April 28, 2010; Skeeter's Weirdness

After jumping onto the La-Z-boy with him and waiting for Boo-Boo to go to work, I asked Skeeter, "What happened!?" He had just come home from a visit with Straight Guy (SG), his best platonic male friend for the last 25 years. (Fuck, don't these humans ever die!)

"What happened?" he repeated disingenuously.

"You were going to ask him something intimate, something personal, something—"

"All right!" Skeeter bellowed. "How the fuck do you know all this?"

"Little doggies have big noses and you did discuss it rather at length with Boo."

"From, now on, cough when you're in the room. There are certain things you shouldn't be hearing."

"What the fuck! I'm not some toddler with Mommy and Daddy lowering their voices when they discuss the divorce!"

"There's not going to be a divorce, Little Man, it was just something I got into my head."

"Big head; must have been rattling in there for a while. I wonder why I didn't hear the echo."

"Ha. Ha. And, yes, I have been obsessing about this and losing sleep and for some unfathomable reason it started to feel like a sane idea."

"How does SG figure?"

He sighed deeply and then he spilled his guts. "He's straight, so Boo and I agreed he wasn't dangerous to our relationship; he's sexy; he's my best friend...I thought he might pose for some pictures."

I don't know if you've ever heard a dog shriek with laughter. You may have but probably didn't know what it was. For instance, we run around like mad, get you chasing us like mad, then we stop the game and when you look at us we let out a sound (like a yodel with me). You think we're over-excited and want to play some more, but it's really us laughing our mother-fucking arses off at how fat and wet and red and...human you look.

That was the noise I made when he said, "pose for pictures." I could not stop laughing—I even got off his lap 'cause I thought I might piss a little. I could barely get out, "What kind of poses?" and, of course I knew but shrieked some more anyway.

"Shut up," he growled.

"And your request was hanging out there, the big, farting elephant in the room—"

"—the café—"

And I exploded with laughter again.

"It was the most difficult thing I've ever done since coming out to my father!" he wailed. "Do you have any idea how hard it was to ask him that?"

"I know how hard it must have been to ask him, if you know what I mean and I think you do." Now I was just giggling and so I jumped back up on his lap. "Poor little Skeeter," I said and licked his nose. "So what's going on with you and Boo?"

"Nothing. It's all me." Then he ratcheted up the tone a bit and yelled, "You saw the thing! You saw how hideous and big it was! I can't let anyone close to me anymore without freezing up! I turn rigid—"

"—and not in a good way," I piped in, trying desperately to simmer him down.

"And there was Brian—that's his name, by the way, not Straight Guy...I mean, I wasn't asking to blow him! Just pictures!"

"Wow, that's sad."

"Well, it was sad. Now it's just humiliating and silly."

"Did he handle it well?" I asked.

"Short and sweet. No. Change the subject real fast."

"Well...yeah!" Skeeter was calmer now, thank God. "And the friendship? Will you be able to look him in the eyes?"

"Yeah, but he'll probably be thinking I'm looking him in the crotch."

"Which, of course, will be the case." I snerfed a laugh. There was more quiet for a bit and then I said, "It's kibble."

"Hunh?"

"Life is like kibble. It fills your stomach, it's supposed to be good for you, but it often tastes like shit." He laughed wearily. "You're a bit of a freak, you know that?" I said.

"You think?"

"Well, you're nearing 60—"

"—I'm nearing 53—"

"Whatever. On top of that you're human wreckage...facing yet another operation—"

"—does this have a point?—"

"—Yes. All that and yet you're still got a spring in your step. You're like a dog. For us sex is life and life is sex."

"Yes," he said tiredly, "maybe so. But sometimes I wish I was one of the normal 50-year-olds who didn't care about anything but food, liquor and TV."

"No you don't."

He smiled—a real smile at last. "No I don't."

"Hey! Here's a question: would you rather be straight?"

"Hm." There was a long, long silence and the longer it lasted the more interesting I became in the answer. Finally: "No. I'd have not met Boo."

I snerfed. "It's an odd little love story you got going there, you two."

There was an easy, relaxed quiet at last. But then it came: a snerf, a giggle, a laugh and then I was yodeling and managed to howl, "In a café! I can't believe it! What a fucktard!"

He laughed too.

April 25, 2010; Pissbizz

I pissed in the bed again.

By the time Skeeter got up, Boo-Boo was once again accepting blame, saying he was late getting me out for the morning walk yadda-yadda-yadda. That was fine with me, but I could see it wasn't flying with Skeet who glared at me so violently my butt clenched and my asshole puckered.

He was bellowing, "HOW IS IT EVERY FUCKING DOG I'VE EVER HAD HAD BEEN ABLE TO GO 14, 16, EVEN 18 HOURS BEFORE THE FIRST WALK OF THE DAY BUT THIS LITTLE FUCKWAD NEEDS TWO WALKS BEFORE FUCKING NOON!"

When Boo went off to work, the fat one lit into me, "What the fuck is in your head!?"

Okay, what was really in my head was that I needed to pee—not urgently, mind—and the bed was warm and Boo wasn't even dressed yet so I did it and I changed places away from the wet spot and went back to a pleasant slumber. I couldn't very well say that to Skeeter who would tear me a new asshole from the inside out.

My head went click-click-click and—poof!—lightbulb!

"You don't know what my fucking life is like," I howled.

"YOUR LIFE!? YOUR LIFE!!!!????" he shrieked.

"Think about it! I'm a basket case. I'm worried about your health, Boo is a ticking time bomb! If he doesn't start bleeding from the mouth from ulcers, he's heading toward a coronary! Think about how that affects me, goddammit!"

He immediately shut up. He calmed. He said, "I see," and sat down.

Good-fucking-Jesus, I'm brilliant! Fact is that humans and their woes can be a pain in the ass, but ultimately all animals are like turtles: we pull our heads in and go to sleep as soon as the moaning starts; we don't even hear it most of the time—it's like bug noises. I realized this talking out loud stuff, after all, was a very, very good idea on my part. Humans have reason, you see. Too fucking much of it. This means you can get around them if you're smart enough and can out-reason them.

And—Lordie! Lordie!—right then, right here, I was not only smart enough but oh-so-much-smarter than Skeeter!

He took me into his arms and curled me up to him on the La-Z-Boy and said, "I guess it's been rough for all of us."

I sighed pitifully.

"Poor baby," he said.

I sighed again.

Then he took my nose between a finger and his thumb and squeezed it ever-so-slightly and gurgled with rage, "Just how fucking retarded do you think I am!"

"Whud?" I said, now nostril-less.

"I've been sicker, he's been crazier, and you've been a much better dog before and now you're trying to tell me that you peeing on the bed is about your stress!" He squeezed my nose a little more. I wasn't dying, but the suggestion that I might was in that little squeeze. He went on: "Here's what's going to happen: if you ever, ever, ever pee in the bed again, you are going to sleep in the kitchen, in the dark, alone, on the mat on the floor, for three nights. I don't think you liked that much, the last time, did you?"

"Nerp," I said, shuddering.

"And from now on, when he gets up, you get up. No more napping while he rushes about getting ready. If you really, really, really need to pee, then you do it on the floor. But I warn you," and he was looking into my eyes, still squeezing my nose, "we're not going to take that for very long either."

"Er-key," I sniveled. He finally let go and there was a long silence. There was something I really had to say but I knew I would have to be verrrrrrrry careful. "May I add one little thing?" He puffed out with what was left of his anger but then nodded. "Why is it you two can go and pee and shit any fucking time you want, day or night, and I'm expected to hold it in."

"Interesting point," he said. "Yes, interesting indeed." But the tone was odd and the atmosphere in the room stank of danger so I did not press it any farther. "Well, for one thing, we're middle-aged men and these things happen. When you get older, certain allowances will be made for your age too. But, and here's the most important thing: YOU ARE OUR FUCKING DOG!"

Hell! that didn't seem fair at all but, as I said, it would have been unwise to press any more points at this particular moment.

This is for cogitation, later discussion and debate, even. Let's just say that right there, right then, I was just glad to have a nose and I was also might happy to be able to slap my tongue up to it to make sure it was still there.

April 22, 2010; Kaffee Klatsch

The Boys were getting to me. I mean, normally I'm a happy-go-lucky, live-and-let-live, decent little dog nice to people and other animals (except the tards and fuckwads, of course), but between Skeeter's medical problems and Boo-Boo's work-stress, we're talking major buzz-kill. So I needed some advice.

I was out walking with Skeeter when we ran into Ginger (and her Babs) who was already having a chat with Benjie (and his old biddy hen). Skeeter joined in the human conversation and before you know it, it was a chorus of aches and pains and whining about age and ailment.

I asked the other two how they dealt with all this and before you know it the three of us dogs decide to have a good old-fashioned chin-wag. Ginger was being civil to me since Cleo had disappeared from the neighbourhood (and, I prayed, had not been hit by a car or something equally atrocious).

"Listen to them," Ginger snerfed disdainfully, "you'd think they're the only one with problems."

"Yeah," Benjie chimed in, "especially since their problems invariably become our problems."

"The way they sweat," Ginger went on. "Do you know when it's really hot outside, and after we've had a good long walk, this one has to take off her leg and empty it like a bucket—"

"—ewwwwwwwwww!" Benjie said.

"Like I said," Ginger went on, "humans and their sweat."

"Well, mine farts," said Benjie. I snerfed a laugh. "But she's very delicate about it. She gets up, opens the window, hangs her rear-end over the sill, and lets it fly. I know it must be bad because you can see the birds dropping from the trees." Ginger and I howled with laughter and the humans looked down and the old lady said, "Look at that, they're all singing together." And they went on with their conversation as we did with ours.

I could have shared my invormation about Skeeter and his appliance, but somehow that felt wrong. So instead I told them about Boo-Boo. "Not this one, but the other one," I said, "can't drink a glass of water without some kind of major digestive disruption—heart burn, or upset stomach—and then, suddenly, during the best part of a movie or program he will let out these blasting belches that go on and on and on. Sounds like a camel yowling!" And once again the three of us fell into a fit of merriment that drew the attention of the masters. Skeeter looked down and I could see from his face he was suspicious of the conversation, but he went back to his.

"But I'll tell you something," Benjie said, "I like it when Mommy's daughters come over and it's like a little party with cooking and baking and cleaning and even some knitting and singing the old-time songs."

"Oh for Christ's sake, Benjie," Ginger bellowed, "could you be a little less fruit-flavoured for once!"

"Fuck you, yah horny bitch," Benjie sniped back.

"What's going on here?" I asked.

"Ginge, shut up!" Benjie growled warningly.

"Oh Fuck, Benj, if he hasn't figured out you're queer by now, then he's a bigger imbecile then I thought!"

Benjie was hanging his head, trying not to look at me. "Nice going, Ginge," I said to her, and to him: "I suspected, Benjie, and it doesn't bother me at all." Benjie leaned over and licked my face. The three humans were looking down at that moment and all went: Awwwwwwwwwww. If a Korean nuke could have hit us right then, I would have been happy.

The three duos went off on their separate ways. Skeeter murmured to me, "Do I hear wedding bells?"

"Shad-up."

April 19, 2010; Explanations

Pining about my sorry state—the disappeared Cleo with whom I am in love, Ginger who treats me like crap, Benjie who seems to be in love with me, Mr. C who is promising to make my life a living hell—I toddled into the bathroom after Skeeter today and only noticed, after he had closed the door, that he was not there to shave or brush his teeth. (I don't know why, but I find the morning rituals of humans fascinating.) He was going to "change his appliance."

Now I've written before about how I sat through this hideous process once and never wanted to see it again, but that was before the two of us got to talking. Although this time wasn't promising to be any less hideous, at least it would be informative (if I could only talk instead of dry-heave).

I opened with, "I don't really want to be here, you know."

He said, "Neither do I. But you don't have to, so if you want you can go."

"I would, but I sorta want to know what the hell has happened to you and what this is all about. I suspect it would explain some things—"

"—things?—" he said as he took out all sorts of gizmos and gadgets and set them out around the bathroom.

"—your generally pissy moods, for instance." He grumped a little and then started to cut things. "So what is all this crap and why do you have to do it?"

"I had an operation. They took out a huge chunk of the tail-end of my digestive tract, and now what is the new tail-end actually comes out of a hole in my belly."

"To do what, exactly?" He said nothing but he didn't have to because it was a 'tard question—to do what the old tail-end used to do, I realized. I said, in a weak voice, "Fascinating!" and tried to mean it.

"So every four days or so, I have to remove the appliance, as they call it, and clean the part of my body under the appliance and put on a new appliance."

"And this appliance is what?" I asked, jumping up onto the toilet seat to get a better look (instead of, like last time, cringing and wincing in the corner). The way I was now seeing it was that this was about shit. Dogs know shit. We don't care about shit. We even like shit. Humans, on the other hand, seem to have a phobia about it (unless it comes out of a baby and then it's like Christmas Day, for some reason).

But Skeeter was just going along, placing things and removing things and cutting things like this was the most banal thing in the world and for that, I gotta say, I admired him a little. Then there was something—something coming out of him and I couldn't help freaking. "What the fuck is that!!!"

"Simmer down," he said, as he worked with and washed around the thing coming out of him (do you get me? IT WAS COMING OUT OF HIM!!!). "That," he said almost proudly, "is my intestine except now they call it a stoma and it has to be tended to like a baby and protected and cleaned and the skin around it too and that's the worst part of the job and also the most interesting part because—let's face it—not everyone gets to fiddle about with their own internal organs."

"Wow," I said and it truly was fascinating right then.

After he'd done the cleaning and what not, he placed a big plastic plate around that thing which glued down to his skin and then over the plate he clipped a bag (the engineering here is mind-blowing—that bag clipped right to the plate...a perfect fit). Then he sighed very, very, very deeply. "There, the worst is done and there was no accident."

"Accident?" I asked, looking at him through the mirror.

"Sometimes the thing is...uh...active and then it gets messy and you have to move fast but if you move too fast nothing works and—"

"—you start screaming and swearing like a whore on Saturday night!"

"You've heard," he said, and smiled.

"The whole fucking neighbourhood has heard. They think Boo-Boo beats you."

He laughed and I snerfed a chuckle. "So now you know," he said. "Any questions?"

"Does everyone know you have this?" I asked.

"Good question," he said as he tidied up the bathroom. "Everyone who wants to know knows because I don't hide it. But there are a lot of people, even in my own friends and family, who just don't want to know."

"Why, do you think?"

"I've thought of that," he said, finishing up the cleaning. There was a silence until he was done and then he picked me up and carried me out and over to the La-Z-Boy. Finally he spoke, "Because it is what it is. Because it's not polite dinner conversation. Because it's horrifying to many (as it was to me at first—I used to cry and cry). But that's not it, mostly." He paused for a second and we rocked in the chair for a bit. "I think it's a case of: 'there—but for the grace of God—go I.'"

"Hunh?"

"People don't want to know because they don't want to imagine it happening to them. It's like cancer and the throwing up and shit and hair-loss. You can say, 'Poor you, you have cancer,' and mean it to a certain extent but no one wants to know the full extent of the bodily upheaval that comes with cancer or this or any serious illness because it's too easy to imagine their own fragile, aging bodies someday becoming a victim of that kind of upheaval. It's why people fear doctors, hospitals, surgery (lordie—just the talk of a possible surgery turns people in jelly) and it's also why some people would rather die in their sleep or get hit by a car, tomorrow, than have something like this. It's mortality. It's the slowing down. It's facing the end."

"And for you?"

"I used to think like that too. I could never imagine I would be like this, doing this, even a few years ago. But the oldest cliché in the book is utterly, utterly true..."

"'Where there's life, there's hope,'" I mumbled.

"Yup."

"Does it hurt?" I asked.

"Nope."

"If I grabbed on it and chewed it while we were play-fighting?—"

"—you would probably win the fight, but I also might punt you across the living room."

"Ah!" I mumbled, "the woes of being a small dog."

"Oh boo-hoo," he said and, unlike an hour ago (before the appliance change) there was a whiff of sarcasm and good humour in him.

It was turning into one of those icky-sticky, touchy-feely moments I hate so much so I said, "Let's watch 'Bargain Hunt.'" And we did.

April 16, 2010; Cleo...

Kitty Liter(ature)

Cleo, your Leo

Is weeping for you

The neighbourhood's empty

Without your sweet mew.

I want you, I need you,

My loins are ablaze

For that hot pussy pussy,

I'm still in a daze.

There's not even a danger

We'll spawn out a "dat"

Cause my goolies are pickling

In some sick fuck's vat.

Though my balls are a phantom

My heart is still blue

And my willy's a-willing

And waiting for you.

Our miscegenation

(So "wrong" so "taboo)

Would get an ovation

From hearts that are true.

So Cleo, your Leo

Is pining for thee.

Come back to our street

Show our love can be free!

April 13, 2010; A Messy Life

Things are not ha-ha in Boystown (formerly: La Maison Mook and Mook Manor). Yesterday, the two of them disappeared together and when they came back they were not happy campers. Turns out they had been to the specialist nurse and Skeeter had received a pile of crap news. They weren't discussing it when they came in, but over a bunch of phone calls Skeet made over the next hours, I learned all the details.

It turns out that the wound the nurse found last week is not a good thing and that it may explain a lot about what's going on deep in the surrounding tissue (or it may not). So Skeeter has been handed off to a plastic surgeon, is now going to the clinic five times a week and is going to start a new round of antibiotics. However you slice it (pun intended) it looks like he's going back in for surgery...reconstructive surgery...on his butt.

I know, I know, it's wicked of me to giggle a little but even as he was telling his various groupies, he had trouble keeping a straight face. The thing is, this is serious surgery; however, where it's being done—and at his age—it's not difficult to associate it with middle-aged, dyed-blond, skeletal matrons getting their asses lifted. Sure, you can call it reconstructive surgery all you want, but it still involves a plastic surgeon and trying to make that formidable mass he drags around behind him into something less horrific!

After an evening's profound depression (even Boo-Boo was red-eyed) and a night's sleep, things looked a little rosier today, though Skeeter was still pissed about having to go to the clinic every week day (and as it turns out, the specialist nurse wanted him to go on weekends too but he threatened—jokingly, one suspects—to kill himself). The clinic treatments and the drugs are a last ditch effort no one thinks will work, which is why he has the referral to the plastic surgeon (which Skeet has been warned is an asshole). So all of this together could be a lot of Sturm und Drang in the next months but, also, highly amusing.

"Let's face it," I told Skeet, "it's not like you were using it anyway?" He did not laugh.

Hey! I've got probs of my own, dammit! For one thing, the Chinese lady at the convenience store who gives me treats from time to time and gets me all excited by playing chase with me around the store...well, she's leaving in May; closing up shop and retiring. Free food and entertainment like that is nothing to sneer at and she will be missed. Moreover, I haven't seen Cleo in days, Ginger is still showing me her cootch (and not in a nice way) and snerfing at me disdainfully if she says anything at all. Meanwhile, every time I run into him, Benjie is hysterical with happiness. He was out on a walk the other day and he was trying as best as he could to gallop over to me while dragging his 90-year-old biddy-hen behind him! I think he's gay for me, alright, and I'm going to have to think long and hard about how to handle it.

Speaking of gay, on Sunday, do you know what we did in this household? We curled around the TV and the two of them watched "The Wizard of Oz", singing along occasionally. If you ask me, I think that's actually sadder than Skeet going under the knife again.

April 10, 2010; On puppies and popes

Yesterday, I was just snoozing in the kitchen, pretty much minding my own business. Boo-Boo was away at a meeting, Skeeter was at the clinic. I was alone and I liked it. Then Skeet came home, grabbed me up, threw himself into the La-Z-Boy and started sobbing into my fur.

I was feeling really itchy, didn't know what to do, didn't know what to say, and he was starting to knock the wind out of me he was holding me so tightly so I burbled, "So! Pope Benedict! He's a nut, eh!"

He laughed and—thank Keerist!—loosened the death hold he had on me. He was still giggling, though wiping his eyes, and all this meant I would have to say something else. (I so missed being alone, snoozing, in the kitchen.) "So what happened? Did some burly male nurse violate your personhood?"

"I wish."

"Well, what then?"

He sighed deeply and said, "Somehow another deep wound has opened up."

"Deep?"

"Four centimeters."

I snerfed angrily and said, "Could you forget the commie measurements and tell me in American, please!"

"About an inch, an inch and a half."

"That doesn't sound so bad," I said.

"Well, it ain't good!"

"Granted," I said lamely. Finally he just sighed. "Shall we talk about something other than your rotting, quasi-cadaver?" He agree laughing and it was a real laugh and I was deeply relieved. This touchy-feely stuff, especially between two males, makes me profoundly uncomfortable. So we did talk about the pope. "Why are Catholics so retarded?"

"It's in our genes," he said.

"Oh, sorry. Didn't know."

"I don't brag about it," he said, "and besides, I'm actually an undeclared apostate."

"Undeclared?"

"Too lazy to do the paperwork."

"Tell me," I went on, "the sick sex...is it because you consider it so wrong that you all want it so badly?"

"Hey! It's not like they're all diddling altar boys!"

"But management is!" I snorted. "Sort of makes it official, wouldn't you say? Sanctioned, almost. Nearly a ritual! Like communion. 'Would you like some jizz on that wafer?'"

"Oh...my...FUCK!" he said, horrified and delighted at once. Sort of the same noise you'd get from a schoolgirl who's just learned you can't get pregnant giving a blow job. I went on, "What I don't get is why the true story...the bigger story...is ignored, so far."

"Bigger?" he asked.

"Bigger as in broader, not more important. Let's face it: if pedophilia is a part of the clerical culture—even if it's taboo and spoken of in hushed tones—then surely homosexuality has to be a much bigger part. All those seminaries full of young, healthy and horny men! It must feel absolutely normal to fool around with Brother Tom's Harry Dick. You get what I'm saying?"

"Not sure..." Skeeter mumbled and added, "I'm not sure I like where you're taking this," and then, à propos of not much, said, "I nearly went into the priesthood."

I snerfed at this as it was sort of making my point, but I went on. "If the pervy parish priest is boinking die kinder, so to speak, and, I'll cede, even the queerest of queer boys knows that's wrong, wrong, wrong and is not vaguely interested in doing it—then, don't you think that in an all-male, youthful and fairly virile community being a fag—

"—gay—"

"—gay would be seen as absolutely okay?"

"But the Bible," he said.

"Bible Schmible! Find me the part that says fucking deaf kids is fine, yet somehowa whole bunch of them got cornholed."

"Hm," he said, smiling strangely. It looked like he wasn't listening to me at all and was instead imagining what his life would have been like had he become a semanarian, the dink.

"Blessed are the chicken hawks, for they shall inherit the preschools," I mumbled. Again he shriek/laughed with horror/delight and hugged me hard. I grunted uncomfortably.

"You know," he said, "back when there were actually very out queer popes."

"Nothing surprises me. The minute you take something personal like spirituality—and I mean the-colour-of-the-inside-of-your-foreskin personal—and try to organize it, give it rules, leaders and call it a religion—something is bound to go terribly wrong; men in dresses in charge and women in burkas being called nuns, f'r'instance."

"So dogs don't believe?"

"Oh! We believe! But we never, ever, talk about it!"

He said, "Hm," and then there was a long, long silence.

Finally I said, "The soul's not made for Facebook or Twitter."

"Thus spaketh Pope Leo," he said and soon we nodded off to sleep and all was good.

April 7, 2010; Fritz!

Yesterday, while walking along with Skeeter, I fritzed.

It's the only word I can use to describe it. I started to shake, yank at the leash, whimper, growl. You name it, it was there and I felt like a big sissy. But this has happened before and I'll tell you—as I told Skeeter later—why it happened now.

All was well. It was a decent, gray day. Gray days, with no wind, keep the smells close to the ground and make the colours pop. On bright days, the sun burns off the smells and the colours all blend together to become one big phantasmagoria that people don't see but that most animals do and pretty much treat as hum-drum. But, suddenly, we came across this one house with the door open and a moving van in the front.

This is what I smelled and all the smells there was no happiness:

the things in the van (the sofa and beds with all their human stinks of food and lust and filth and, especially, the baby bed with its particular smell, the kitchen table—which still had traces of food stuck to the edges of it, some chairs where some dog had pissed on the leg—a female dog, and clothes, some smelling of toxic cleansers, others not); the moving men (three of them, one of them smelling of money problems and cheap cologne, one smelling like unwashed humans smell and one smelling more like cigarettes than anything else); the people moving in (three—mom on the rag and smelling of it and tears of anxiety, dad smelling of anger and his work in an office—quickly-pressed shirts, ironed over sweat-stains, and baby smelling like a baby: a little powder, a little ointment, a little shit and lots of piss); the people who had moved out (a couple, a wrecked couple, screams and anguish and rage sticking to the walls still—things gone terribly, terribly wrong; beyond the wrongness of a normal couple breaking up but brutal-wrong, blood-wrong).

And it all came into my nose and formed nutsy pictures in my head that made me a nervous wreck and I just wanted to get away away away and, thankfully, Skeeter saw this and didn't tardy and we walked on and soon I got a grip. When we got home I told him everything and he answered with, "There were stories about that couple" and left it at that.

But then he said he absolutely understood and told me why. "A few days after 9-11, I was still in a bad state. I had the TV on 24-7 and just absorbed it all. Read all the newspapers, watched all the specials, surfed the net for more and more information. I was reaching that point: a fritz..."

"Yes, yes," I said, "that's it. Good word."

"And then, the morning that the stock markets were going to open in New York, I sat in front of the TV. On the screen, at any given time, you had images of that day, you had a pictures of the president or someone, you had, in the background, talking heads or newscasters discussing the event. In the corner, larger than usual, was the stock ticker telling us how the market was responding—going up and down and up and down but mostly down because Wall Street types are monsters—and at the bottom of the screen you had the news crawl with more and more and more and more news." He sighed. "And I fritzed. I cried and went to bed and stayed there for two hours and when I came back I started all over again because that was all there was to do."

We were very quiet.

"Yes, yes. That's it," I muttered.

And we both thought of the same thing: TV and Twitter and Facebook and Google and newspapers and books and worlds and worlds of information coming at you all the time all the time all the time...

...and a couple across the street who had moved away if not apart.

April 4, 2010; Easter Schmeaster

"the look"...which apparently no longer works

'K, so it's Easter and as these two haven't gone to church since they were being diddled by the priests, not much of a religious nature is going on here. Oh! sure—lots of food and chocolate, but—of course!—not so much as a solitary fucking lollipop for yours truly, the twats. (In fact, when I tried "the look" when they were scarfing down steaks, Skeeter just told me to "knock it off; you know I don't fall for that anymore.")

But I did get a bath and, as you know, I so love all that warm water shooting up into my various orificii, and then there's the soaping and massaging and let's not forget the drying...

...unhhhhhh...

I even sort of like it when Skeeter talks dirty to me: "You're enjoying this, you little fucker, aren't you! Tell me how much you like it, you dirty little pig dog!" Except that this time he started getting a little verbose (and explicit) and I told him to knock it off.

Anyhoo!

It's nice to have the two boobs on an even keel, if only for a day, 'cause it's been like living with two time bombs. Skeeter is a biological bomb, threatening to explode in one great splat! of bacteria and infection all over the walls, the furniture and us. T'other is a psychological time bomb because it's term's end and his students are playing him like Ashley MacIsaac's fiddle (but without the water sports). When he's not moaning over his computer, he's staring out into grim space. If anyone should be on anti-depressants it's him. He's also on a very short fuse. Yesterday, while he was passing the vacuum cleaner, it was more like he was beating the walls and body-slamming the furniture.

With all the rage, thumping around and sheer risk of being here, I realize I'm living with the least sissyish queers in history; sorta like being in a homo version of "Hurt Locker" (though that was pretty homo sometimes—that fighting scene? puh-leeeeeeeze!).

Aside from all this, I am no getting e-mails from Mr. C, Cate's dog. The little queer is trying to cozy up to me, fully realizing, I think, that when I see him I'll kill him. You see? Dogs understand simply from the vibes of their mistresses and masters. Often you don't even have to say anything...

...like Happy Fucking Easter.

April 1, 2010; No April Fool I

Skeeter and I were watching—dull—TV and he asked me about my past. So I told him about the puppy mill and Frank and then about Frank's daughter and how I was abandoned in the middle of the city and found by the SPCA. He listened with rapt attention. Then there was a long silence. He finally said, "Don't you want to know about my past?" "Tell it to Mr. C." I said, still chafing at his disloyalty from last Sunday.

Meanwhile, it's April 1, it's spring and love is clearly in the air and I am trying not to be a fool about it. But my love life is something for the psych textbooks.

For instance, just when I started to ignore Ginger she started playing very close attention to me and, especially, to me and Cleo. She doesn't holler all over the neighbourhood anymore, about me doing the kitchy-koo with a cat, but she does whine and mumble obscenities when I pass by (that bitch has a mouth!). Cleo and I, meanwhile, have hardly seen each other the last little while. True, it has been rainy and cats are not known for their love of the wet stuff, so I guess she's been sitting inside, by the hearth (as I like to imagine her), her glistening coat catching the colour and light of the flames.

But the oddest part of my sordid little triangle (or quadrangle, I'd guess you'd call it now) revealed itself yesterday. I was walking with Skeeter who had just watched, the night before, another episode of the cocksucking Dog Whisperer and was in that zone—that strange Cesar place dog-owners get into when they've watched the guy and intend (at least for the next couple of days) to worship at his altar. It's when he's in the Cesar Zone that Skeeter treats me like a dog instead of someone who now converses with him and it pisses me off no end.

As we walked along this fucking German shepherd with a 'tude walked past and mockingly snerfed at me. No one could hear the snerf but me and I went ballistic. The Nazi dog walked on, giggling, and I strained at the leash to rip his throat out. This is when Skeeter, in complete Cesar Milan zombiehood, threw me on the ground and held me there so that I couldn't move. "Calm down!" he whispered angrily and I couldn't do much else except run in the air, my legs trying to get a grip of something so I could teach that fucking dog a lesson.

That's when I heard it, "LET GO OF MY BUDDY, YOU FUCKING MOOK!!!! NOBODY FUCKS WITH MY BUDDY!!!!" Skeeter and I looked over and there was Benjie, in full fighting mode. He was trying to come at Skeeter, but the little old lady who owns him misinterpreted it and thought he was coming for me. (She's a little lost, is the lady, as everyone in the neighbourhood knows that Benj and I are pals.) Benjie going batshit was surprising enough for Skeeter to loosen his grip on me and for me to get up and go over to Benj and say thanks and snerf a little conversation about what a tool Skeeter was and—Jesus! just how old is that lady anyway! He and the old biddy walked away and I came back to Skeet (by this time the fucking shepherd has turned the corner and there was nothing I could do about it).

"What the hell was that about?" Skeeter said.

"He was pissed at you and wanted you to let me go."

"Why didn't he just tell me."

"Oh, he will never speak human. Not while she's around. She already spends every waking hour dithering at him and it would be downright hell if she found out he understood her and could participate in the dither-fest."

Later, in front of the TV again, the two of us were mulling over the "news" that Ricky Martin and Sean Hayes were really gay. We both had a good laugh at that as everyone—straight, gay, animal, vegetable and mineral—had known about those two (and a good many others) for a long time. That's when Skeeter said, "So, what do you think of Benjie's crush?"

"Hunh?"

"Well, clearly he has a little thing for you. Look at him: he's the littlest, sissiest dog in the universe and he was ready to take me on 'cause I was messing with you."

"Hunh?"

"Think about it."

I did and it worried me. This had never happened to me before and I said so to Skeeter. "Don't worry about it," he said, "We queers are always falling for the straight ones. We get over it but it's still messy, messy stuff..."

That's when I said, "Okay, tell me about your past."