STILL LIFE WITH FAST MOVING DOG
New dog. He is an all-muscle greyhound, looks like a horse and is spooked like one too. So suddenly I am getting up early (is 7:30 a.m. early? Perspective is off.) This dog takes up so much space it's like having another man in the house. Too bad he can't shape-shift into boy form, big stupid boy with big stupid heart and white teeth and biceps.
He has his racing id tattooed in his ears. What a strange life he's been having, hey? One day chasing robot rabbits and the next slated for lethal injection (17,000 greyhounds are euthanized each year). Someone decided he was too beautiful and too friendly to be put down, so he gets whisked from Florida to Massachusetts, gets his shots, gets neutered, and now my little Fido is here beside me wanting to please. I have his old racing muzzle, yellow plastic on which his race name is written with a black sharpie: "Cool Kid".
He can't navigate stairs yet, so he's here on the carpet next to me snoring. Upstairs I have E-frdy--his new name, now that he has retired from racing as well--snoring in my bed. They both smell awful; I'm not sure which I prefer. E-frdy's pores leak stale beer, and Fido is a farting carnivore.
Why is E-frdy so effing wonderful? He's an artist, he can build things like no other over-educated white boy can, he is kind and he is a devoted father. He calls from work every day and asks me what he should pick up for dinner. He is lanky and muscular just like my new greyhound. He washes dishes and cooks, and sometimes he musters up the courage to add two more brush strokes on his painting. He tells me I am beautiful when I need to hear it, and he is the proud owner of a nicely proportioned wanker that I've never seen, in our 7 years together, go flat.
What is so effing wrong with E-frdy? He does not have the gift of gab but he thinks that he does when he is drunk, and the crack of his over-excited high-pitched voice as he is espousing utter goofiness makes my hairs stand on end. (There is a point when cliche phrases become as common as common words and you cannot avoid using them for readability, like "mustering up courage" and "hairs standing on end" and "gift of gab", or, maybe I'm just too lazy and tired now that I have to get up and walk the dog. I can hear a mosquito.
Also, the cheap beer. Every Tuesday I take out the trash, and I fold down six or seven paper cartons that each held twelve beer cans. The cans pile up all over the house and I put them in a plastic bag at the side of the road for the mentally handicapped guy with eczema who takes them. There's nothing unpredictable about E-frdy. He will always drink, he will always drink Budweiser, and he will always drink too much Budweiser. In much the same fashion, "in much the same same old fashion" he will think that we are supposed to stay together forever. Not even because he likes me (oh could you like me, a woman with so little love?) but more so because I'm a comfortable habit he can't break. I hate the routine of it. The shorty socks, the brand of his razors and hair gel, the same positions in bed wherein Efredy gets off first and zaps me with the vibrator, the same askance look and all his old clumsy side-steps when I try to bring up money and finances. He won't fight. He'll flee every time.
If we were not together though, I would want to keep him as my friend, and I'd want to jump him as well. I keep telling my daughter "You can't have everything you want." Maybe I am not supposed to tell her that. Now I have this dog instead of a divorce. I want my daughter and I want my dog, and after that, there's nothing else but his credit card debt to split.
New dog. He is an all-muscle greyhound, looks like a horse and is spooked like one too. So suddenly I am getting up early (is 7:30 a.m. early? Perspective is off.) This dog takes up so much space it's like having another man in the house. Too bad he can't shape-shift into boy form, big stupid boy with big stupid heart and white teeth and biceps.
He has his racing id tattooed in his ears. What a strange life he's been having, hey? One day chasing robot rabbits and the next slated for lethal injection (17,000 greyhounds are euthanized each year). Someone decided he was too beautiful and too friendly to be put down, so he gets whisked from Florida to Massachusetts, gets his shots, gets neutered, and now my little Fido is here beside me wanting to please. I have his old racing muzzle, yellow plastic on which his race name is written with a black sharpie: "Cool Kid".
He can't navigate stairs yet, so he's here on the carpet next to me snoring. Upstairs I have E-frdy--his new name, now that he has retired from racing as well--snoring in my bed. They both smell awful; I'm not sure which I prefer. E-frdy's pores leak stale beer, and Fido is a farting carnivore.
Why is E-frdy so effing wonderful? He's an artist, he can build things like no other over-educated white boy can, he is kind and he is a devoted father. He calls from work every day and asks me what he should pick up for dinner. He is lanky and muscular just like my new greyhound. He washes dishes and cooks, and sometimes he musters up the courage to add two more brush strokes on his painting. He tells me I am beautiful when I need to hear it, and he is the proud owner of a nicely proportioned wanker that I've never seen, in our 7 years together, go flat.
What is so effing wrong with E-frdy? He does not have the gift of gab but he thinks that he does when he is drunk, and the crack of his over-excited high-pitched voice as he is espousing utter goofiness makes my hairs stand on end. (There is a point when cliche phrases become as common as common words and you cannot avoid using them for readability, like "mustering up courage" and "hairs standing on end" and "gift of gab", or, maybe I'm just too lazy and tired now that I have to get up and walk the dog. I can hear a mosquito.
Also, the cheap beer. Every Tuesday I take out the trash, and I fold down six or seven paper cartons that each held twelve beer cans. The cans pile up all over the house and I put them in a plastic bag at the side of the road for the mentally handicapped guy with eczema who takes them. There's nothing unpredictable about E-frdy. He will always drink, he will always drink Budweiser, and he will always drink too much Budweiser. In much the same fashion, "in much the same same old fashion" he will think that we are supposed to stay together forever. Not even because he likes me (oh could you like me, a woman with so little love?) but more so because I'm a comfortable habit he can't break. I hate the routine of it. The shorty socks, the brand of his razors and hair gel, the same positions in bed wherein Efredy gets off first and zaps me with the vibrator, the same askance look and all his old clumsy side-steps when I try to bring up money and finances. He won't fight. He'll flee every time.
If we were not together though, I would want to keep him as my friend, and I'd want to jump him as well. I keep telling my daughter "You can't have everything you want." Maybe I am not supposed to tell her that. Now I have this dog instead of a divorce. I want my daughter and I want my dog, and after that, there's nothing else but his credit card debt to split.
