Rut (not like the elk)

They say, "A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words", but I can't seem to print.

Goodnight Sweethearts

The Final Word in Dating Advice c. 1943

I'm not really sure what the connection is between separating your knees and goose-stepping for the Fürher, but I suspect this was written by the progenitors of the prigs who brought us The Rules in the mid-90s. Still, young Adolph looks like a cute if slightly more hirsute member of Archie's gang - not exactly fearsome. Though I still fail to see the reasoning here, I feel a better tagline would have been: "Loose hips sink ships."

Just reading this makes me feel the same

Worse than it looks

Never get in an argument with a socket wrench, especially when you are supine, twenty feet back under a deck in a very confined space. Especially not when you are sleep deprived and fail to notice that you've managed to sink the bolt in the joist already and there's not much more for the tool to hold onto and all your arm strength is going to bring that metal club down faster and harder on your forehead.



Did it hurt? I cracked my frontal lobe so hard I yelped and instantly felt a sharp pain at the back of my skull. Still, I shed no tears, but was nervous enough about it to think I'd better get myself out from under there in case I'd given myself a concussion. It might have taken a while before I'd be found and rescued. So I crawled out in under a minute, but not before I already had a goose egg about half the size a chicken might lay. Blood moves fast! It happened Tuesday afternoon, but oddly, the bruise under my eye didn't emerge until Wednesday, and yesterday emerged across the bridge of my nose and down my cheek. There is almost no bruising at the point of impact , which is now a small lump over the start of my eyebrow. I looked half-Neanderthal a couple hours after it happened, as I iced it for 4-5 hours and the lump got shorter but broader in scope.



What is most interesting to me is that since I went all raccoon-eyed and especially going out last night, I'm getting all kinds of strange come-on energy from men, and I don't mean it in the "Oh, come on!" kind of way. Seems to bring out a bit of the brush-ape, as my step-father is fond of saying. It's half-titillated and half-protective, and I never expected it, though I suppose I should have, sex and violence lurking together in our primitive brains. Anyway, the entire thing has been fairly amusing to me, and I'm glad the headache is mostly gone. Now I have a black dog, a black eye, and, my boyfriend would like me to add, a black, black heart.

Gimme One

I dare you not to laugh.

My Dog: Convalescing or Merely Malingering?

(Duff and Levi on Levi's birthday a few years ago.)

Sorry I've not been posting and have failed to update you on the status of the canine beast I call my friend. Duff's status is status quo. He has been home for about a month, after two straight weeks+ at the vet. For three weeks I took him in twice daily to be catheterized, then the vet trained me to empty his bladder. So then it was once daily for a week, and now it is reduced to twice weekly for acupuncture. This is good, because all the expense was getting, well, expensive, and as much as I love lugging around 85+ lbs. of dog several times a day, I'm not sure it's the best thing for my back. The boogie board an old roommate left behind has come in very handy, and the vet techs were highly amused to see "King Duff" ride in on the Mach 5. They have been very kind and tease me that he is faking the entire thing so he can ride about on his palanquin (ok maybe THEY didn't call it that, but my BF and I do), like an oriental emperor.



He's gained some weight back, but no hind leg muscle. He gets some physical therapy, which I administer with help from the BF, but it leaves him sore and cranky with me. I can't really say he's making progress in that area, but I'm also aware that he's not out of pain yet, and spinal problems have long recovery times.

There are, however, no guarantees, although we did see remarkable activity one day at the vet's when he tried to chase down a King Charles Spaniel bitch who had recently whelped. Duff pushed forward with his hindquarters like a seal chased across a beach. I turned to the vet and said, "Maybe THAT'S what he needs." What other conclusion could I draw?



(Imagine her with milky paps, and you've got pure, unadulterated Duff porn.)

He chases rabbits in his sleep, he is often happy and almost always bright and alert. Formerly a very quiet and contented dog, he is now maddeningly yelpy. It is sourced in his helplessness, I am sure. The last two nights I have gotten him to remain on the bed and he has slept much better. This is a great relief, because he was getting me up three to eight times and often I spent most of the night on the floor beside him, as it kept him more calm. Both of us being aloft on the mattress is much easier on my old lady joints, even if he still keeps me up.

Characteristically unwilling to sully the nest, he refuses to release bodily functions inside the house, so all methods of evacuation are performed by me. Aand let me tell you, it is not so glamorous as it seems, but often leads to Kubrickian cinematic references, wherein I speak to my gloved forefinger: "Danny's not here right now, Mrs. Torrance."

His already expensive Innova diet is mightily fortified with all manner of additives - high lignan flax seed oil, spirulina, enzymes, herbs, raw organic colostrum, raw organic grassfed to the bitter end free-range beef, saw palmetto, sweet potato...

One of the worst things about all this, aside from the fatgue and the emotional unrest (which I will spare you for now), is that the experience is rendering me an entirely boring person who can talk only of one subject, and thinks that others are remotely interested in her dog's diet. I promise I think of other things, but this has been fairly consuming.

Many friends have reported dreams in which my dog is walking and running and quite well. This is encouraging to me, as I put stock in such things. Just today I received this kind message from on of you regular readers (I hope it's okay I reprinted it here, anonymously):

Well I finally had a dream with you in it. Never got to see you, but I had two 4x4 blackboards that I had turned into get well cards for Duff. I had all these great sayings on them that I can't remember what they were, which
really bothers me cuz I usually remember that stuff from my dreams. I woke up still trying to find a box to ship them in."

Dear Sir, consider them received.

(A recent photo of me, brimming with hope.)

Parmenides was a punk

I clicked onto a Yahoo! news link just now that read, "Research finds deadly rogue waves can form from nothing." Evidently ex nihilo nihil fit is now null and void, because something can come from nothing. I'm sure our resident physicist will have something to say on this matter, hey?

Or maybe the monster waves come from the "Bloop," as yet unseen and probably the largest creature on earth.