the maxipad as a Post-it and other urban musings...

the GITB is endlessly fascinated by the intense bonding that often takes place in a short space of time when people are removed from their natural habitats, families, jobs, etc., and supplanted in strange environs. Such lift-outs occur in my masters program which allows distance work but requires grad students to live on campus one glorious, alcohol and neurosis/ego-soaked week per semester, requiring me to trek from hearth and home 700 miles to the north to commune with my classmates. We are all "serious" writers in pursuit of MFAs. Yes, I know.

This most recent residency, which ended Saturday (and from which I am still recovering) was especially raucous and emotional. One of my buddies from North Carolina told me that the moon phase may have contributed somewhat to the nonstop mayhem that ensued for eight days. SZ said in an e-mail to me that "there must have been something to the whole two moons blue moon thing in May." I think she's so right.

And as nuts as it was, it was difficult to part this time and the specter of re-entry made us all a little uncomfortable. Colin headed to the Smokies to "just sit in the woods and think for a day or two..." before heading home to his wife and three adorable girls in Myrtle Beach. Amber picked up a rental car and headed up I-85 and from there to Virginia to nestle in the bosom of her mom and do laundry and ruminate about bald boys and boys who do yoga and write poetry about vaginas before she flies home to Destin. Em headed back to the hated Buckeye state to confront Alex and his hysteria over the move to Germany. "He's waiting for me to come back and make it all okay," she said. And she will. Because she is Emily.

I drove home in a haze of cigarette smoke (I only smoke on the road to and from school and at school--it's stupid, I know, but fuck it) and channel-surfed the FM waves for 10 hours (the perfect block of time--enough for me to wrap my head around most of what went down the previous week and prepare for re-entry and the max my ass can stand sitting in the car). The bountiful pukiness on the radio at 1 a.m. ranges from: "Stop! The love you save may be your own, darling look ways before you cross me, you're headed for a danger zone..." to "Sorry, I never told you all I wanted to say..." Luckily, after driving through the black hole in the universe that only allowed me to receive stations that played the Jacksons and/or Mariah Carey, I landed on a classic hard rock station somewhere in the bowels of Georgia and reveled in Pink Floyd, Uriah Heep and the Rolling Stones. Thank you, Jeebus.

retreat

I am developing an affinity for blue moons with orange slices
getting up early and meaning it
bald men who wear Ramones t-shirts and baggy pants
dining outdoors with freeloading grad students who are about to go to Sweden for the summer
and plan to not spend a dime
liver mush and pig's feet in the grocery store
and aisles that stock cans of Our Lady of Guadalupe room spray, stagnant sweet roses
having no dishes to wash or carpools to manage, no dog to walk
stretching out on a twin bed (alone!), my shades pulled up so I can watch the tree branches shimmy as music drfts through from
the room next door

Good Boy

My co-worker, Mike, and his wife, Molly, lost their beloved dog, Hank yesterday. Hank was no spring chicken and has had health challenges lately but Mike and Molly have been the type of parents who did anything and everything to ease his pain. Molly took him to a doggie acupuncturist and labored over Hank's meals, feeding him a whole food-only diet. But still, Hank's passing was unexpected, sudden and we are all bereaved, but most especially Mike and Molly. Hank was one of the coolest dogs who's ever lived and my little corner of the world is dimmer because he's gone.

Here is a blog entry that Hank dictated and Mike wrote back in October, 2005:


Of Dogs, Blogs, and Automobiles

Freedom is the taste of speed on the tongue, of eyes half closed against wind that flaps and flutters your ears around your neck. Head out the car window, a succession of scents overwhelms you. The fried chicken restaurant, diesel fumes, rotting seaweed on the beach, the sweaty men in the road selling newspapers, gas station pumps, and dumpsters...it's endless and blending, a fast flowing, fluid landscape of smells that can be just too much for your average Labrador.

Sometimes it's best just to sit panting and waiting, getting the occasional whiff, biding your time till you sense you're nearly there, wherever it is. So, so often, you just know you're almost there. Maybe it's the bank, where dog biscuits mysteriously appear out of plastic projectiles zinging through noisy, popping tubes. Maybe it's the shore or the lake or the park (hurrah!). Maybe it's the dreaded vet, where you try to disappear behind your human. Or maybe it's Petsmart, just jam-packed with shelves of mouth-watering wonders.

Cars are the portals to other worlds, barely understood by us dogs. We willingly, even eagerly enter these alarming machines because they're our chariots to adventure, chance and companionship. It seems like car makers should have been thinking about dogs for a long time, but it's just not so. Only now has a new kind of car been invented, the "wonderful open-hearted wagon," or WOW. It has a special seat belt for bigger dogs so they can buckle up and it has built-in smaller crates for littler dogs.

As for me, I don't know if I need one or not. Mike and Molly already buckle me up in the backseat, tethering my harness to the seatbelt with some kind of strap. Oh, I know I look pretty geeky and sheltered compared to those daredevil dogs hanging loose in the back of pickup truck beds, eyeballing me in pity and disdain. Those dogs are just too cool for training school. But then Mike stops the car short, jerking me forward, and I'm suddenly glad to be wearing a seatbelt. I worry about those other Labs who could crack their craniums on the cabs of trucks. Truth be told, I wouldn't trade spots with them for a bank vault of dog biscuits.

damn thee

whoever the twit is who invented "heelies," (those damnable sneakers that have little tiny wheels tucked into the soles) ought to be smacked by a smelly sock with a bar of soap in the toe. Because it really hurts. Which is my point.

Dear "Heelie" inventor,

You suck.

That is all.