February 24, 2010; The Therapist

It was not snowing outside today. It was not raining. It was slushing. Great gobs of soggy snow were falling from the sky and clinging to fur, skin, clothing, and getting into Skeeter's glasses as he walked me this morning. By the end of the walk we were both thoroughly sodden but he had to go back out into it for his nurse's appointment at the clinic.

I knew things were not good. He had been sighing deeply every time he had to shake a clump of snow off his glasses and as we walked he wasn't talking at all when he usually has one or two things to say to me—if only in the disciplinary sense. But I must say that I was behaving because I felt I had to. You simply do not kick a man when he's down. Or even a Mook.

When he got back from his nursing appointment he was even wetter and he made himself a sandwich and sat in front of the TV, ostensibly to watch the Olympics, but was clearly not watching anything at all. Then it was time for our afternoon walk and he just looked miserable. Like a wet dog without the ha-ha.

Finally he took his pain-killer, made himself a coffee, changed into dry clothes and we sat down for our cuddle and antiques shows. But he wasn't watching them either.

Soon I could stand it no longer, not so much because he seemed to be suffering but because he was getting on my nerves. (It's hard to sleep when you have some big goomer sighing like a melodrama diva beside you.) I knew I might regret it, but I said it anyway: "You want to talk."

"No."

"Sure?"

"There's nothing you can do and talking about it doesn't help much."

"Is it the weather?"

"Well, that doesn't help."

"What is it? Come on! I'm listening."

There was a long, long silence and then he said, "Do you ever get the feeling you're in a really deep hole and as you start to dig yourself out, the walls of the hole suddenly give and you find that it actually seems to have become deeper—"

"—well, isn't that physically impossible; if the sides come down, then the hole should actually be more shallow...wider, but more shallow—"

"—be that as it may!" he said and went on, "That's how I feel. Rudderless—"

"—rudderless and in a hole—"

"—whatever—"

"—well, you're mixing analogies. If you're on a boat you're not in a hole—"

"JESUS!"

"Just saying," I said. "I mean, right off it's clear that your writing career, such as it was, is going to stay stagnant if you write like you talk."

"Well, you're being a big help!" he bellowed.

"Well, maybe if your thoughts were less scattered...if you tried to form one clear thought everything would start to make sense. It seems to me that for someone who thinks he is smart that being in a hole that is actually getting more shallow and despairing about it but then trying to get out of that hole with a boat is just the be-all and the end-all of messy thinking."

"Hm..."

And there was a long silence. He said Hm a few more times and finally said, "Yes. Messy thinking—"

"—and lack of action—"

"—what?"

"Well," I went on, "you keep talking about what you're going to do and that's it: talking."

"But—"

"—yeah, yeah, yeah, big hole, no rudder. I get it. But to be perfectly brutal: how about doing something."

"Hm."

"Now shut up," I said, "they're evaluating Clarice Cliff. You like your Clarice Cliff, don't you?"

He laughed and gave me a peck on the nose. Riding a wave of kindness, I let him.