It's My Dog's World: I Just Live In It

Sometimes time is on our side...Hell's Kitchen Tales

 

Stopped by a local Hell's Kitchen joint to get batteries put in a couple of watches I own, including a bright pink slappy bracelet watch which, to be honest, was a steal--and I never wear it. The woman next to me watched me fiddle with my mobile phone. "How long did it take you to learn how to do that?" she asked.

 

She was turning 74 at the end of the week. We had a longer discussion about mobile phones, and I suggested that she might want to get some kind of mobile to stay in touch with her family. "I'm the last," she said. Not sadly. Just: facts. It turned out that /her/ watch needed some major repairs, and that she would be without her watch for at least the next few hours. I offered the pink watch. She said she would return it. I put it on her wrist. "I can really read the numbers!" she said. "Please, keep it," I said. She smiled. "Happy birthday to me!"

We Will We Will Rock You...With Our Vintage Swimsuits

My sister Charl scanned and sent this picture to  me because a) it is AWESOME.  And b) because I work at an ad agency and sometimes, when they are working on pitches, they send out a blanket email asking for pictures of five fly young ladies in badass bathing suits hanging with their Mets-loving, donut-making grandmother. 

Actually, the pitch was a little different from that, but you get the IDEA.  

I used to be wildly embarrassed by this picture.  I'm the girl with the arm fat and the boobs and the glasses that are sort of wrong for my face and  check it--BLOW DRIED hair even though I am going in the water soon.  In a month or a year, I will read Mario Puzo's book THE GODFATHER, which will blow my mind for a bunch of reasons, including the fact that it is, kind of, yay! Women's sexuality.   Francis Ford Coppola did not include that part, and  he will have to take that up with his therapist.

I'm not embarrassed now. Here we are, all my sisters and me, at one of the most beautiful places in the world. We're about to go swimming, and so far, so good.  Here's my grandmother, who dropped out of high school when her father died, got a job at a bank, taught dancing, met my grandfather when she rented out his family's parlor, married him, loved the Mets from the moment they were created, worked until she was 70, and NEVER complained when we and our cousins borrowed her record player to listen to The Who's  TOMMY over and over again.  

Life should always be so good.  

What Dogs Can Do, And What They Can't

I don't remember exactly when I stopped fearing dogs, and I don't really remember the first time I thought, "I love this dog." What I do know is that dogs have changed my life.  For the better. For the way, way better.  I look at the world through dog-colored glasses.  I barely remember the person I was, the person who would cross the street when she saw a dog, the person terrified to pet a dog, even the friendliest, sloppiest dog.

And I don't have an easy dog. She is a great dog; don't get me wrong.  But she came to us scared, and clearly abused, with scars and a burned tail.  And we thought adopting her would be like a Disney movie. And it wasn't. And it was harder than we ever imagined.  On the days when I am not so happy in my life, I remember that my husband hung in with our dog when others might have given up. And she changed. And I changed.  And it was worth it. But that was a long tunnel to be in before we saw the nice light.

Meanwhile, I learned recently that author David Foster Wallace died, an apparent suicide after a lifetime of struggle with depression and addiction.  I haven't managed to conquer Wallace's big fat book Infinite Jest, and I've read a little of his brain orgasm non-fiction.  But here's one thing I do know:  he loved dogs.  You can see it in the picture. And apparently, according to Whitney Pastorek's lovely essay in Entertainment Weekly, he even planned his life around his dogs' needs.  A reminiscence of DFW on Slate includes a lovely vignette of him training OTHER people's dogs while he was an artists' colony.  Look at him there in the picture. He even looks like a big shaggy dog himself.

I've been around a lot of addiction and depression in my life, and both diseases are cunning, baffling, powerful.  In the grip of one or both, sometimes even the love of a dog can't save you, even when you love your dogs hard enough that they become the center of your life, when you love being with dogs so much you'll seek out strange dogs to teach them a better way.  If only it were so easy for you, but you drew the short end of the stick when it came to brain chemistry.  If only your brain and your spirit would arise, radiant, when you called them. But no.  And when they refuse, a hundred dogs couldn't pull you from that darkness. 

Sorry for the long silence...

But it's been a month of dental work, air conditioning conkouts, the death of our dishwasher, a car accident, a lame dog...anyway...all are fine and I am back.  Breathe, breathe, breathe...

Things to be grateful for:

1. Trader Joe's Volcano brand coffee.
2. Raul Esparza's going to be in a MAMET PLAY!  With Ari Gold!
3. Dogs on the beach, baby!  Happy summer.  And thanks, BadRap, for the videos.  (More good dog news here.)

Christmas Gratitude...

I'm on the other coast right now, loving being with my family, missing my husband and my dog something bad.  I even went to a dog park in Dublin, CA today, to get a little dog fix.  I met a dog, Samantha, a lovely rescued Golden Retriever, who was going to a dog park for the very first time.  Her mom was nervous, but she did beautifully.  Yesterday, I met a dog who "plays" a guitar in Sausalito, and a pouty pug who wasn't allowed in the Muir Woods. Still, I miss my dog. So much, though, to be grateful for:

Going to Isaac Mizrahi's holiday show...FOR FREE. Thanks, Modern Fabulosity.  Isaac was in good voice and great band, and not only did he make ginger snaps with Sarah Moulton (sensible yet glam), he regifted the audience: earplugs, dog biscuits, beautifully hideous Xmas sweaters, and...a defrosting ham.  I went with the lovely Pookie, whose page I will link to as soon as I'm on my own computer.

Holiday episodes of Futurama.  Robot. Killer. Santa. Enough said.

My family is healthy.  And funny.  In that order.

My dog is healthy. And funny. But I don't think she knows it.

Endless good coffee at a Residence Inn. 

Catching up to the New Yorker's fiction, and being gobsmacked by Jennifer Egan's blisteringly sad short story, "Found Objects." I can't tell if the hope in the story is flickering, or going out.  Keeps you going to the last word.  I've always admired her non-fiction, and meant to read "The Keep."  Next book group, it goes on the list.

Happy holidays, all.

Three Months Left to Live, and Still Blowing People's Minds: Randy Pausch

Randy Pausch is dying.  Well, we're all dying, but Randy Pausch, a brilliant, generous computer science professor, knows he's dying--after a year-long fight with pancreatic cancer, the newest scan shows that it's gotten to his liver.  It's a matter of months.

I don't know Randy Pausch, exactly--during a very difficult project several years ago, I discovered his sane, lovely rules for running meetings, and I wrote him a fan e-mail, and he wrote me back, and we ended up discussing stuffed animals, because Professor Pausch liked to win them at carnivals and amusement parks, and my boyfriend and I had begun a collection.   We talked about Carnegie Mellon, where he taught, and co-founded the  Entertainment Technology Center with the indelible Don Marinelli, whom I met in the 1970s when he was an avant-garde theatrical impresario.  Now, they were in the business of building virtual worlds with crazy teams of artists and scientists.

I worked at Carnegie Mellon for a year in the early 1980s, and it is safe to say that between the painters making art on computers, and combustion engineers singing "Aida," not to mention seeing a show where a very young Rob Marshall sang and danced his heart out as a Beethoven era musician who accidentally discovers rock'n'roll (it was called, I believe, "Rachinoff"), working there regularly blew my mind. So I was thrilled to learn that in the 21st century, it was still in the business of blowing people's minds, thanks to people like Don and Randy Pausch, who believed in the miracles that came from an unlikely and weird team, being one themselves.

Last week, Randy Pausch gave one last lecture at CMU, which dealt with how to fulfill  your childhood dreams. It is funny and unexpected and heartbreaking, though never maudlin.  Go here to watch it.  And then, in Randy's honor, go help someone, go make some art, and then blow somebody's mind.

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?              

--Mary Oliver, The Summer Day

I am grateful for :

 .

I am grateful for:

1. Free streaming of Patton Oswalt’s new album that had me snorking with laughter, especially about the KFC bowl of sadness.

2. Listening to the Butchies on Pandora.com.

3. My dog kissing me.

4. Jeff ordering awesome Malaysian food for us. Not sad food at all.

5. The Office, The Office, The Office.

6. The fact that nearly everyone in my family has a peculiar, unique connection to Ed Grimley, Martin Short's immortal character...including my sister who dressed my adorable nephew as Ed when he was just an infant. 

Complete with cowlick.

Yesterday: The Day of Non-Stinkosity

I am grateful that:

1. I have started writing again…something about dogs…on 100words.com.

2. I could take this day off to work on book publicity.

3. That my damp, flooded town no longer smells like discarded shrimp tails.

4. That someone called my dog “wise” today.

5. That Shera (see picture) has found a new home!

Why I Heart New York, Part One

I went to the East Village to get my hair cut and colored Friday at Salon 7, where I’ve been going for a zillion years.  A few minutes after Saori, the colorist, deposited the gook on my hair, two large, cranky Eastern European workmen entered the salon and announced that they had to shut the water off because there was a leak on an upper floor.  Might be for 15 minutes..or it might be for HOURS. 

A mild moment of panic---rinse me out early, and have the color come out crummy?  Start over?  Hang in there, and hope they’re fast and good and truthful?

….and then Mark, the unflappable owner of the salon, former haircutter of Madonna, the man who calls one and all "Buddy," said, “Ask the girls down the street if we can use their sink.”

Turns out that there are five salons on this particular block, and the girls down the street—another salon---have borrowed a sink or two from Salon 7. 

So when my hair was done, Saori led me (with my glasses off) down the street in sub-zero temperatures to the “girls’” salon and rinsed my hair out.  I am sure I gave someone a laugh, but I was too blind to see.   

The "girls" were cheerful. And my hair looked fantastic.

Who says New Yorkers are unfriendly? Who said miracles aren't possible?