a tiny umbrella

"The greatest pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him, and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself, too."
  Samuel Butler
 
i was driving away this morning, just out for coffee.  jack was in the yard.  a good feeling standing on the porch and looking down at him.  it was sunny.  but sometimes, i suddenly remembered, it can be sunny and rain at the same time.  we chatted a sec and then i purred out of the driveway.  in a long moment, i watched him watch me drive away.  in that moment, lots came to the surface.

this time last year, i'd be leaving for the north, hours away.  i often thought about it through jack's eyes.  he's pretty well read.  maybe he fancied himself in the (single-headed) role of fluffy, guarding the philosopher's stone while i was gone.  or cerberus, waiting on the shores of the lethe for his dark master's return.  i like to think that he dreams expansively.  maybe that he is suening, signing legislation into effect with his paw.  or riva, leading his human down 71 stories before the tower collapsed.  as for me, i suppose that while i toiled away in the quiet kitchen on the pond, i would simply picture jack waiting by the door, like hachiko waited at the train station for his beloved dr. ueno. 

at any rate, though i am no byrnes, he is my luath.  friday afternoons i'd walk through the door after a long absence.  sunday mornings i'd leave.  the front door was a kind of portal to, as far as he was concerned, my oblivion.  in a way, maybe, there is a kind of truth here.  at any rate, if the door was a portal, then jack was the hound that guarded it.  constantly. 


there's a little social anxiety.  there's the idea that things fall apart.  shoutout to chinua achebe.  this idea runs deep in me.  for as long as i could remember, i've thought, 'oh don't give that to me. i will ruin it.' my own neurosis, but ... there are worries, right?  all kinds of ways to overthink every bloody thing in one's life.  pero, no lo exista con su perro.  with your dog, it's only lovelovelove.  it's not only that his is unconditional.  it' s that sometimes he can channel it to me, help me think of only thoughts that overwhelm the worried thoughts.  he's doing it now, slowly scratching his chin with his back paw.  it's like some weird cyclical mechanism.  i've seen it operate at much greater speeds.  what the hell is that doing for him?  i guess that's what i mean.  it isn't that, upon gazing on him,  the dog inspires me with prosac-like thoughts of utopian blissfulness.  not some pathetic sitcom drivel.  like a good book, he just distracts me from the adultnonsense that pervades life like a curtain of rain.  he's like a tiny umbrella, then.  

he is my own greyfriars bobby.  but it's not that i sit around thinking about john gray's predicament. not so much these days, when i can help it.  were i sick and confined to the house, but still able, i would write my own 'to flush, my dog'.  in the meantime, these are just some thoughts dedicated to the boy.  just thoughts on being home.  not so much on what i've left behind, but why it's so important to've come back.  in a way, this blog isn't about jack at all.

la grande breteche. part one

la grande breteche.  pretty good read.  by honore de balzac.  (1799 -1850) french author most famous for la comedie humaine (the human comedy).  realism movement in western literature would've been not quite middle nineteenth century to the end of it, when it gave way to naturalism.  whenever you talk about this stuff, the scalpel and gauze exploration of the history of the arts, you run the risk of nova realization, which is where you sit down to watch nova thinking, i'm pretty smart, i'll keep up. then ten minutes later you realize that you're daydreaming about houses communicating late at night.

to speak plainly, there's a lot of big conceptual words to digest.  having just waded through a maze of such letters, strung together in myriad intellectual combinations, i feel like george costanza must've felt just after he had sex with the portuguese waitress.  what was i saying?  i at least had one good thought. about the conversation that g and i have as to the purpose of a blog.  bypassing the obvious who cares why, it's a fucking blog, idiot response, i think that for me it keeps the smart wires alive in my head.  see how far one idea can stretch, what ideas it calls out to and which call back, and then if you can filter and organize your thoughts with any keenness.  writing is a chore; even informal writing.  it's good to keep at least butterknife-sharp.  style, which the author gots to cull and then develop from the white depths of the blank page, is as important as the idea she is writing about.  jesus, all these academic websites have me writing like a jerk.

but maybe that's the hardest part, figuring out who the pieces are for.  know the audience, and customize.  if you're writing for wall street, write in a bunch of liberal jokes and tuck in an enigmatic remark comparing corporate salary with inflation.  the former will let them know that you want to wear their suits.  the latter will let them know that you're savvy enough to recognize their stripes.  my primary audience, then, is me.  like michael stipe said, dummy serve your own needs. life, it's true, is a gift.  scowl. it may well be a trojan horse, but still a gift.  who knows when we'll suddenly be unable to communicate with either style or even clarity, except that the moment will come.  i could rearrange but a dozen letters to spell out several different sorts of calamity.  i think that most bloggers must write from a place of security. it's true with me. so each of these entries, even just the titles, recalls writing from such a place.  and that makes it worth it. who knows if we might someday find ourselves logging on from an internet cafe, to catch a visage of the good old days.  the rest of it might just be jeopardy stuff. 

so how many points do you want for it?

this is the question that i'd ask when kids in my class would ask how many points an impromptu assignment was worth.  because points are external motivators and if that's your fire, i'll pour gas on it till the room goes up.   life is two things. the first is impressing people.  the second is bargaining.  so ... good question. how many points do you want for it?  i don't know ... 100?  how about 5?  no? okay 15 and i'll build in 65 worth of extra credit.  um .... yeah, ok, fine - deal. 

i like teaching.  i like when people tell me that boringmudaneschoolyear is better when i'm there.  who wouldn't?  well, here's how we used to learn new vocabulary. 5 new words from the password protected oxford sat examination information electronic vault, of which i bought the encrypted password off of a fearless cyber-catburglar.  (misnomer, commandeer, drivel, intrepid, invidious) 
here, then, are those words, set like so many jewels in sentences you might find in horrorfantasyromancewestern or action stories. extra points for integrated figures of speech.

the evil custodian's invidious decision was to set fire to every baby's crib and toy in town, then cast blame on the parents, which would cause a baby riot, the power of which he would harness and use to destroy the scotch tape factory, so that nobody would ever again put scotch tape on his fancy walls.  :)

in the tiny backwater of newburyport, the cia is actively searching for a brazen catburglar, whose occupational name is not a misnomer, for stealing pajama bottoms, priceless feline of the fritzz family.

cap't barrrrrree, known enemy to all that was civilized, loathed resister of silverware, wiped the greasy remains of the sea-turtle soup from his chin across the sleeve of his filthy frock, and belched out to his surly crew, 'arggg, lads, i've long had me good eye on commandeering this vessel of ol' jack tar, and the last scallywag to board her be a rotten slag - arggg.'

'i can't,' began the student, holding up her most recent essay assignment, 'keep churning out this terrible drivel for you, madame, so i've decided to blow the dust of seven pixie stix into your eyeballs.'

clab wade, intrepid cowboy of the frontier town of bingham, hitched his horse, buttercup, to the post and stared coolly into jimmy's saloon, into which he would shortly stride and deliver a somerset county caliber thrashing to the town's former sheriff, simply known as boss, for the latter's insults to clab's sweetheart, ashley 'lil' junebug' oakley.

well, that's that. five cool fancy silver dollar words that you'll surely never forget.  if this were really school we'd vote and there'd be winners and losers, and there'd be different kinds of winning, and different kinds of losing, like in life.  so this was a bit of reality and a bit of fantasy.
for all of the drawers full of mismatched socks out there.