...I wonder what's out there...
As I approach the end of my first year with the Mooks, I realize that my decision on whether or not to stick this one out is not only based on the people I live with, but also on where I live.
The Mooks, right off the top, are not rich. Now this does not bother most dogs; in fact, dogs tend to favour poorer people. Poor people can't afford housekeepers which means that things lie about for a bit longer (papers, pillows, trash) and are, therefore, available as playthings and edibles. When you have a housekeeper constantly picking up and tidying and dusting and polishing, it serves three negative purposes: it removes the entertainment; it fills the house with chemical smells no dog enjoys (remember our keen senses of smell and what has a "clean" odour for you smells toxic to us); and if we decide to be dogs, it cannot be hidden. For instance if I rough up the edges of a doily or relieve myself in a corner it won't be long before some housekeeper or tight-assed housewife is having a shit-fit. Dogs in houses with housekeepers and/or tight-assed housewives tend to live outside, in crates inside or in dank little basement rooms.
Single men (like my pal Frank) or, in my recent experience, queers, tend to be slobs. They get around to cleaning the house only if someone is coming over and even then (the Mooks don't get dishpan hands before a visit from Cate, that's for sure). If no one is coming over, the Mooks let the house fill up with litter, nice smells (cigarettes, steak grease and garbage) and all of these contribute to a dog's sense of well-being...his sense of home if you will. Sure, on the odd garbage day the Mooks will race around the apartment emptying litter-bins and garbage-cans, gathering up the recycling boxes and filling them with the paper scattered about the floor. But they will miss one out of two garbage days so things have a nice feel here, and a nice doggy smell.
There is also the aspect of access to beds and/or couches. In a "tidy" home this is taboo. But in this apartment, where they sleep I, too, can sleep. This means that everything is coated with a nice layer of my hair and my smell which makes each sleeping surface my sleeping surface more than the Mook's. The other nice thing is that, being men, they do washings only when it is absolutely necessary so what they wear, also, has me all over it.
If there's a drawback in this apartment is that there are three phones and four TVs (not counting the two computer monitors) and something is always on. (They even have a special battery-operated TV in case the electricity goes out.) You think I exaggerate? Mook B (and I) go to bed well before Mook A who watches TV 'til he drifts off. Soon after Mook A retires, Mook B is up and if he's not watching TV he's bellowing on the phone (indeed, the only way he seems to communicate on the phone is through bellowing). So there is steady noise here and how, oh! how, is a healthy dog supposed to get his 180 winks? Everyone, including Cate, wonders how I—a Jack Russell—can sleep so much. That's why. If I don't sleep when I can I'll turn into one of those hysterical little dogs who yaps, yaps, yaps, jumps in terror when he himself farts and chases after shadows, banging into walls until unconsciousness results.
Sure! the Mooks read and a lot: books, newspapers, manuals, porn—but they do it while watching TV or listening to music or eating or talking on the phone. For two guys who are barely employed they sure do keep themselves looking busy. I suspect it's one way for them to keep from looking into the fathomless abyss that is a dreary life leading unto death.
Finally, the worst drawback to living with them is them and, frankly, I could do far worse.
Like the chihuahuas up the street. There are two of them and they live with a young couple. They hardly ever go out because, let's face it, chihuahuas would die in this cold, so you hear them yapping like...like...well, like chihuahuas everytime someone passes in front of their apartment's window. Both of the people in the couple work which means the dogs have a lot of time at that window and that is a fuckload of yapping. When they do actually go out—in summer, early fall or late spring—it is never without an ensemble: little berets and booties and fur collars. Everyone—human and canine (and even a few cats)—laughs their beezers off when they see them and the poor dogs know no one is laughing with them but rather at them.
In another time and another place, I could be those dogs. I am not. So I count the few blessings I have.
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