVito look-alike, and the donor won’t even be funny like him, so I’ll have no It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia shtick to look forward to once the little bastard can talk.
Don’t make me do it.
[Ed. note: I was trying to write a new online dating profile, and this happened.]
