I heard on the radio this morning that Facebook was creating a mindless generation of narcissic attention deficiet disordered teens with an immediate gratification complex.  Self-absorbed me-bots who click click click on the Big Shiny.
I felt cutting edge. More evolved. I've been willing to click on anything that gave me something back relatively quickly ever since the early days of email and amazon.  I'm an email junkie.
AND I have so many books that it restricts our freedom of movement in my house. Shelves upon shelves overflow…stacks upon stacks….many multiple copies of favorite reads, huge collections of classics I haven't read yet, I often think of putting up my own site to sell some of them, along with a picture of me looking scholarly…short facts about myself….MeBay.  I could make a fortune. Who needs 3 copies of Ulysses? Ever read Chaucer? ME EITHER! I have 2 copies of The Canterbury Tales. I could include a picture of me looking puzzled over 14th century english poetry.

Too much work. Click click click. Perhaps in the future I should only buy books printed on edible paper.

I joined Facebook to snoop around on people whom I might know on Facebook.  Now I'm a scramble junkie who is forever trying to come up with the perfect 140 character ending to "Katy is…."
Cienna and my friend Kim refuse to join facebook because, shudder, "I would NEVER do that,"
and yet….both enjoy cruising MY facebook and checking up on their friends via MY LOGIN.  First clicks free! 

I wonder how long before Facebook can add an application that dispenses a food treat.  Something crunchy.

"While we make better shoes and slutty skirts, a chicken is a healthier entree"

I'm starting to have bad dreams, I've been gone from home too long.  Disaster dreams.
It will surprise no one who knows me that these dreams featured my beloved Scout.
The first night, I dreamt that her long skinny legs were somehow cut off midway down and she couldn't run. She just sort of rocked and wobbled.  When she saw me she jumped like a grasshopper into my arms and up close her face looked no longer like my little border collie…but a nasty big eyed chijuajua.  I was repulsed but didn't want to drop her because those weird cut off stick legs wouldn't hold. 

Last night I dreamt that our family had to move into a big house with other families because we were all suddenly very poor.  We were hiding our dogs, though, because they were NOT ALLOWED.
We had to secretly feed the dogs cat food, because cats were allowed.  That is when I should have realized it was only a dream. No society would allow only cats. That would effect the entire natural balance of things.  Who would clean up the cat exhaust in a world without dogs?  Cats would be everywhere, on everything, eating butter on the counters and horking on the tables.   I like cats.  I do. Just not as well on their own. Uncontrolled.  Cats belong in an ecosystem with a minimum of 2 dogs and/or an old lady who can't smell pee.

This weekend my children came down. We hiked and ate much food.  Carlos insisted on In and Out burger for at least one meal a day.  Cienna likes a better class of food. We ate really good Mexican food friday and saturday night.  Carne Asada and Pollo Enchiladas Verde, Pork Posole….the entire edible animal kingdom in yummy red and green sauces.  Yesterday, after Carlos left,  we had a fantastic salad at a vegetarian restaurant that got great reviews and was truly fantastic…but was staffed by the worst possible representatives of healthy eating you could imagine. It was like they were one shift away from hospice.  Our waiter, for instance, was sweating profusely in the hyper-cooled building.  He panted and his face was bright red from the exertion of carrying our leafy green salads. With pumpkin seeds.   The lady who seated us was death nell thin and so pale I could see the blood moving through her veins.  Her pulse race. She seemed so sad and resigned on the slow march to our table that I feared that when we finally arrived we'd find representatives of the animals we'd been eating all week sitting in our booth, waiting for us,  with guns.  Pissed off chicken, widowed pork….beef with a beef,
"Yeah, NOW you want a salad!"

The food was delicious, though.  Once we were chomping on our plant matter, with seeds, I started looking around and one whole wall was covered in pamphlets and brochures that said stuff like,
'Oh, NOW you want a salad!';
'A Steak is Somebodies Son';
'Eat Meat? You and Hitler Have Something In Common!'….
'A Chicken Nugget is Not A Choice'

I might be paraphrasing. 

My day started off with a dead car battery. I’m driving
around in a screaming measles rash-red dodge cobalt.  I really dislike the color ‘red’ in a car.  It seems not just tacky, but unlucky; an
unwanted bid for bad attention.  Couple
that with the fact that the car headlights need to be physically turned off, as
if ‘automatic’ never entered its lurid little makeup…

It was closing in on midnight, I’d had a few beers, and a
belly full of cheese curds, (compliments of Wisconsin Forest Service); I was
NOT intoxicated, I was tired.  These are
long 12 hour work days.  Plus, I had done
the hard labor of driving across town, finding parking in the University
District, carting around a passenger with the last name of Snart and the first
name of Otto (!!!) and NOT COMMENTING ON HIS GRAY SOCKS and HUGE CARGO SHORTS
WITH HOME MADE POCKETS big enough to hold…LIVE SQUIRRELS…that much self control wears me out.

By the time I got home I thought the least the little
dodge beast could do was shut its own lights down…

This morning the car was silent on the topic of starting
or operating anything in an automatic fashion, including the trunk and the
doors….soon my key was stuck in the ignition and I was 45 minutes late for
class.

I called my rental car company and they charged me
(actually YOU, taxpayer!) 40 bucks to send their Independent Contractor
K-something Road Assistance out to jump the little motorized lesion.  The dude who came out was driving, not a
truck with all sorts of tool compartments and important looking Roadside
Assistance equipment, as one might expect, were one stuck somewhere with a car
that wouldn’t start, but a rickety Cholera-shit green sedan that wheezed a listing
path across the hotel parking lot 35 minutes later than Alamo estimated. The vehicle came to a not-necessarily deliberate stop
behind and to the side of my dead car.  A
huge man squeezed his way out of the driver’s seat.  This process took about 5 minutes.  I wiled away the time by reading his bumper
stickers — “I Brake For Gun Shows” and “America— Red WHITE and Blue”… Add
the USMC flag and a “Smith and Wesson On Board” yellow diamond…. 

This was exactly the kind of car I’ll be behind when it’s
left unmanned during the Great Whitey Rapture. 
He left the tired emphasemic engine running while he walked around my
car looking for, I assume, where to plug his jumper cables in or where the
battery had fallen out…some clue as to why he was here, I suppose.  Satisfied at last, he moved his car closer.  I popped the hood of my car. It was the one
automatic feature on this catastrophe that functioned.  He looked me up and down critically. Finally
he said, “Where ya from?”

“Idaho.”

“What brings you to Tucson?”

“Work.”

He nodded.  I had
passed the test. He produced jumper cables and I started my car. 

We drove off in opposite directions.  Which is odd because there was only one way
out of the hotel parking lot. 

By Saturday, temps are forecast to be in the 80's here in Tucson. 
I miss my dogs.

I ordered the Merck Veterinary Manual off Amazon last night, in a sad 2 buck Chuck reflective moment. 
This weekend sheep died out at The Farm.  Not that it could have been prevented, certainly not by me, and my quick chapter-flipping and reading for comprehension skills….but I think of it as foreshadowing.  Of Farm Living as Harsh and Unpredictable.  Certainly less predictable than Northend Boise living where I have been known to drive the fallen squirrel or road injured bunny to WestVet in Garden City.  ( I like to think of the staff as snickering in encouragement) 
We are MILES from Westvet and I can't fit sheep in my car, easily.  I need to be useful in that environment.
I'm not one of those God's Will type of people, I'm one of those My Fault types.  Books are my soldiers in the army against fear. Sadly, we aren't a great army…we're more like a militia.  One that isn't really armed but likes to get together and fantasize about greatness, drinking a lot of beer.
 I also ordered  'Enfermedades de La Oveja'  because I've been thinking about learning Spanish, too, lately.  I was thinking that if there is anything less likely than me diagnosing an illness in an animal that can't give me verbal clues, it's doing so in a language in which I am fluent only in menu items.  (This was into my 3rd or 4th glass of the 2 buck chuck). 

Now I'm off to work. Class starts this afternoon and we aren't entirely certain the server won't explode when we plug 27 student laptops into it.

Last night I drove out to Greenleaf to meet with window contractors.  I had envisioned something in a sweaty carhartt with crusty paws and 20 minutes worth of tape-measure; some grunting, some brief no nonsense describing of options, and a price quote for windows and labor not to exceed that of what my kidney might bring on Ebay. SUCH was so far from the case that it required Andrea and several beers to assure me that we were still in Greenleaf, Idaho. That some weird hole in the Men's Warehouse time/space continuum had not opened up right above the farm and swallowed my dream, replacing it with 2 freshly ironed disciples of the factory seconds rack.  I know it's harsh. And they were nice men…

I got out to Greenleaf with my six pack of organic beer, about the same time Andrea pulled up with killer nachos and green salsa from a nearby Mexican food restaurant.  Thank god. This served to soften the blow of the next hour and a half.

Around 5:45 a car pulls into the drive and 2 middle-aged missionaries stepped out. Or so I thought.   So, infact, I'm inclined to still believe…

'Al' wore a freshly ironed suit and tie, BROWN shoes with a tassel, and freshly pomped hair. Stan looked slightly more casual in a sweater vest and tie, black tasseld loafers and matching pompadour.  They were Company Representatives, and they were not there to ask about our relationship with Jesus Christ; not outright, anyway.  They were there to SELL ME WINDOWS.  What transpired was so odd and awkward, from a MY LITTLE HOUSE JUST NEEDS A FEW NEW GLASS COVERED HOLES perspective, that I kept having to look at Andrea, who had to look away so we wouldn't both just start laughing and hurt their permanent press feelings.  I kept looking from crisp ironed pleat to double knit to Andrea's reassuring smirk to verify that this was truly INSANE.  Was this faintly perfumed vintage JC Penny model really taking a heat lamp out of a velvet sack to simulate the damaging effects of sun through inferior glass?  Did he not look around at the place and see that the sun's rays were the LEAST of our concerns?  The wiring and plumbing were original 1930's vintage. Turn on the wrong light and the whole place could burst into flames. But the windows are guaranteed for life.

The show continued with several velveteen wrapped do-dads and gadgetry, a case the size of a massage table holding a Demo Window,  and several examples of Inferior Competitor Product…all designed to prove that THESE WINDOWS WERE THE ABSOLUTE BEST that your kidney on ebay could buy.  
Oh yes.  These windows will be unopened during the rapture.
These windows are all that stand between me and the 7th layer of Cold or Hot hell.  (Cold stayed out, and warm stayed in…unless you needed it to be the other way. These windows KNEW things)  These were truly the second coming of Christ in a vinyl argon double pane frame.  Who knew? I'd been looking for another hot hippie who preached love and acceptance. 

These windows cost over 10 grand.  That was after the discount.  TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS.  Al and Stan did NOT want to leave until I signed a contract saying that I was ON BOARD with the Window Plan.  I kept saying, 'Nope, I need to talk it over with my husband,'  which meant, 'I can hardly wait to tell Eric about the velvet bags and light meters. Do I look like I have ten grand outside my soft vital organs and some poor soul's final days desperation?'

For the right floor coverings, I might be willing to harvest some eggs, but windows…no way.  Anyway, were I looking, I'd expect to find God in something more substantial than what these gentlemen continued to refer to as My Openings.  But maybe not.  Maybe that's exactly where He'd be.

This week's essay is actually from 2 summers ago.  A time when my friend Cindy was desperately to make me more social. I like it because it will repulse the others in my class and that has become a sort of goal for me….

Cindy and I went to a bar the other night so that she could catch
me up on her life and hopefully mold mine into something more like
other hominids.

I hadn't seen her in a week. She likes me to know everything.
Things she can't tell her other friends.

"I bought a guitar off of ebay. $600. My water heater does
not heat water, so I can only take 15 second showers. I use
antibacterial wipes on odd days. I can't afford a new hot water
heater, but I can afford a guitar."

Cindy stared at me, willing me to disagree.

"Cheers!" I toasted. "Who needs hot water when you
can play music badly."

Actually she will get a new hot water heater. Her father probably
has 50 of them in his barn, along with every other artifact of the
industrial age, several specimens for each decade, in all stages of
historic disrepair. She'll end up with a steam powered hot water
heater. It will need a locomotive to fuel it, but it will be
awe-inspiring.

"I am still dating Doug." she tells me next.

"Really?"

Doug's not a bad guy. He is employed, nice enough without seeming
too medicated, she's getting laid on a regular basis…sort of….
the only down side is his weird obsession with my husband.

"He'd like to get to know Eric," Cindy says. "He
thinks, actually, that he already does know him. That they are
friends…"

I shrug. Many people think they know Eric. There are actually 2
Erics: The two dimensional Eric, created by the media briefly years
ago, but which everyone in our business “knows” from interviews
and video footage, books and television. And Eric who occupies his
cold winter months picking up dog shit and vacuuming, playing hockey
and buying us tickets to really bad concerts…like QUEENSRYCHE. He
could use a new friend.

Doug listens to lesbian music, the Indigo Girls and Annie
Defranco. So in addition to other differences, they have probably
never shared a moshpit.

And music is important. It separates us from the beasts. usually.

Cindy begins explaining how she and her other friends are going to
get together every week and play their new instruments together. I
immediately picture 6 guitars and a flute, and I shudder.

"Naturally, you are invited to join us," she smiles
warmly.

"SWEETTONEDEAFCHRISTONAFIDDLE NO!" I accidentally let
slip out. "I mean, 'No thank you',"

She then accuses me of not liking women. Of not giving them a
chance. She forgets that every other time we speak, she talks about
how much she detests each of these women, together and separately,

"So and so is such a whiner/manipulator/fucking baby…I only
like her husband…."

"I wish {insert man here} would hurry up and dump {wife,
probably flute player}. I wouldn't mind dating him…"

I do not have many women friends. Part of this is that I just tend
to do a lot of things on my own. Like running and riding my bike…
and drinking and cringing in corners. Skulking. Judging.

Part of it is that I am INTIMIDATED by women. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND
THEM. Don't know what to SAY TO THEM…

I grew up around men, with brothers and their friends. Girls
always hated me. Seriously. I fear them and their tasteful
accessories.

MEN think I'm funny. Women think I'm strange. The odd woman, such
as Cindy, is funny right back. I've yet to say anything around these
Normal Women that hasn't been met with the sort of perplexed
brow-furrowing that usually proceeds a scabies diagnosis.

What should we talk about? Food? Appliances? Why I don't tweeze?

Cindy and I talk about the sex she is having with Doug.

I think other women talk about this stuff and for a moment I feel
hope. It quickly vaporizes as my eyes drift to the table next to ours
and meet the polar cap stare of a disapproving woman. She scowls and
looks pointedly away.

Cindy details an odd intercourse that is morphing each time into
including more of him and less of her…she's become almost
unnecessary. Except that she brings wine and shuts the door when she
leaves.

We talk about fornication some more because it is making the 24
karat overly perfumed woman next to us actually twitch. She is
staring frigid daggers from us to her wistful husband. I believe that
they've moved from California to Idaho because she thinks that most
of the sex that she finds especially distasteful is illegal here. Her
husband, too, believes that Jesus cries over the blowjob and anal gay
sex, but that just fuels his fantasies. Hot hot Jesus…

Our waiter, who is my daughter's age, cute, and has taken to
sitting with us and trashing his other patrons, within their earshot,
agrees that they are from California and that her vagina should,
indeed, be at home in the desert. We love him.

"I want his phone number," Cindy says, when he leaves to
fetch us another drink. "I'm going to get it."

"Please God no. He is a child." I say.

It's getting late. I want to go home. We pay, Cindy slips the
man/child her number, gets his email address, mother's maiden name,
hair sample.  He begins to look frightened when she asks when he "gets
off".  I drag her away.

"You have to be in our band. You need more friends…"
Cindy says, her hand on my shoulder. It is dirty.

"What sort of instrument would you like to play?" she
asks, already mentally on ebay buying it.

"The only way I would consider being in your all woman band
is if I could play the violin."

"Do you play the violin?" she asks with great
enthusiasm.

"Not at all." I answer. But I know that the noises I
could produce with one, without talent or practice, training or
inclination, would be perfect for me in this situation.

I think frequent bathing is the other thing that separates us from
the beasts and I tell her this.

"Hot baths," I clarify, gently taking her hand from my
shoulder and placing it in her water glass. "A monkey can play a
stringed instrument badly with friends…."

Does anyone wonder about the TRAINING portion of my blog? I like to think that everything I do to move forward as a person, an individual, a good world citizen; my new embracing of subtlety,  my enhanced attention to the little things, my carrying meat in my pocket…contributes to my enlightenment in all things, including stockdog work.  That, and after this week I'll be sans dogs and sheep until the first of March.  I'll still be TRAINING, and blogging, but it will require a very open mind and broad interpretation.  Feel free to apply my techniques on the livestock of your choice.

That said, last Saturday at Jodi's Scout and I had what I'd call a break-through.  After 15 minutes of her chasing sheep and me screaming (foreplay), I managed to get a grip on myself and Scout's collar and rethink my methodology to include me being in the right place and calming down, before expecting Scout to be in the right place and calmed down. 

Prior to this I had released Scout to gather the sheep in a field that included obstacles like bisecting canals and 2 stock trailers which kept splitting the sheep and sending Scout into a chasing frenzy.  Not sure why I EVER thought that would work.  Sometimes my optimism borders on lunacy.  Actually crosses the Rio Grande of slightly nutty and sets up residence on the WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU THINKING? side of things.  Anyway, once I grabbed Scout by the collar and calmly pulled the sheep together, I was able to get her to control her motion – creep forward, lie down,  creep forward, lie down.  It wasn't pretty, or elegant, but it was effective for what we were trying to do which was accomplish a task (penning the sheep) and not making me cry and use bad language at top volumn next to Jodi's neighbor's children's swingset.  The sheep went into the pen, slowly at a walking speed, Scout lying down where I said to, behind them, and I danced and congratulated my beloved little freak dog emphatically.  

What I learned was NOT to give up.  Because I was close. REALLY REALLY CLOSE to putting Scout away and going into Jodi's house and grabbing Zip or Echo. I would have learned nothing. Scout would have learned nothing.

It reminded me of what Dianne said recently when someone else was having a bad training experience and wanted to put her dog up.  "Don't put your dog away. When things are going bad, really bad, is the best time to learn. YOU WILL LEARN FROM THIS and SO WILL YOUR DOG."

Scout and I should be getting our PhDs in Things Going Really Bad.

My very good friend Cindy is seeking LOVE on the NET.  It's what I've
always wanted for her.  I LOVE LOVE and I LOVE THE NET. Emoticon Hearts
for her… CREEPY GOOD TIMES FOR ME! 

At first she had constructed a boring almost technical profile for
herself.  "I enjoy the outdoors and sitting in the shade…kittens and
good food…I'm a passionate conservationist…" Lalalalalalala
…insert anyone you've ever met who shops at REI here.

Those were the patagonia and sunshine thoughts that she attempted to
convey in her profile, anyway. Sadly, Cindy is a brilliant mind, a
witty conversationalist, an eloquent speaker, highly educated and well
rounded…but the worst fucking speller I have ever met out of
diapers.  Here's the actual words she used,

"I injoy the outdoor and siting in the shade, …I am a pastionite conversationist….." etc etc

She's going to call bullshit on this, and because I do not have the
words in front of me, I am paraphrasing. TRUST ME, though, when she
writes without spell check the results are almost prehistoric in their
ability to be easily translated by the layman.  When she writes
utilizing spell check, often her words are spelled so wrongly that the
best the simple software add-on can do is choose something close. It's
complete sentence anarchy for the recipient.  And, of course, always a
delight for me. 

The other night, however, we sat and drank and constructed a more
suitable profile for a woman of her unique charms and personality.
Because we needed for it to be completely understood by the Mr. Rights
of her dreams, I spelled everything for her.

"Are you sure this isn't TOO WEIRD? Especially the part about feces?
Are you sure you spell it with a 'c'?" she asked, "that doesn't look
right…"

"It's perfect, and VERY APPROPRIATE for OUR…uh, YOUR goals" I
assured her. "You want to weed out the lame ass professionals who will
only drag you down with their blan appetites and complete lack of
abstract HILARITY. TELEVISION watchers and men who WEAR SHOES WITHOUT
TREAD."

We shuddered as one. 

Plus, we were 'in our cups' as they say. 

At that point in time, pre-edit, her profile had received 50 hits. 
Since last night, when her NEW IMPROVED profile went live she has
250. PLUS EMAILS!

Today she emailed me from her office to mine about all the exciting
LOVE activity. All the winks, the nods, the 80 character limitation
foreplay.

"Get on an reed the emales I've goten so far!" she gushed, textually.

I did. And my favorite is from a 77 year old man living in North Idaho.

"I saw you looked at mine, now show me yours." wrote CDABILL, who
loves soft foods and bowel movements. "I bathe regularly and put the
toilet seat down….Let's get acqainted!"

There were emails from a few others who "love skiing, boating and
biking. Looking for someone to share it with" and "kayak every chance I
get, when I'm not mtn biking. Love big water, fast downhill, and life.
Wanna play?"

bah! She can BIKE WITH ME! WHO CAN SHE 'CAUDAL' with?  Who LOVES SOFT FOOD!?

I've deleted everyone but CDABill from her favorites list. 

The house in Greenleaf, according
to reliable sources, (Andrea, former tenant) is infested with mice.
I'm sure she isn't exaggerating. I've seen her efforts at curbing the
population all over the tiny house; peppermint oil soaked pads in
every drawer, steel wool stuffed into small holes in walls and
floors, screens over every possible opening in the backs of
cupboards.

Some of my friends, upon hearing
'mice', say, “Trap them!” or “Decon!”

But that is NEVER going to happen.
Mark my public words. I cannot do it. It's not that I'm a LOVER of
rodents, although I freely admit that my one true Soul Mate was a hamster,
and that I've kept mice as pets throughout my life…It's that I
can't. It's genetically impossible. My father was a huge freak who
fed feral mice from his hands every night all throughout my rural
upbringing. Doritos corn chips, mostly. Sometimes popcorn. I'm
not naïve about infestation. I GREW UP with infestation. We called
it 'tiny, possibly rabid friendship'… and 'Dorito Control'…..

My father died a few years ago. I
found this essay I wrote prior to that. My parents didn't have mice
in their final home in Coeur d'Alene, probably because of the feral
cats they'd taken in. But they did have spiders. Many, many spiders.
This made me nostalgic.

Those rare few hours a day when my
father isn't parked barely conscious in front of the 1980's vintage
television, he spends working out in his rickety home gym, located in
their spider infested basement, in a small room about the size of
many people's closets. Oddly, my mother keeps her canned peach
collection also in this room.

"Are you still lifting
weights, Katy?" he asks me, inevitably, flexing his impressive
72 year old biceps. He has 1/4 of his original heart, 2/3rds of a
spastic diseased colon and countless other internal problems, not to
mention that he is completely batshit crazy, but the guy is Buff with
a capital 'Fucking WHY BOTHER YOU NEVER LEAVE THE HOUSE?!'

The correct answer is "Yes, I
lift weights every other day… AT LEAST"

If I am truthful and say, 'No, not
really…' he'll want his free weight set back. He will call me
constantly, every day, at all hours, home and at work, until I drive
it all back up to Northern Idaho so that he can pile it into his
weight room where literally thousands, or hundreds of thousands of
Joe Weider freeweights, weight machines of all sizes and makes,
incline benches, weight benches propped up on blocks, exercycles with
only one pedal, nordic tracks sans tracks, you name it, it's
teetering on some flimsy brink of barely, lifethreateningly
nonfunctional…

All dangerously close to one
another, each missing some fundamental piece of its original whole to
ensure that even exhaling in the wrong direction at the wrong time in
this house would be your biggest and final mistake. Unless you eat
the peaches.

Then there are the spiders. Spider
webs everywhere. Not because my mother isn't a frenetic vacuumer.
It's her hobby, it's her passion, (second only to keeping current on
my bowel movements). Not in the basement, though. My father would
scream like a 12 year old girl. He has named many of these
spiders.

"This one here is 'Senor
Clang' isn't he cute? You can see all 8 eyes watching you lift
weights. He's very curious."

My father does not kill anything,
except my hopes, my dreams…my honesty.

"Do you still have those
magazines I gave you?" he asks.

Again, 'Yes' is the right answer or
he'll insist I give them back, which I can't do because I've recycled
them. My house is not big enough for 2000 pounds of 10 – 15 year old
Muscle and Fitness magazine. I'd hoped he'd forget, like they do my
birthday each year.

"I read them nearly as much as
I lift weights…" I reply to my father and Senor Clang.

All 10 of their collective eyes
glisten with approval.

TODAY in neglect: I'm supposed to be writing my weekly essay for the Creative Nonfiction class I'm taking.  It's due tomorrow.  Or yesterday. I forget.  I've sort of lost heart because NO ONE ever comments on my essays. No one.  They, the other students, trip all over superlatives commenting on each others 500-800 words on My First Marathon, and Why I Love Babies…When I Was 20 I Lived With A Man My Father's Age.  My slightly less mainstream topics (My Friend Cindy's Black Eyes For Vicadan Quest and Evidence that Ducks Are Addicted to Autoeroticism)  are ignored as if I'd evacuated my bowels on the Oxford DIctionary of the English Language and called it an urban update. 

This week I'm supposed to write about The First Time.

So far, students have written about The First Time I ran A Marathon, The First Time I Fell in Love, The First Time I Met My Mean Boss.

(insert long time lapsed doing real work) 

So, I finally finished my essay. It's entitled My First Soul Mate:

A few years ago, when he was turning nine, my son and I went
to the local pet shop and got a hamster.  The sort of entry level pet that dies in a few
years I believe was my line of thinking at the time.  Still, not wanting to isolate this creature,
we thought ahead and purchased a palatial Hamster Estate. The estate included 2
cages, 3 ‘outposts’, a hamster bathroom, a lookout post, and 2 exercise wheels,
plus probably a ¼ mile of tubing to connect everything. 

After having one hamster for a week, we returned to the pet
store to buy him a society.
We brought our hamster along in his mobile outpost.  

“Can we see if he’ll get along with a couple of these hamsters?”
I asked the pimply attendant in the Rodent Room. I pointed to a couple of
attractive long haired Siberians hanging out near the salt lick. 

“He won’t.” said the post puberty boy, not even looking up
from his Gamer’s World magazine. “Hamsters fight.”

“We could buy a mate, then. We don’t want him to be alone.”

Pimple boy shrugged, and put the magazine down in slow but
heavy motion.  He grabbed a book from a filthy shelf of seeds and sawdust,
flipped to a page in the middle, and read aloud to me, in a sing-song voice,
oozing disdain,

“A Hamster is a
solitary creature with a nasty social disposition.  They should be
together only for breeding, and even then the results of combining two hamsters
can be very unpredictable.”

It was then that I knew, after 20+ years of dating, countless
boyfriends and 3 husbands, that at last I had found my soul mate.  He cost $1.99.  His
name was Howard. It was eerie how alike we were, both enjoyed
running, eating fruits and vegetables, being out of drafts, and having our shit
in a room separate from our sleeping quarters. Neither of us was inclined to go
looking for a dinner party.

I understood Howard in a way that I am never understood by my human loved
ones.  I did not force other hamsters on Howard, for instance, and yet a
week did not go by that my husband wasn’t trying to ease me into some awful social situation.

“Its just dinner!”  he
would whine, “They are my friends!”

His friends were trouble for me.  They ironed their clothing
and laughed at stuff that wasn’t really funny; they used the word ‘cute’
without a sneer to back it up. They owned ceramic wildlife figurines. Their
lives were adorned with dust free whimsy. 

I did not blend easily into this environment.  It was a bad situation for
everyone. What I lacked in social
grace and conversation skills, I made up for in furtiveness and
sweat glands.  Even a simple question like,

“What do you do for a living?” could trigger a response so
awkward or just plain lurid that only an explosion or rectal bleeding could move us past it.

I have always had the sort of friends who wouldn’t think to invite
me to dinner unless there was a darker and more sinister intent,

“I need you to keep watch while I break into this guy’s
house and get back my Vicodan™. THEN I’ll buy us pizza!”

I don’t like forcing myself into someone else’s world. It didn’t work out for
any of us.  I relish solitude or the
occasional evening with my own friends. I savored time spent with Howard.  Did I mention that Howard would stay up all
night making unholy racket and then sleep all day? The way I'd like to…

Howard and I enjoyed many quiet evenings alone together. I would take him out
and hold him gently, lovingly in my palm for just a few moments while we shared
an apple chunk.

When I put Howard back into his cage I never failed to notice the solitary
object left in my hand: After eating my apple and sopping up my adoration,
Howard paid me back with a glistening black turd. Every time.

Howard lived for 3 years. That’s about right for Love.