July 30, 2010; The battle begins...

We were watching the Prez on The View and though Skeeter wanted to hear the show, I spent a good time razzing him about how Obama was missing the Scout Jamboree and how, because he was honorary chief scout or some such fool thing, he was breaking all those kids' hearts by not being there. Basically I was towing the Fox News line and driving Skeeter up the wall (which is always fun).

Then, suddenly, during a commercial, he said, "I think it's time you started talking to Boo."

By this he meant Boo-Boo. The other human. His ersatz significant other. "No way, and it ends there," I said.

"What do you mean, 'It ends there!'" he said with a hint of rage. "When I open a subject to be discussed by you and me, that discussion does not end until I decide that it is ended."

"Big words from such a little man," I said and jumped off the La-Z-Boy.

"Get back here!" he hollered.

"No. I've made my decision and we're not discussing it."

"Well, I'll just tell him then," he said, following me into the kitchen. I sipped some water and ignored him. "What do you say to that?" I said nothing. I sat on my mat and did that thing with my eyes like I was going to snooze. "Come on, what would you do if I just told him!" he yelled. I curled up on the mat, and closed my eyes and sighed like I was soooooooo tired. "I'M TALKING HERE! WHAT...WOULD...YOU...DO...IF...I...JUST...TOLD...HIM!" I opened my eyes to look at him, gave him an expression that said: Oh! You're still here? Then I closed my eyes again. He lost it a little, picked me up angrily and trundled me back to the chair and said, "We need to talk about this." Again, silence. Then he took my face in his hands and looked at me and said, "I asked you a question." Or, rather, he hissed it. I looked at him stupidly and yawned.

It was a stand-off. Then he just roared: "SAY SOMETHING, FOR CHRIST'S SAKE!"

I yawned again and finally said, "You see. That's what would happen if you told him. Nothing. He would think you're just crazy. Or taking too much oxycodone."

I saw the veins first. The one pulsing in his temple and the one swelling in his neck. Then there was the red in his face. I did what any dog would do to avoid violence: I licked his nose.

He crumpled, pushed back on the chair until we were both on full tilt. I said, "Look. I've thought about this. It'll happen some time, I suspect. But not now. I have to gauge the dynamics. For instance: do you have any idea how I would fit in if all of us were talking?"

"I hadn't thought of that," he said.

"Well I have. I'd be asked to mediate arguments. I would be asked to take sides in discussions and debates and I don't mean debates on the big issues—wars and the environment—I mean little domestic debates like potatoes or rice for supper! And you'd start to try to play me off against the other—"

"—we're not 12!—"

"—no, you're worse; you're two queer guys playing house who badly need a kid!"

"Oh you are the little homophobe, aren't you?"

"Puh-leeeeeeeeze!" I howled. "Have you seen the hours you two can spend nattering about who should make the coffee and whether or not the drops of water on the bathroom floor were left there by you or by dripping plumbing! This place is hardly the Algonquin Round Table!"

"My God, you are a creep!" he almost squeaked.

"No. I'm just realistic. Look: it was a big move talking to you and even now every dog and cat in the neighbourhood has told me I was crazy to do it. But, I have to admit, it's worked out okay. I'm not so sure it would be okay if Boo was in the mix."

"But it's not fair. I feel like we're keeping something from him."

"I agree. It's not fair. And one day I will do something about it. But t will be me. Not you. Got it!" He mumbled something. He had lost this one and he knew it and he also knew that when he lost it was best to just shut up or I would have a giggle rubbing his nose in it. "I want to know more about him. So I want you to ask him questions—when I'm in the room—so I can get a good idea of who he is and how he would handle this talking business."

"How did you do that with me?"

"With you it was different," I said.

"How so."

"Well, with you I was bored and thought it would be less boring if we could chat from time to time. I was wrong but that's neither here nor there."

He pulled me into a hug but as he did so he put his hand around me neck and squeezed ever so slightly and whispered, "It would pop off like a cork."

I just snerfed.

July 27, 2010; Fiction and Reality

Now that he has his fucking iPad, Skeeter is using me for cards. Kill me now.

Living with these two it's never clear what's true and what's not true; what is defining the reality this week or even just today?

Let me explain.

Skeeter's an internet junkie and more specifically an internet news junkie so that meant that last week, for instance, his reality was being defined by the ups and downs of the Shirley Sherrod story. He was on it from the first. He was zipping about the net when he went "oh-oh." My ears perked up, I asked, "What?" and he said, "A black government official seems to have said some racist things." But, being the liberal wing-nut that he is, he was having trouble believing it and and then, of course, the whole thing fell to pieces and this guy Andrew Breitbart was revealed but not before all the liberal wing-nuts—from the NAACP right up to the sainted President—showed their true colours as reactionary lunatics who seem to pay too much attention to Fox News. (Hey! I love Fox News! Always a good time to be had over there.) So you see what I mean? From day to day Skeeter's reality shifted until, by the end of the week, he was just foaming at the mouth not knowing who to get mad at.

And movies...Jesus. Each one shifts the realities in this house in its own special way.

So we settle down to watch "District 9" which looks like a good old-fashioned sci-fi horror, monster movie. But then Skeeter keeps ruining it by pausing the film and explaning that is it, first, an allegory for the anti-immigrant violence in South Africa and, later, an allegory about street warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan. An hour in he had so ruined the movie with his political chatter that Boo-Boo fell asleep and I just stared at the walls waiting for supper and my walk.

Even worse was when we watched "A Single Man." Most of you will never see this movie as it's a queer film. It's about a queer guy whose boyfriend of 16 years dies. But because it takes place at the beginning of the 60s when no one talked about those things (ah! the good old days!), the queer guy has to suffer in silence. Speaking of silence, that's pretty much what reigned over the entire viewing of this film. Skeeter was not his typical chatty-Cathy self and Boo just watched. Even when it was done...silence.

Then, needless to say, Skeet asked, "What would you do if I died?" Boo murmured, "I don't know." Skeet, unusual for him who has a plan for everything, said, "I have no idea what I would do either."

Hey! HEY!!!!!!

I'M HERE! WHAT ABOUT ME! MAKE PLANS! THIS IS GOING TO HAPPEN!!! YOU WILL STILL HAVE ME TO WALK AND TO FEED AND TO AMUSE!!! I WILL NOT BE DEAD!!!

But maybe, hidden in all that sighing and pining and silence after the movie there was, actually, a plan. The plan was no plan. You know what I mean? So I have to plan. If one of them seems to be reaching the end, I clearly have to kill them both, pack my bags and get the fuck out of here.

July 24, 2010; The Haze of the Past

I had peed in the bed again and, on another hideously hot day, Skeeter had done the laundry and he was not pleased about it. Then, after Boo-Boo came home, the idiot left his earphones hanging to the floor from his laptop and they just smelled too delicious (it's an acquired taste...). Problem? Skeet caught me in full commission of the act and just came barreling at me and...well...I ran, didn't I? This just made him more pissed as it was still hot and when he caught me he went right for the scruff of my neck. Now I had had quite enough of this form of punishment so I did my new trick: curling up in a ball which effectively tightens my skin which means he has no scruff to grab. Well, that didn't stop him, did it? We did a battle royal for a few seconds and then I was flying through the air as, once again, he carried me to my little bed by the scruff of my neck (which, as you know, is not my preferred form of travel).

Boo wanted to go to me right away to see if I was a hurt (I can always count on him to be the softie) but Skeet roared at him to stop or the next time I peed in the bed, he would not do the washing and no matter how late Boo came home or how tired he was he would be stuck with housework and when was he going to grow some balls when it came to punishing me and why did he (Skeet) always get stuck playing the bad guy, and on...and on...and on. So the upshot was that I had retained domination in the household by setting my pawns against each other. Perfect.

Skeet stayed pissed at me for a day, then I approached him after the afternoon walk, asked if I could sit with him in the La-Z-Boy. He snorted a yes (I think) and I joined him. There was quiet that was boring me so I said, "Have you ever had a girlfriend." I thought it was an innocent question but with queers there are apparently no innocent questions. Open a door that looks like it has cookies behind it and you'll find the two-headed monster of gender and sexuality. Go to the bathroom to drink from the toilet and behind the shower curtain is a hideous being made up of identity, crushed dreams and feelings of persecution.

Skeeter bridled and said, "I've had quite a few girlfriends, if you must know!" And I think—yes—he puffed out his chest like one of those locker-room stallions who almost always has a tiny prick. I snerfed and said, "I mean sex-girlfriends."

He let a long silence pass by and said, "No," but when I snerfed again went on quickly, "because when I was a youngster kids didn't dive right into sex—"

"—excuse me, but we are talking about the 1970s and 80s, right? Not the 30s." That depuffed his chest, let me tell you. But I decided to cut him some slack and said, "Did you ever get serious with a girl?"

"Oh yes," he said wistfully. "I even had a love of my life."

"Really?"

"Yes. From the age of 13. My parents and her mother thought we were destined to marry and all wished it devoutly as did she. But when I left high school I decided not to hide from myself any longer—"

"—the fag thing—"

"—gay thing—"

"—whatever—"

"—yes. I still wasn't out but I knew I was not meant to marry either so our relationship cooled though it continued too, in a different rhythm. For nearly ten years she was my girl. I still keep in touch. Her life has gone crazy. Soon after high school she started to go blind. I mean fully blind. Guide-dog blind—"

"—oh yes! Her!—"

"Yes. And then she got married to a sighted man and they adopted a little boy who turned out to be very fucked up. And the marriage broke up. As the boy grew older he became a real delinquent and would bring his friends over to his mother's house and keep her busy while they robbed her—"

"—blind, so to speak—"

"Shut up. She became diabetic, which for a blind person is even more complicated. Then she found a new boyfriend, also sighted. But there were serious problems between her son and this new guy and that began to fall apart too but not before the guy took out his hostility on her by rearranging the furniture in the house."

"Oh my fucking God! That is pretty fucking hostile, all right!"

"Yeah. Murder novel hostile. She told me this over the phone, laughing. I didn't find it funny and told her to come here. That we would find her an apartment and then she could be away from her fucking asshole son and this psycho. But she refused. She always felt she had to solve the problem. And she did by kicking both son and boyfriend out. Pretty brave, don't you think?"

"Lordie," I whispered.

"Now she is in a relationship with a blind man and they are happy and he protects her and all appears to be well."

"Why did you tell me all this?" I said. "I only asked a silly question."

"Because we still talk and we still love each other very much and we both know if nature had not dealt us these funny little hands of cards...who knows?" He sighed and their was softness and loss in the sound and I snuggled up closer to him.

"And all I wanted to know is if you ever porked a chick..."

You see? Open the door—innocent fucking question—and out comes this vile creature that stinks of the past and regret.

July 21, 2010; Sigh...the visitor again

I awoke not because I needed a sip of water—despite the pulverizing heat—but because there was a familiar smell in the house. I got out of Boo-Boo's bed and went toward the kitchen and, sure enough, it was a cigarette. But this time it was something else too; something otherworldly and pleasant.

"Skippy!" he said when I came in. He had the same cigarette dangling out of the side of his mouth but there was something else about him...about that smell.

"Hello Cosmo," I said to the big, ghostly goof. "Are you high?"

"Opium. It's grrrrrrrrrrr-eat!"

"So now you're hooked on opium?"

"'Hooked' suggests there are negative consequences and it's not like I'm going to get fired from my job of dead thing." I snerfed a laugh and took a sip of water. "So how are things here, Skip? For instance, is Boo-Boo still eating with both hands?"

"Yes. Last night he was actually eating while he was feeding me. Never seen that before; holding the sandwich in his mouth while he stirred my food, then taking a bite, chewing, and holding it in his mouth."

"Yes, well, look out," Cosmo said. "He's got a cholesterol problem and the only reason he's not morbidly obese is he burns off all the grease in sheer worry. By the way—the peeing in the bed: nice touch. But you're going to have to understand the power structure here."

"How so?"

"Well, for one thing it's all in Skeeter's hands. Boo will never punish you harshly, even for peeing in the place where he sleeps. But you might end up sleeping in the kitchen by Skeet's orders—"

"—that's happened—"

"—permanently."

"Never!" I squeaked and then wondered why I became such a pussy when I was around the huge dalmatian—ghost form or not.

"Just don't push it."

"You never peed in the bed?" I asked, lying down because I was getting a bit of a contact buzz from the opium.

"Well, once. By accident. I was having a nice snooze when the doorbell rang and a computer repairman arrived. I don't know if it was the toolbox or the clanging about but it literally scared the piss out of me. Boo saw it start and began to chase me all over the house, including onto the sofa, and armchair, and into the bed. I was pissing like a fireman's hose the entire chase."

"Jesus! Skeeter must have punished you hard!"

"No, he was busy laughing his arse off." He snorted a drugged laugh and sighed, "Good times." There was a long, lazy silence and then he said, as if suddenly remembering, "I thought you were finished with the cat!"

"Cleo? I am."

"Yeah, well, what was that little game I saw you playing with her the other day during a walk with Skeeter—sort of like hide 'n' seek except you were clearly more interested in playing hide the salami."

"She was just teasing me and Skeeter encourages that kind of silliness. He says it amuses the neighbours and endears me to them as a precaution against the next time I bug out on one of their dogs."

"You see! Skeeter thinks of everything. Control. Power." Again there was a long silence and then, suddenly, he was snoring. I toddled back to the bed and cuddled up to Boo. Cosmo was right about the power in this place; somehow I would have to wrest it away.

Then, off in the night, far, far away, came a joyous—if drug-enduced—moon-howl. "Good night Skippyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!" I snuggled closer to Boo.

July 18, 2010; Everyone is Pissy

Another little incident a few days ago. I pissed in the bed and, for once, Boo-Boo didn't lose his mind (he was going to do a washing anyway). However, when we were alone (Boo was doing the wash), Skeeter picked me up and looked me in the eye and said, "Why?"

"Look, it's what I do."

"Excuse me?"

"Humans shit in the toilet. It's what they do. Dogs pee everywhere. It's what they do. You shit in a bag. It's what you do. I pee in the bed. It's what I do."

I could see the vein on the side of his head pulsing. Then he said, "I have half a mind to throw you against the wall." Then he put me down and walked away in a huff. I muttered, "Half a mind is a terrible thing to waste." He heard something, and whirled on me and said, rather dangerously, "What?" "Nothing, nothing, nothing," I sang and put a little distance between us by walking away too.

He's a bit of a stress case right now. He's trying to decide what he's going to do about the situation with the doctor. You'll remember he was referred to a plastic surgeon by his present doctor but then cancelled when he saw the surgeon couldn't manage his office. Now Skeeter's own doctor is pissed at him and his response is to write her an e-mail. He's pissed at her too (because he's 53 and who is she to be pissed at him yadda yadda yadda) but he's also a little in awe of her as, I understand, most of you dumb humans are of doctors. What's worse, she first treated him when she was a rising young star and he was a dying young patient so they have one of these sick and bizarre husband/wife, doctor/patient relationships.

So I'm staying out of the way. Or trying to.

Twiggy is still off on vacation somewhere and that's driving me crazy.

Meanwhile, I tried to play peace-maker between Benjie and Ginger. He came up to me and said, "She's mad at me and I have no idea why," and asked me to approach her about it. When I ran into Babs and Ginger I said, "Why are you pissed off at Benjie?"

She exploded, in her typically yappy way, shrieking, "He's queer, you're fucking a cat! What's not to be pissed about!" Babs, not knowing what the fuss was about chided, "Ginger!" and that's when the poor bitch snapped. "FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU ALL AND THE CAT CUNT BITCHES YOU RODE IN ON! FUCK YOU AND FUCK THIS LEGLESS WONDER HERE AND FUCK YOU ALL!!!"

"Will you relax, please," I said, even though Skeeter was trying to drag me away from a dog who had clearly gone mad. "The cat is gone. I'm your friend too. Simmer down!" But by now Ginger was just feeling so sorry for herself that she just whined and wailed as Babs carried her home.

Lordie, I'll never understand broads. Or queers. Or cats. Or dogs. Or any damn thing.

July 15, 2010; My Two Aunties

I hadn't seen Twiggy in days and, in the streets and alleys, Cleo and Slicer were walking about like the amorous pair they were and it was all driving me crazy. So, when I curled up with Skeeter for our afternoon laze I sighed deeply—without even realizing it—and mumbled, "Love is complicated."

"You said a mouthful, little man," he said.

Okay...

Now I didn't know if Skeeter was consciously opening a conversational door that he wanted me to walk through, nor did I know if I wanted to walk through such a door. Don't get me wrong! I've got nothing against queers and their complicated love lives. In fact, when it comes to queers, I'm a fairly sophisticated observer and, if you'll permit, commentator. For instance, I'm not the type of moron who will ask someone in a queer couple, "Who's the woman?" 'cause I know that is rather too tight a stereotype. However, I also realize that there are certain fairly narrow categories of queers—many of them—that straights are not even vaguely aware of.

Take my two homos.

It would be truly dumb to ask of them, "Who's the woman," because they both are. I'm not saying they're girlie, effeminate, dress-up queers. No. They are like lesbians, really, from the old days. Back then lesbians were called Old Maids or Maiden Aunts. They lived in apartments with a "friend from girlhood" or "a friend from college"—a friend who never moved away or got married and that was fine. It was fine because it meant no one else in the family had to worry about the Aunt who always had "her friend." No one ever imagined the two ladies having sex or, perhaps, no one wanted to imagine it. All that mattered is that they dressed well (always with a nice hat and gloves), gave generous gifts and once in a while would send you a postcard from the Greek Islands. They nattered together as they aged and then one of them just died and the other went into a nice nursing home (financed by the fortune the deceased had left as, apart from the trips to the Greek Islands, they never spent a dime from their well-paying jobs on frivolities).

For all intents and purposes, Skeeter and Boo-Boo are like your Maiden Aunts. Nattering away at each other, tending to each others little wounds (real and imagined) and getting by with the occasional trip abroad. So did I really want to know about the Maiden Aunts' passions?

What the hell...

"You can't say you have a complicated love life," I challenged.

"No. Not now. But at the beginning it was awful."

"Really? Why?" My curiosity was seriously piqued.

"Fighting all the time. We moved in together after just a month and I had the two dogs and he was set in his ways. But then all that just went away. And Cosmo was the reason. We both loved that dog."

"Baby substitute?" I mocked.

"Maybe," he said quietly. Hm.

"Did you ever have a really bad fight?"

"Once," he said. "It was bad and it was dumb. He had been at my throat for weeks. Just nattering and nagging and bitching and his job was going badly and he was using me as a whipping boy. One night I'd had enough and I walked out. I put up in a hotel. He went mental. When I came back the next day—because he begged me to—he told me that he was sick. That he had kidney stones, he thought (because he'd had them before), and that he had been in agony. He hadn't told me because he knew that I would force him to go to the hospital. I did and when he got to the emergency room, that very day, he passed out on the floor. They rushed him in. When he woke up, it was done. The stones had passed and he came home. You see? Dumb. But it nearly ruined our life together. We laughed about it. Still do. But it was bad."

I nodded but was really thinking, "What a pair of 'tards!" and that we were hardly talking about Cathy and Heathcliff here...more like Gertrude and Heathcliff (Google it, punks).

But you see, here's the thing: living with two Aunties is comforting. It's easy. There's no Sturm und Drang like I see in other couples—gay or straight. You know the food will be there at the right time, that the walks will happen and that when you pee in the bed, they will adapt. And that, my friends, is love.

Uncomplicated.

July 12, 2010; The New 'Hood

I can at last write a little. After the five day heat wave we had a storm that brought down trees and cut power lines (with the attending flash of sparks), and then the temperature plunged to 84 fahrenheit (only faggots and communists use the other scale but for you I think that's, like, /9%&2 degrees—still very, very hot, either way). I have to hurry and write, though, because the temperature is creeping up again and they're talking hell for the next five days.

Anyhoo...

July 1st, up here, is not only the national holiday (celebrating what?, I don't really remember or care), but it is also moving day. Thousands of people move from places they thought they didn't like to places they think they'll like ('til next year's moving day). Then there are thousands more who move because they no longer can afford the rent 'cause he lost his job or she forgot something and got knocked up. But on June 30th and July 1st, virtually every street in the city is impassible because of moving trucks (real and rented) and people hauling fridges and couches up stairs and through windows. Everything in a neighbourhood changes. Sure there are the diehards who will never move (like Skeeter and Boo-Boo, Babs and the other regular characters on our street), but then there are the dozens of apartments that get filled up with new people and their pets.

In the block across the alley from our back balcony there is a lot of change. New is the fat guy who apparently stinks so bad, he has to air his clothes and shoes on his own balcony—the stink of dirt, sweat and strange but unpleasant spices comes all the way over to my little, but sensitive, nose.

Up from him there is a new gay couple and Skeeter is particularly happy about them, especially with the heat wave we've been having. They do everything in their skivvies...tight, white, skivvies. And they're amorous. Because of the heat their windows and door are always open and almost directly across from us. I was lying next to Skeet one morning when he woke up and said, "Am I in heaven?" He was staring out the window of his bedroom at one of the tall young men who was standing on a chair, hanging something over his door, underwear glued to his body (ie: parts) from the heat. (The followup to all this is that the young couple couldn't take the heat either and, like us, finally installed an a.c. and now have their doors and curtains closed at all times, much to Skeet's chagrin.)

Things are different at street level too and I knew this because suddenly their are fewer birds singing and far fewer squirrels in our backyard. Cats have been turned out all over the place—because of moving day—and they're eating all that wild life to stay alive. One of those cats, though, is not Cordelia.

I ran into Cleo, after moving day, and we got to chatting and she mentioned that Cordelia had simply disappeared. She might have been adopted, we speculated, but didn't speak the probable truth out loud and that was that Cordelia had probably been hit by a car and gone into some quiet corner to die; adoption, we both knew, was highly unlikely as she was quite, quite mad now.

Then Cleo said something utterly goofy: "I want you to be friends with Slicer." I snerfed a laugh but she said, "I'm serious. I want my friends to be friends."

"Come on, Cleo!" I said, "Everyone from the birds and squirrels up to these monkeys in pants and cats and dogs knows Slicer is a head case!"

That's when Slicer came out of a bush where he was hiding. Oopsie.

"Head case," he said. Then he let out a wailing, howling screech that wasn't cat, or human or any animal I know and that made Skeeter, standing off to the side gasp, "Oh my God!"

"It's not funny, Slicer!" Cleo said. Oh kee-rist! That was laughter? I shivered a little imagining what noise he made when he was mad. There was a little silence after Slicer stopped "laughing" and without shaking hands or hugging he and I accepted we had entered into a peace accord, if only for Cleo's sake.

"Who's he," Slicer growled, turning his eyes to Skeeter.

"My owner," I said.

"He's creepy," said Slicer.

"I think he's a nice man," said Cleo.

"He's gay," I said, à propos of absolutely nothing but because Slicer's silences made me feel more nervous than the sound he made when he talked (or, God help us!, laughed).

"Oh," Slicer said like Skeeter's creepiness had now been explained. Skeeter, a little off, holding my leash, smiled weirdly at us all and I had to admit he did look a little creepy...and gay.

"Well, we have to go!" I said, though we didn't, but I wanted to. Cleo gave me a little peck and Slicer, unable to stop himself, gurgled in disapproval.

When we were back in the apartment, well out of earshot, Skeet said, "That is the scariest animal I've ever seen. Do you understand me? He's not just scary as a cat...he's scary, period."

I snerfed in false-mockery; I was only trying to cover up the fact that Slicer's laugh was still running up and down my spine.

July 9, 2010; Sweat

Fifth day of the heat wave.

Skeeter and I were out for our afternoon walk when he said, "Jesus, Little Dude, where do you get the energy to dance?"

"I'M NOT DANCING, BIG FAT DUDE! THE GODDAM SIDEWALK IS TOO FUCKING HOT FOR MY FEET!!!!!"

"Oh," he murmured, "sorry."

That's the reality of this shit weather.

As we went back home, we ran across the white lab mix from up the block, Shutup (yes, that's his name) and his owner. Shutup is famous in the neighbourhood because he's a huge dog but is terrified of stairs. So terrified, in fact, that his two owners (including a rather lovely though small young woman and—Skeeter would insist I add—a very hunky blond guy) have to carry him up and down the long flight of exterior stairs to their apartment. I noticed that Shutup was still wet from what must have been a very soothing swim in the lake in the park. This rankled.

I snerfed, "You can swim, but you can't walk up the stairs...what a 'tard."

Shutup whimpered like a fucking puppy and then, step by terrified, shaking, weeping step, he walked up the stairs to his door. His owner went nuts about it and showered him with love and praise.

"FUCK YOU, LEO!!!!! FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK YOU!!!" the idiot dog barked at me.

The owner looked down at me and Skeeter and said, "I don't know what your dog did or said, but thank you for curing my little pussy here."

"AND FUCK YOU TOO, YOU BIG BLOND TWAT!" Shutup roared in Dog Speak.

"SHUT UP!" the owner bellowed.

As we walked off Skeeter muttered to me, "You said something cruel to that poor dog, didn't you?"

"Fuck you, it's hot!"

Skeeter sighed. We went in and I slept, splayed out on the kitchen floor, trying to gather its coolness and wishing I was dead...or in that goddam lake in the park.

And that's it for now as my pant-drool is falling on the keyboard.

July 6, 2010; Too Hot!

It was the kind of heat where people, quite suddenly and without the least warning, drop dead in front of you on the sidewalk. It was the kind of heat where cats' mating rituals become more ferocious and their shrieks sound human—desperate and final. It was the kind of heat where a dog looks at his owner's throat and imagines how much cooler than the heavy night the gushing blood would be upon his face...

Oh fuck! Forget the homage to Raymond Chandler! I can't do this!

Too hot! Too fucking hot!

Skeeter is doing his impression of a lawn sprinkler—schvitzing all over everyone! Boo-Boo is panting and puffing and coughing from the smog!

They say three more days of this! Kill me! Kill me now!

July 3, 2010; Hellzapoppin'

I was shrieking like a battered child all the way home, making sure that all the neighbours were watching and that even people in cars were stopping wondering what Skeeter had done to me! I wanted him to shrivel from shame but my shrieking had no apparent effect on him.

When we got into the apartment I was glad that Boo-Boo was out 'cause I lit into him. "I am going to rip your balls off when you sleep, you motherfucking snot-bag!"

"How many death threats have I gotten from you?" he said calmly as he wiped my paws, "And why do you think I sleep with my door shut."

"WHY! WHY WHY WHY! DID YOU DO THAT!"

"Because you had it coming, you little shit!"

Okay...flashback a little.

I'm in love. Simple. Head-over-heels. The whippet. Every time she's out on her balcony, she squeezes her gorgeous pointy nose under the railings and I jump up, grab the edge of the balcony with my claws and it's French-kiss heaven. Everyone in the neighbourhood knows and besides Ginger (who thinks my doll is a whore) everyone loves the sight of me and my lady making out.

Her name is Twiggy and that's what she looks like.

(Skeeter, who is a real bore about such things, explained there was a human Twiggy who was real big way back in the 60s. The human Twiggy was a model who became famous for what was then called the "waif" look but which is now called—by feminoids only, I'm sure—the "anorexia" look. Skeeter explained this all to me and I tried to stay awake and then he concluded that the dog must have been bought from an older breeder 'cause the young couplewho owned her weren't even born when Twiggy was hige. Anyhoo...)

So Twiggy and I are in love.

And, as a result, I am particularly territorial. I don't like dogs I don't know on my street to begin with and I especially don't like male dogs anywhere near where my Babe lives...sniffing around her balcony like it was her open twat. So here we were, walking along, coming home, when this big German Shepherd mix started snorting about. He was a friendly enough lummox, came over to me to say hello. But he was near Twig's balcony. So I snarled and bit his nose.

That's when it began.

Skeeter not only picked me up by the scruff of the neck (not my preferred mode of travel) but said to the Nazi-dog's owner, "Can you help me out here, I need to get rid of this behaviour." The owner, a lady who looked nice 'til she did what she did which made her a cunt, in my book, nodded.

Holding me firmly by the scruff, Skeeter then presented my open crotch to the Shepherd for him to sniff and lick! CAN YOU IMAGINE THE FUCKING HUMILIATION AND I COULD NOT DO A FUCKING THING ABOUT IT! The Shepherd, clearly queer as a sunflower in the Arctic, went to town and licked and snorted and burrowed up my arsehole like I was a Thanksgiving turkey!

That's when I started shrieking. That's when Skeet said "Thank you" to the lady and she went on her way agreeing, "That was a good thing to do"—the bitch!

Back in the house...

"I will never forgive you for what you did! Do you have any idea how upsetting that was!" I was almost in tears.

"Cesar Milan showed me that trick—"

"—well you and Cesar Milan can rot in hell—"

"—DID YOU LEARN ANYTHING?" he finally roared.

"I learned that I want you to die in a thousand hideous ways. I hope your intestines come shooting out of you so that I can gnaw on them like sausages, you fucker!"

"Niiiiiice," he said bitterly. There was a little silence as I huffed and puffed as he completed my paws. "I know you love Twiggy," he said, "but you cannot attack other dogs. Period. And big dogs...well, that's just dumb."

"You queers really don't understand, do you," I said. I was on a nasty roll and I didn't much care what I said to him. "In our world—the dog world...the straight dog world—we protect our women."

"Well, guess what, little pecker!" he said in a hiss that shrank my dick a little, "You are in my fucking world and like it or not you are going to follow the rules because you're little so I can pick you up and any time I want I can rip your fucking teeny-tiny head right off and eat it like an apple."

There was dead silence. We stared at each other.

Finally I said, "Good one."

"I thought you'd like that."

"But never again, with the dick exposed to another dog, okay?"

"Not if you don't deserve it."

"I know you like spreading your legs for strangers—"

"—shaddup."

When Boo came home from work there was a birthday feast for him. I stared up at Boo for a bit of it, but he was too busy gorging himself. Skeeter cut a piece of delicious French baguette and handed it to me under the table.

His balls are safe.

For now.