February 15, 2010; The Nose

Happy Saint fucking Valentine's Day. The Mooks gave each other chocolate and I got to watch them eat it.

Mook A continues to yadda yadda but he has become more discrete. The effect this has, though, is that we look and sound like a couple of radicals getting ready to blow up a landmark. However, if anyone was listening—with a device, say—they would hear one of our mind-numbing conversations about things no one but the two of us understand.

There was one that started off with a casual remark. Mine. I was curled up with A and we were watching Antiques Roadshow. He had just come back from his nursing appointment and I said, "You smell medical." He then set about explaining to me what the nurses at the clinic do to him three times a week. "Hey sport!" I said "Too much information."

I thought he would clam up especially since the experts on the show were looking at a set of Clarice Cliff plates. Mook A is a fool for those sissy, over-painted, pseudo-Nouveau gew-gaws. But his heart wasn't in the show (in fact, since I started talking to him his heart isn't into any show or book or anything). "Can we talk for a little?" he asked. I sighed deeply because I saw I didn't have much of a choice especially if I wanted to stay curled up, toasty and warm, in my favourite chair. I said nothing so he went on: "About smells. What else do you smell on me?"

"Desperation," I said.

"Now come on," he said, not falling for it. "Really, what do you smell and how does it make you feel?"

"I told you if we started talking about feelings I'd clam up forever."

"No, I just want to know if smells—mine and the environment and your own, even, make you react or feel differently about a situation."

Now as conversations go, it wasn't the dullest one I have ever had; that would be the one where I met Benjie on the street and he was actually bragging about the handmade coat he was wearing and wanted to go on and on about where the yarn came from and what all the pictures on the coat meant.

So to shut up A, I bit. "Well, I do smell the medical stuff on you and that makes me a little nauseous 'cause it reminds me of that day..." He knew what I meant; the day I had been fixed as they oh!-so-euphemistically call it. I went on, "But the thing that tells me the most about a person is the smell of their sweat. I mean, it always tells me what they've eaten (like Straight Guy is a vegetarian and I can smell that in his sweat) but it also tells me about their state of mind."

"Really?"

"Sweat is almost always about anxiety. It's only exercise sweat that is clean and sweet and smells it. But even with exercise sweat you can sense the insecurity of certain people if they are running, say, because they think they are fat or if, as they're running, they feel stupid in the jogging outfit they chose or think that it's too tight."

"You get all that from a whiff of sweat," he said and I nodded. "But you say sweat is always about anxiety. What about sex sweat?"

"That's the worst. You have never smelled such high anxiety in your life, my friend. That's why dogs might stay to watch the beginning of a fucking but will leave pretty soon after it starts; the smell just gets too intense and unpleasant."

"But what about people who just fuck and enjoy it and have fun!"

"Well, there are people like that but that doesn't mean that the person they're fucking is enjoying it and having as much fun. Sometimes the other person is just pretending. I think you call it 'faking'."

"But how do you know so much about sex if you've only been exposed to one or two households?"

"Oh fuck," I sighed, "a dog can smell fuck-sweat when he's walking on the street. It comes from every window of every house and apartment whether it's opened or closed. The smell is just that strong!"

"Hm."

"And it's all about sweat. Even when people think they're dry, they're not. Their balls and cooters are sweating up a storm. Everything I need to know in the here and now of a person is right there in the sweat. If I know them a bit longer, I can peel their psyche like a grape at a Roman orgy!"

"So we have no secrets," he said, perturbed.

"None. I know everything there is to know about you, the other one, your relationship, the people you have the hots for; and, in passing, you really should try to control your obsession for—"

"—okay, that's enough!—"

"—and I have to ask you, what the hell is going on between you and that tall guy down the street; that flirty-flirty, blushing thing you do—"

"—THAT'S ENOUGH!"

I was having fun now and I snerfed a little laugh. He, however, was not amusing himself which, of course, amused me even more. "I can also tell, every every every time, when you have a boner!"

"SHUT UP!"

I giggled my fucking ass off and he, of course, shut up at last just in time for an appraisal, on the show, of some Spode. Mook A has a pile of Spode which I hope to inherit after he dies...or after I kill him.

February 12, 2010; A New Year

And so a new year with the Mooks begins and in the last days, since I first talked to Mook A, it has been talktalktalktalktalktalktalktalk.

Not from me...from him. Yes, I had to shut him up a couple of times because he was in danger of exposing our secret. He'd try to get me to say something while Mook A was just in the next room or in the can and we all know that the walls in this fucking dump are paper thin and that you can't fart or lick yourself without the sound echoing through the whole place. A also tried to chat when were out on our walks. What happened, instead, was that he would talk to himself and began to look like the village lunatic, with people veering away onto the other sidewalk to avoid walking near us. It is normal to see people talking to their dogs and A did do that before—"Stop yanking or I'll rip your fucking head off!"—but that was normal (if a little sadistic). It's not normal to be walking with your dog and saying, "What do things look like in your world, or do you live in a world that is made up entirely—and perceived as—smells?" I would sometimes just snarl back, "Will you shut your fucking cake hole before we get caught," but stopped doing that too because it was just too dangerous. People—

except those in the know (and there are precious few of those)—cannot handle the truth; dogs, quite simply (in their little universes), do not talk.

We did run into Ginger and her one-legged mistress and I told Ginger that I was talking to the Mook now. She was very surprised and said, "I would never do it because if you don't communicate they treat you like a baby—with love and treats; the minute they think you're not their baby, they shit all over you." I'd heard that and wondered if I had made a mistake coming out to the Mook.

On that subject, I did get him to shut up—and quite easily—one night when he asked me if I hated him for having me castrated. "Let me answer your question with a question," I said: "do you hate the fact that you are still as horny as ever but that now you're just an old queer and damaged goods into the bargain?" I know...it was particularly cruel but it served. He muttered a very weak, "How would you like me to cage you, little fucking cretin," and then he shut up and let me finish watching Bargain Hunt.

We did have one good talk and it was about food—an obsession we both share—and on how best eat to a cracker; he gobbles his down and I like to lick the salt off first. I know it isn't exactly the Algonquin Round Table but it was interesting that there was something we could discuss.

Meanwhile, in the rest of the world, I really fucked up with Cleo, the cat down the street with whom I had done a nose-to-nose. I started to have sweaty fever-dreams about her after that encounter and could not wait to see her again. Then, yesterday, there she was bigger than life and twice as sexy, sitting between two parked cars, staring at the traffic. I saw her before I scented her—and she smelled divine (fish with an ever-so-subtle top note of used diapers)— and I went ballistic. I was pulling toward her, dancing on my hind legs, whimpering and trilling with joy. I think I was a bit OTT because she just looked at me with utter disdain, hissed and whacked me in the nose before toddling off to the other side of the street, her tail in the air, her little arsehole torturing me.

"You see," said the fuckwad, A, "you scared her off."

I permitted myself to say, "What the fuck would you know about pussy. For that matter what the fuck would you know about dick—"

That set him off, and he began blabbing on and on about what he did know about dick. It was considerably more then I wanted to hear and, for that matter, considerably more than the lady who was walking her infant in a carriage wanted to hear as well.

It shouldn't be long before the idiot ends up in a cage himself.

January 31, 2010; Our House

...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.

January 22, 2010; My Options

Something has happened.

Last night the doorbell rang. I was told to stay upstairs (an order I generally disregard) and Mook A went down to answer. It was One-Legged Gingerlady with Ginger, my beloved. A and Gingerlady were transacting some kind of trade and I was sitting on the steps right behind him staring at my sweet little femme fatale.

But here's the thing: the door was wide open, none of the humans noticed I was there and I did not bolt out to the street to freedom. When A noticed me he was mind-boggled and when Gingerlady and Ginger left there was much celebration in the apartment that I had somehow not bothered or wanted to flee (though they also mentioned the fact that maybe I was too stupid to figure out that I could have fled and/or I was too stunned to flee because here was the bitch of my dreams right there at my door!).

The fact remains is that I didn't run. I don't know why. I felt the warmth of the apartment behind me and the cold of the great outdoors in front of me and the thought did not cross my mind until the fact I did not run was being huzzahed by one and all. Since this incident I had been looking at things; examining my options, if you will. I think one thing has crossed my mind—a reality—about freeing myself from the slavery here: Baby, it's fucking cold outside. But beyond that there are also all the other things: if I fled, I might get hit by a car; I might get "saved" by someone really awful; I might get picked up by the pound and done away with (even with the ID chip in my head—who knows? the Mooks might just decide I was too much trouble); I might not get caught and become one of those pathetic alley dogs who sleeps in garbage, becomes flea-ridden and...

But that's not the point!

The point is that, now, here, after nearly a year, it is time to look at my options balanced against the realities.

One negative reality is that Mook A, at least, is taking my re-training rather seriously. He's been worshipping at the altar of the Dog Whisperer and I am suffering for it. For instance, last night, when we went out, there was a cat across the street and I scrambled for it. A yanked me back, forced me to lie on my side in the snow, held me down and didn't let me move until I had calmed down (or at least was doing a good job of pretending to calm down). The cat was long gone, so I was actually calm. But he held me down long enough for Gingerlady, who was down the street, to call out, "Hey! Hey! Are you all right!!!" (It did look like A was keeling over—an occurrence the entire neighbourhood, well informed by gossip of his various conditions, is anticipating.) After A reassured Gingerlady he was not dying (she did not seem too concerned whether I was or not) he continued to hold me down for a bit, then brushed me off and off we went to continue the walk. However, I saw a dog at the other side of the street and scrambled for it and—wouldn't you fucking know it!—found myself held down in the snow yet again.

Now let me be clear: nothing was injured besides my vanity. However, I have to decide if I am going to bend to their will...a little...to have some peace, a couple of squares a day and a warm place to sleep, play and cuddle.

I will never be able to entirely check my need to run. That will always be there. But, like happened last night, it is not a pounding need anymore and I can, if I wish, push it to one side for a little. You may not think this sounds important but it is the difference between bolting automatically when the door is open and thinking about it for a bit; in the time it takes to think, Mooks wake up, doors get closed, life goes on.

There is another thing, and I will not get into this right now, but it is fairly important and if I decide to go ahead with it, there is no going back. That option has always been there and it has always been a matter of whether I will exercise it or not. More on that later...or not at all. I'll see.

In the meantime, for some odd reason, I have developed an aversion to certain kinds of elderly men. Gentlemen, to be precise. I've run into two of them at the convenience store at the corner (where the Mooks go to load up on fattening foods—a staple of their diets). On both occasions, the elderly men—both spiffily dressed and smelling of cologne—leaned over to play with me and I did play for a bit. But then something snapped—the smell of their cologne, the vague stink of death, the smell of mothballs on their suits—and I just needed to attack. In both cases I got a clop in the head (which The Dog Whisperer certainly doesn't endorse) and the Little Old Chinese Lady who owns the place and who normally adores me went ballistic. "SEE!" she shrieked. "SEE!!!" she screamed again. Then Mook A did something for which I will never forgive him: he made her one of my bosses. "The word is 'sit'," he explained to her, "and you have to hit the 't' really hard for him to get it." So now it's, "SEEEEEEEEE-TAH!" from the Chinawoman which, with her terrifying Asian trill makes my non-existent balls roll back into my body and my dick shorten by an inch.

And I do.

I seeeeeee-tah.

Fuck 'em all.

January 19, 2010; Adoption

Back in the day

Cate is going through the adoption process. The problem is that she has moved into a spiffy (and verrrrry expensive new apartment) and that she has an elderly mother with whom she lives and so not just any old dog will do. She has been scanning the internet and has seen a bunch of dogs she likes but every time she gets to the place, they've gone to another home. She's even done volunteer work with a lady who rescues animals but it seems she is so persnickety about who gets to adopt them that she has become one of those nutjobs who will one day die and be remembered because she had her face eaten off by all her "saved" dogs.

Cate needs something about my size but younger and a little less "energetic" and "tempermental"...so, in effect, she is looking for a stuffed animal. Okay, I'm being mean. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt because she is one of the rare decent people who doesn 't get all like that when you try to hump her but in my experience adopting a dog is a shoot in the dark kind of business and it usually boils down to taking something that you like and then either human or dog giving up their souls in a series of compromises which usually end in death.

The most tiresome thing about Cate's search process is that I am treated to stories of all the other dogs in Cate's and The Mooks' past; especially where they came from. Cate's last and very beloved Chablis was a pound dog who was completely trained and behaved like a prince from the start (though judging from the name and behaviour I would say "princess" was more to the point 'cause any male who acts like he did is obviously a queer).

Before me, here, there was of course the sainted Cosmo. It seems that Mook A, grieving over the dog before, was ordered by Mook B to go to the SPCA and adopt something. Once there, A saw only dalmatians (it was the year Disney's infamous live-action film came out). The idea of owning a dalmatian struck A's fancy. One, however, shrieked like a hyena from the moment A walked into the pound. Another was curled up in a corner shivering neurotically. The third, standing in all his regal beauty, stared disdainfully at A and that, of course, was Cosmo (né Sam) who became the be-all and end-all for the Mooks (especially B who cried this Christmas because it was his first one without Cosmo).

Before Cosmo there had been a pair of small dogs (one I can still smell in this apartment): Buddy and Kitoune. (Chablis? Kitoune? What is wrong with these people!) Buddy was an adult pet-shop dog—a blond pomeranian/collie mix which had been given up by his owners in the suburbs as they were moving. He was an angel from the first, sleeping under A's seat in the theatre as he rehearsed a play which he had written. (A used to be a writer, don't you know...but then who hasn't been?)

But Buddy looked lonely so A and his then-roommate decided to adopt a second dog and went to the pound. It was Saturday night and the pound was closing and the lady there told A and his roommate that any dogs who were left at closing would be euthanized. Well, it was going to be an easy job for the death-bringers because there was only one dog: she was a small, unspayed, ratting terrier who had been found in an alley and was still covered with filth. Her teeth were all crooked and though she was supposedly six months old she looked about 80 years. When A and the roommate took her home (how could they leave the creature to her doom) they immediately dumped her stinking body into a bath. The water turned black. They emptied the water and did it again. Black again. After filling and emptying the tub three times they could finally see her skin was a normal shade and that her fur was black and not greasy brown.

Kitoune and Buddy were a love-at-first-sight story (especially since Kitoune, unspayed, was heading towards her first heat). They would play relentlessly and fight like puppies do and Kitoune would always win because she had a ratting terrier talent: she would stick her nose in Buddy's mouth and bite down on his cheek. He'd shriek, they'd stop play-fighting and they would drop, exhausted, to sleep—curled around each other. Buddy died ten years later at thirteen or so. Kitoune, an old soul, started to develop the body to match losing all her teeth, then her sight and finally her hearing before she had to be put down at 18.

Beautiful stories, aren't they?

How the fuck is any dog—me, the one Cate is looking for, ugly fucks in the pound—supposed to be adopted when myths like those are floating about!

I say it again: take a dog which touches you and adapt (or, if you can—and you probably can't—make them adapt).

And Cate, one more thing: your new dog...I'm going to kill it anyway 'cause you're mine.

January 16, 2010; Cries and Whispers

AAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!

Everyone is suddenly a fucking expert and I am the subject of their expertise!

One-Legged Gingerlady tells the Mooks what to do! Cate tells the Mooks what to do! The Mooks tell each other what to do! And it all comes back to two people: me and the mother-fucking, suck-my-dick, eat-my-shit, burn-in-hell-for-all-eternity Dog -Fucking-Whisperer!

Okay, okay, okay—deep breath. Let's start at the beginning.

Mook B goes on holiday to France and I am left with Mook A. Something tells me I had better not fuck around with this one because he's in a pissy mood most of the time (we would all learn, later, that it wasn't just about having to walk me at 7:30 a.m. but also because he was nursing an infection and would end up in the hospital). Anyhoo...I don't piss in the house (as I would if Mook B was here), and I get my evening walk earlier than usual and my morning walk later than usual and hold it in and there you go. Mook A has learned that I can control my urges. Well, of course I can! It's just that I won't except when I feel my life may be in danger (as I did with Mook A, when he was alone).

So Mook A shares this information with Cate and One-Legged Gingerlady and, when he gets back, with Mook B. Except when B comes back, all bets are off. I am not going to be the well-behaved little lap dog I was when I was alone with A; I am going to be my self!!! So I piss on the couch leg.

It's when I piss in B's bed, again, that I realize everything is back to normal 'cause B says to A, "It was my fault...I slept too long." Life is good.

But that night...that very night...that very horrible night...

The Mooks watch an episode of the The Dog Whisperer. The smiling little foreigner tells someone that you can't make excuses for dogs. You can't say, "Oh! They were pound dogs!" or "Oh! I did something wrong so they are allowed to misbehave." Misbehaviour, says the little fuck, has to be "corrected" immediately. And then A talks to Cate who, also a fan of the fucking guy, agrees and A talks to One-Legged Gingerlady who is also a fan of the fucking guy and she, too, agrees. In short: everyone thinks I am out of control and have to be "corrected."

That's when it begins...

PSSSSSSSST!

PSSSSSSSST!

Mook A makes this noise...

PSSSSSSSST!

He hits the "P" and the "T" hard and does it each time I yank on the leash, jump on a piece of furniture, insist on a cuddle when he's reading the paper, go in for food one of them is eating...

PSSSSSSSSST!

And you know what? It scares the shit right out of me. There is something about that hard P and hard T and the hissing, snakey S's in between that smacks me in my non-existent testicles, climbs up and down my spine and shoots out my arsehole like farts from a curry.

Worse!

It makes me sit, and stay and behave and be "correct."

How—oh how???—do I get out of this? They even learned a lesson, from that nasty little man, about dogs who run away and they're planning to "correct" that with me too with that fucking PSSSSSSSSSST! Am I doomed to be here forever? Am I going to be one of those dogs: the ones who are cute and cuddly and behave?

Where's the fun in that? I mean, how do I get back to the days when I was training them? For instance, if I didn't eat the two of them would go into a tail-spin and virtually suck my cock to get me to eat the food. I mean, I kid you not, B would get down on all fours and pretend to eat my food himself, going "Mmmmmmmmm, Léo! It's so good!" And I'd sit there, laughing my fucking fool head off because, let's face it, there is nothing so funny as a human making an asshole of himself? Now, when I don't eat, or pretend the food isn't there, there's A with, "PSSSSSSSSSST! Eat your supper!" And—kill me now!—I get down to gobbling this putrid shit up!

The only time they let up is when they're in front of the TV and these days they spend a lot of time there watching the news from Haïti and crying their eyes out. I have to admit, it is pretty awful to see. I also get some respite as A (and it's always A) rants and raves about injustice and suffering and when he throws himself on the internet to tear new assholes for anyone who defends Pat Robertson and what he said about the Haitians bringing this down on themselves. (When A has a freak, no one is fucking safe. B and I just shut up and let him go on and on and on.)

But, inevitably, they turn off the TV and they go to bed and I lie awake, "behaving" on B's comforter and plotting...

...plotting ways to kill them all. Especially that mother-fucking, cock-sucking, shit-eating, may-he-burn-in-hell-for-all-eternity, Dog-Fucking-Whisperer.

January 10, 2010; Blogger's Block

Sniffing out stories

I am always surprised when I read about Blogger's Block—when a blogger has nothing to write about. Ferchrissakes, open any fucking paper or watch the news for a minute and you'll have plenty. I mean fucking plenty.

Take Harry Reid. Remember, last time, I said Barack should beat him up? Well, now there's a perfectly legitimate reason to do it: that Reid, before he was elected, said of Barry that he was "light skinned...with no Negro dialect." Negro? Really? In this day and age? Is this old fuck a retard or something? I mean you got to wonder, don't you? Or is he part of the larger conspiracy...

Yes, there's a conspiracy to bring this president down. Look at the facts. Since he took office someone went in and killed a bunch of CIA agents—you know that could only happen (if it actually did happen) with the consent of someone at the top of the Company (yeah! I know all about The Company!!!). Now add to that the story of the White House party-crashers. Clearly they were there to tell the whole world that security around the president was shit and that anyone who wanted to could take a shot at him? Do you remember White House party crashers during Bush? No, of course you don't because they're at Gitmo. Now add to those two stories the Christmas bomber. I mean it is simply not possible that that could happen unless someone—and I mean someone high up—let it happen. So there it is... Barack, keep your head down. Remember what they did to the Kennedy boys and that poor girl at Chappaquiddick.

Of course, not all news in the paper is important news but it still has the capacity to get you pissing on the floor with rage.

Take Tiger and his Woods. I mean, if that hound was a dog and had been sniffing about the cooters of 15 or more bitches, he'd be one ball-less animal. I think Ms Woods should consider consider fixing the fucker a term of the divorce settlement.

How about the models who refused to go onto the runway because they considered the shoes (about a foot high) too dangerous! I mean, who knew? They have brains!

And—hey!—Jay Leno has problems! Well, anyone who ever watched him on TV knows that: he isn't fucking funny. But now, in prime time, everyone is aware of it and, poor NBC, putting him at 11:30 or midnight or even three in the fucking a.m. won't hide the fact that the man has the comic timing of roadkill.

Need more? How about the fucks who had their subscriptions to BeautifulPeople.com cancelled because they all turned into porkers over the holidays. Let's face it, it's pretty hard to feel the least bit sorry for anyone who is on a web site called BeautifulPeople.com, isn't it? The good thing, though, is that these rejects have finally learned a real life lesson: if your thighs sing and your arse flaps when you walk you ain't beautiful fucking anything.

Dubai opens the world's tallest tower...Look! Look! On the horizon!!! It's a big truck! A truck loaded down with boxes and boxes of who-fucking-cares! Good Christ—if they're not building something huge and vulgar it wouldn't be fucking Dubai!

So don't tell me about Blogger's Block. There's 24-hour news, you can read any paper in the world on your Kindle (I got the models' story from The Independent on Mook A's machine) and you can listen to whole fucking podcasts about anything (including hours and hours of World of Warcast, do you believe it?).

There's crap everywhere that just makes you want to have a shit. Just look for it.

December 13, 2009; Back to normal?

Things are not quite back to normal at La Maison Mook, but they're getting there.

It didn't take long before I was the subject of ("humourous") abuse. For instance... I have this nylon chew toy shaped like a bone and whenever things get to be too much for me I gnaw away at that thing until the tension passes. There's something to be said for ripping bits off of inanimate objects. The problem is, that being the well-organized canine that I am, I destroy my toys in a kind of order. For instance, when I had that fucking Santa doll, I could have just torn it to shreds, picking it apart all over its little felt body, but that would have taken months. Instead, I found the bottom seam and just kept worrying that with my teeth until I'd literally torn the thing a new asshole and could then yank his cotton intestines out in long white streamers. You see? Organized.

The problem with the nylon bone is that I set to gnawing it on one end, and when I got that end gnawed off it no longer looked like a bone, did it? In fact, Mook A was the first to notice what it did look like. "Hey! Look at that! Léo has made himself a dildo!" Hilarity ensued and then the two of them went at it: "Have you seen Léo's dildo?" or "Time to wash off Léo's dildo!" or "I wonder into which hidden hole Léo shoved his dildo."

Oh! But it gets worse! Yesterday Cate came to visit, after her trip to Florida, and she brought me a new nylon bone. I mean, it was a monster of a thing. But being the organized (perhaps over-organized) dog that I am, I still wanted the old one to finish with first, so I was sort of ignoring the new one. "I guess," says Mook A, "he wants to finish sucking and chewing on his dildo before starting on a bigger one...needs the practice, I guess." Ha! Ha! Ha! A good giggle was had by all.

Later I tried to hump Cate, but my heart wasn't in it. "You see," quipped A, "he's got a taste for dildo now."

I think I shall wait until he, in particular, is asleep, and find a place to hide that fucking dildo. Shouldn't be long 'til the stupid twat is getting daily visits from nurses again.

Meanwhile, Christmas is, indeed, coming and so the snow is piling up on the ground and the wind whips about. What this means is that I'm getting cold and am forced to cuddle up close to one or the other of the Mooks which, of course, makes me look more like a suck than ever. But this must be said: I did miss—while B was traveling and A was in the hospital—the no-questions-asked aspect of cuddling. I mean, I just had to look at the couch, do the sit-give-paw rigmarole and I'm warm—the Mooks get the look. As nice as they were, A's Sis didn't immediately get when I needed the cuddle. Maybe after a little training she would have, but, as I said, training humans can be draining.

A trained human is worth his or her weight in gold. With or without dildo jokes.

December 10, 2009; May You Live in Interesting Times

The things I have seen...

I don't want to sound racist by saying that all slanty-eyed people look alike so it doesn't matter who said such and such, so I'll say I think it was a Chinaman who invented the curse: "May you live in interesting times." Someone must have cast that curse on me and the Mooks recently.

You'll remember that in my last blog I mentioned that Mook B was about to go to a clinic for a cut in his had. Well, yes and no. He went to the clinic a few hours after I wrote the entry, but came back 30 minutes later 'cause the place was closed. Problem was: his cut was no longer just a little cut that my beloved nurse had warned him to have tended to. No, now his cut was huge and red and his wrist had disappeared into his arm and his arm had lost its elbow and these strange red lines ran up from the cut on his hand to the middle of what can only be described as an over-stuffed, dark-red sausage; something a Brit might fry up and have for breakfast, maybe. A started to get sweaty and so he called the special phone number for medical information and was told by the counsellor there to get to an emergency ward ASAFP.

He gathered some things, plunked me in the kitchen and then did something I wasn't expecting. The Mooks don't make a big production when they go out—they don't say bye-bye or give me a hug or make kissy noises; they think by doing nothing when they leave, I am conned into thinking they're only going out to buy cigarettes and am therefore less traumatized and less likely to do something destructive. (Dipshits...destruction has nothing to do with time.) On this occasion, however, as A was leaving, he leaned down to me and said, in a strange voice, "I hope I see you very soon, Little Feller," and gave me a little kiss on the nose and a little skritch behind the ear.

Oh-oh.

That was the last I heard from him for three days and nights. I set to gnawing on my bone, then fell asleep. When I woke up I had the strange sensation that I needed to pee. It's strange because, normally, the Mooks have fed me and hustled me out the door before the need-sensation sets in. I paced about a little, wondering what I was in for now. Then I started to get worried. Was this serious? Was my Mook coming back at all?

Then there was noise at the door and my little bladdered quivered with anticipation. When the door opened, it wasn't Mook A, B, C or D! It was A's sister (whom we'll call Sis from now on) and her husband (whom we'll call Bro). Sis and Bro hustled about, gathered stuff, then toddled down the stairs with me behind them, now with a bladder screaming for a slash.

I got to pee. I got to shit. But then I was getting into a truck and we were driving off! What was this? A kidnaping or a rescue? I was a stress-case and Sis seemed to know it 'cause she held me on her lap in the front seat and cuddled me and whispered sweetnesses. The last time I had been in a car it had not gone well (barf everywhere) and this time there was the added stress of a missing Mook. I started drooling, Sis said, "Oh-oh!" but then we were stopping. We were at their house—I'd visited it for Mook A's birthday—and food was being served and I was part of a new family.

Well, this had certainly gotten interesting (in the Chinaman's sense). But then I heard from Sis that things were considerably more "interesting" for Mook A. He had been admitted to hospital, post-haste, was being administered massive amounts of last-defense antibiotics, was sleeping in a corridor of the emergency ward, and was in a kind of isolation (even there) because they didn't know if his germs were contagious or just busily eating his arm off. At least he was relatively alive.

And hey! I was in hog heaven! They treated me less like a house-guest and more like the boss. I pretty much got anything I wanted just by doing little dances: going out, a treat, a place on a couch and—without even trying—a place on their bed that night where I found out Bro snores like a sawmill and Sis grinds her teeth like a pitbull skinning a teacup terrier. (Are there any normal people in this fucking family!?)

We all settled in quite nicely. The next morning I had a little accident because Sis and Bro just were not fast enough in getting me out (and had to be taught a lesson, don't you know). I was starting to worry I would have to train them (as I had Frank and the Mooks)—a long and tedious process. But they were picking up the signals fairly quickly and I tried not to abuse the situation (ie: doing the piss dance just because I'm bored and want to go out).

News from the hospital was that A was not allowed to walk the halls without rubber gloves and a yellow gown which announced to everyone he was contagious; sorta like those lepers in Ben Hur calling out: "Unclean! Unclean!" The news was he had run out of cigarettes and was bumming and sharing smokes with the junkies in the emergency ward, who were in a similar situation (although their cuts were from an excess of needles). His iPod had died, he couldn't read in the dark of his cubicle and was quietly going mental.

But hey! I was eating two squares and had a perfectly nice couple waiting on me and fulfilling most of my desires. I liked to cuddle with Sis on the couch for TV and I liked to wander around Bro as he cooked (yes, that is faggie, but I'm not judging).

But there was that gnawing worry: when would I be back with the Mooks, in my place, with my smells and my various edibles (Kleenex in the unemptied garbage cans and food—like dill-pickle chip crumbs— in the unvacuumed carpet). Sis and Bro are a little too anal for my taste, nice as they are. A house is not a home unless there's something to eat under the sofa.

On the second morning, Sis had to go to work. Toward the end of the morning, Bro started to make lunch for the both of them. I wandered about, stretched a bit, and thought I might like to go for a walk. So I did my little show and Bro threw on his coat and took me out. It was gloriously sunny outside and I could have drifted about outside for hours. We were slowly returning to the house when we heard some kind of commotion. As we walked on it started to become clear the noise was coming from our street. When we turned the corner we saw that there were three fire-trucks in front of the apartment and the firemen were about to break down the door with these big axes. You know that cooking Bro was doing before my little dance to pee? Well, he had left oil on the stove as he dashed me outside, it had burned, set off the alarms and the security company (on getting no one at the apartment to answer the phone) had sent out the big guns.

Again: Is no one in this family normal? Clearly, early-onset Alzheimer's is running through them all. On one side you've got a guy who's dying 'cause he can't keep a friggin' cut on his hand clean, on the other one who burns the house down for fried onions. Needless to say, the atmosphere within this happy little family iced up a little when Sis found out what had happened and though she was still being nice to me, she did seem to take my little piss-dances a little less seriously.

Meanwhile, back with A, after four or six IVs of massive doses of antibiotics, he was being released from the hospital, but with orders to present himself twice a day to a local clinic to get more IVs. At that same clinic, they would also do the stuff my beloved home-nurse usually does and tend to the new wound on his hand. To give him a break, though, it was decided that I would stay with Bro and Sis for a third night. This made me a little sad 'cause I really do miss the other place where there are so many nooks and crannies where so many interesting things (paper clips, chocolate bar wrappings, socks) can be found and snacked upon.

But here's the other thing (and I may regret admitting this):

I was missing the Mooks. Both of them. I wanted to be with A and I wanted B back from France and I wanted their bickering and laughing and smoking (for a dog raised by a smoker—Frank—the smell is an addiction in itself). I also wanted the messy, routine-less life they seemed to lead where there are surprises almost every day—nurses and friends who don't mind being humped, one-legged ladies, prostate-less barbers and dogs on the street who love-me-love-me-not (ie: Ginger).

And 24 hours later, that's what I had. Back home. Both of them there. Excitement and noise and silliness and stupidity (Mook B got his iPhone pickpocketed during a short visit to Barcelona and A came out of the hospital, not realizing the world had iced over while he was there, and nearly broke his back tumbling down in front of the entrance for the ambulances).

Things are back to normal now. Some things have changed. Because A gets his treatments at the clinic now, I don't see my nurse anymore and this breaks my heart. Also, the Mooks bicker a little less, for now; the guilt of travel and the appreciation of loved ones after an illness plays a role in that. And I have two new good friends, Sis and Bro, and a refuge if I need it.

And Christmas is coming. God bless us everyone!

(And eat a bowl of dick if you don't get I'm being sarcastic.)

November 20, 2009; So Sick...

So sick I can't even eat my fucking cookie...just carry it around and sleep with it.

Sooooooooo sick...

Barfing...everywhere...

Shitting...everywhere...

...blood...

Can't eat. Can't sleep. Wander about.

And they gnaw my nuts for being sick even as they try to commiserate. "What did you eat now?" they ask.

I think I know what it is...I think Mook A fed me something to get rid of me before Mook B goes off to Paris on Tuesday.

I'm dying here.

Ack!

November 17, 2009; Two Men and a Phone

Sometimes you can just watch them and not believe your eyes.

You can make suppositions about the dynamics of a given relationship by the way a couple deals with technology. For instance, my ex-owner, Frank, could get his daughter to buy him damn near anything because she knew nothing about technology and he knew just a little bit. He convinced her that he needed a Blu-ray player because his eyes were going and that he needed a better quality picture to be able to watch his movies. What his daughter didn't know is that he had read somewhere that the porn industry was going to switch to Blu-ray and there was nothing so terribly wrong with his eyes. So, basically, Frank got his Blu-ray for his Blue Balls. Frank would see an ad or read an article about some new gadget and he would get it and they would just all pile up around the apartment. The only low-tech thing he had was me.

Even at the puppy mill and the pound there was always some young geek trying to impress some chick way out of his league with his new mp3 player or his new cellular and you could tell if he had an iota of a chance if the chick was vaguely fascinated. (Most were not...like Frank's daughter they were mostly interested in how much skin they could expose and how high they could hike their skin-tight pants up into their snatches.)

Then we have the Mooks. I have pretty much sensed that Mook A is the technoid and Mook B the tech-tard. Every time B wants to watch a movie, for instance, A has to re-explain how the three remotes work. So it was damn odd when, three days ago, B came home with a brand new iPhone. This was not his style at all, especially since his hobby seems to be losing his cels all over creation. Moreover, he had been working for two days at getting the fucking thing and had bounced from one phone store to another getting a different story from each of them and another six different stories from his phone company about whether or not he would be able to upgrade from his current cel plan. So it was somewhat of a miracle when Mook A and I came out of the bathroom from changing his appliance and there was B with an iPhone box and about 80,000 gadgets for the thing spread out all over the kitchen table.

Though the idiot phone was supposed to be able to communicate with B's computer...well, it wasn't. That's when A was drafted to help even though it was clear (to me, at least) that he was choking with envy that B had this wondrous little toy and he did not (being unemployed and desperately poor and all). Whenever B asked a question (in the most weak, shaky and subservient little voice you've ever heard—think Minnie Mouse on a meth low) B would bellow, "Giveitgiveitgiveit! Give...it...to...me!!!" Then A would fiddle about—only impressing B with the fiddling and not fooling me at all—and pronounce, "I do not know why you can't take two minutes to do this and this instead of dragging me into your tech problems every fucking time. Have you never heard of a manual or even the tech help you're paying for!" At this B quailed and dared to say, "Why are you yelling at me?" To which A exploded, "HOW MANY TIMES AND WITH HOW MANY FUCKING COMPUTERS AND ANSWERING MACHINES AND CEL PHONES AND IPODS AND COFFEE-FUCKING-MACHINES HAVE WE BEEN THROUGH THIS!!! YOU BUY THE FUCKING MACHINE ALREADY LOADED WITH FRENCH FROM FRANCE AND WITH FRENCH FROM FRANCE MANUALS AND IT HAS ALL THESE ASSHOLE TECHNICAL TERMS EVEN A FUCKING FROG DOESN'T UNDERSTAND INSTEAD OF GETTING THE MACHINE IN ENGLISH SO I CAN UNDERSTAND AND HELP YOU OUT!!! CALL TECH HELP IF THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE GOING TO DO EVERY FUCKING TIME!!!" At this point, despite the opera calling tech help always represents, B would rather do just that instead of getting another shit-storm from A.

It took hours, but the problems were solved and this is when, my friends, the dynamic shifts from the dominant "tech-savvy" person to the previously slavish techno-tard who, after all, owns the actual coveted object. It was clear, for the rest of the day, that B was delighting in showing A all the wondrous things that the iPhone could do (and it is a great toy).

Late that night, the real winner of the war was declared, though, without B even knowing it. As B slept, music from his iPhone drifting into his dreams, A was alone in the living room re-programming B's ratty cast-off cel phone.

From the bedroom there were the strains of The Police's Greatest Hits, from the other the sad beep-beep-beeps of a little machine which might—one day!—be able to make phone calls...and that's all.

November 11, 2009; Unexpected Journeys

And what about me, fuckwads?

It's been a weird couple of days (but then again, in my fucked up life, when are they not weird, dammit!).

Firstly, I'm off my food. I don't know what it is, but I can be perfectly satisfied with my vittles and then, suddenly, the stuff they are putting in my bowl tastes like ass. To try to get me to lose weight, they have been mixing chicken broth (low-cal the fuckers) with my kibble. This was okay because I like the smell of dead poultry as much as the next hound. But no one can eat the same goddam crap, day in day out. So I stopped eating. I figured the Mooks would get the point and change the stuff but then, last night, Mook A declared, "I am not going to change that fuckin' dog food every three fuckin' months just because the Little Princess suddenly decides he doesn't like it! When he's hungry enough, he'll eat whatever shit we put in front of him." Yeah, well...I'll show the mofo what I can eat and I'll also show him what I can shit and, more importantly, where I can shit.

Meanwhile...

Yesterday Cate came for a visit and after they all ate a nice chicken dinner (and I ate nothing) they settled down to watch a movie. I wasn't quite yet in the mood to settle down so I started to play with Cate. She was up for it and we started to have a good wrestle. Here's the thing: I'm not absolutely sure, but I think she might be up for a little inter-species slap and tickle 'cause she didn't seem to be the least bit perturbed when my pink snake began to make an appearance. In fact, she just laughed harder. However, the Mooks (those two horny, homo hypocrites) stopped the fun and games as soon as my one-eyed mole showed itself.

Then...

Ack! Ack! Ack!

Cate and Mook B started to talk about traveling. They weren't talking about it in some vague, hypothetical way either! At the end of this week Cate is going off on a road trip for a month and—oh! my! god!—Mook B is going off to Paris at the end of the month and he'll be gone for two weeks! Do you have any idea what this means? It means that for two weeks I'll be stuck here, alone, with the man who is already calling me Piggy, Princess and a slew of other awful names and who is showing no patience for my little idiosyncrasies! I am going to be here, alone, in this prison with Mook A!

This is not good.

Sure, A is good for a cuddle from time to time and he is responsible for two of my four walks a day but he's impatient with me. If he doesn't want to cuddle we don't cuddle (whereas with everyone else, they pretty much bend to my will). If I want to go one way during a walk (ie: towards something that smells good and borderline-edible) and he wants to go the other way, he'll yank me so hard that we always, always, always go his way. Mook B is my bitch. If I want a cuddle, he picks me up, and if I want to eat roadkill he pretty much lets me. He also responds when I am ready to go out (instead of doing as A does: taking me out when it's time...his time). In bed I can take up as much space as I want and Mook B just moves out of the way. I have an odd feeling that if I am not sleeping on the cold, cold floor—when I'm alone with A—that there might be like a square foot of space he allows me on the bed and that will just not do for a wandering body like mine.

And food—my god!—food! Will I actually eat when B's away? Will A be so hardcore about not giving me something that will please me that I may just have to swallow my pride and eat a bowl of ass? I'd rather starve!

And what if A gets sick! I mean, let's face it, he's not the healthiest specimen of humanhood! Sure, the nurse comes three times a week but will she save me as she's loading A into an ambulance or will she forget me, leave me behind so that I just sit here for two weeks hoping against hope that someone remembers me? Hoping that someone feeds me, walks me, takes care of me! The Straight Guy (SG) lives two blocks away but he's so caught up with getting the smoke out of his building that he won't be running here to look after me. I don't think he even likes me and lord knows I'm not overly fond of him.

How can Cate and B just go off and leave me to this monster!

I'll die! I know I will!

November 8, 2009; More Life Lessons from a Hard Ass Dog

Professor Léo speaks. The wise listen.

- Nothing bothers humans like a dog who scoots. Even if you don't have an itch, do it. Think of it as combing your arse hair and always do it on a rug or a piece of upholstered furniture. It's the little things—like zipping your anus across the shag—which count in the war between us and them. And the best thing? They invariably think it's something they're doing wrong.

- When they want you to do a "trick" (with me it's singing) build up a good head of steam—get insanely excited—and shriek like you're the big-titted teenager in a movie with a horde of zombies on your tail. It's not at all what they wanted as tricks go, but they did want you to do something—it's their fault if you didn't understand what. Shrieking works two ways: you "obeyed" and, if you're lucky, you get on the last nerve of someone else in the household and soon you have them fighting because one of them got you hysterical. Beauty.

- After they have washed or bathed, "love" them. Cover their faces, hands—whatever bare skin is available—with dog slobber. If you've just eaten (and it's something really rancid) even better, because in the guise of "kissing" you have turned this soap-smelling sissy into something with the pong of like carrion. It's "love" for them, power for you.

- When you are "playing" with a human, try to stay behind them; this way you can get a good mount on before they notice they're being fucked and general consternation sets in. Remember: they are your bitches.

- Remember the three Ds: Dash, Disorient, Destroy. When out or in, run, run, run. Nothing determines control like one keeping the other wondering—wondering what you're running to, what you smell, might eat or plow your nose into, or what you might accost. Eventually they will try to exert power, this is when you Disorient—run back to them, behind, in front of them, around them, wrapping the leash in and out of their legs as you heed their command. Soon they're spinning like a dreidle at Chanukah. Then Destroy—a good swift yank on the leash and even if they don't fall you do cut the circulation off in their legs. How can they get mad? You "obeyed" didn't you?

- Mumble and whimper for nothing. My Mooks' hair stands on end if I so much as yawn funny. It becomes a case of "What does he want???!!!" Then there is the hilarious back and forth of trying to guess until they give me something nice like a walk (I may have diarrhea after all) or a seat on the couch (I may need attention). But be careful—too much whimpering could get them probing your mouth, skin and—God forbid!—arsehole for "problems." Worst case scenario: you're off to the vet. Rectal thermometers are never amusing.

- If you are on a walk and sniff something interesting (food, maybe?) then pretend to pee as you investigate and/or eat. My Mooks never let me follow my nose (something to do with the various occasions they had to fish plastic, leaves or branches out of my butt), but they always give me the time to pee and, being stupid humans, often look away as I do. The world then becomes a buffet! Dish it up!

- "Nice" is a weapon. If you hear the phrase "Good dog!" and you have not actually set out to be such a beast, then you have done the equivalent of shooting your wad into your own eye. Humans get exasperated and they get that way very easily. If you wish to have the upper hand, this is when you must be "nice." Lick noses, lie down and show your belly in submissive pose, lean into their legs like you cannot live without them or simply sit when they tell you to. Past transgressions are almost immediately forgotten and future ones forgiven in advance.

- In dealing with guests, remember the last paragraph. Dogs who get territorial with growls or bites are bush league. That's the surest way to get banished to another room and miss out on idiot guests feeding you treats you're normally not allowed to have or pulling you up onto a sofa or chair you're not allowed to sit on. However: guests are your enemy! This is your space and guests always have a tendency to stay too long and to take up far too much of your world. This is when "nice" matters. Show the unwanted visitor how "cute" you are by "playing" with them. Shriek at them in excitement. Play with their shoes (while, also, ripping them apart), jump and dance and sing even as you nip and tug (and tear) clothing and inflict the tiniest (but also most painful) little wounds on digits and limbs. As mentioned in previous discussions, this is also when, with female guests, you explore. Depending on your region or breed, this practice is known as Beaver Boring, Snatch Snorting or Cooter Cuddling. Before long everyone is a mess of twitches and tics of embarrassment and wants to get out as quickly as possible; you, on the other hand, have done nothing but be sweet to the callers.

November 2, 2009; The Ruins

Sometimes you just have to be quiet and listen...

I was walking with Mook A, the other day, when we ran into two of my favourite people in the world: Ginger's mistress and the local barber who also has a big male mutt I play with from time to time. These two know my name, and are crazy about me and—sorry, I can't help it!—I always end up dancing when I hear one or the other sing out, "Léo!" 'cause I know hugs, kisses and cuddles will follow.

Anyway, on this particular occasion here were these three people—A, Barber and Gingerlady—smoking and talking and hanging out on the street corner like they were juvie teens in some 1950s comic book about the perils of cigarettes and pool halls. I mean, that's what it looked like if you just looked. If you listened, however, it was a whole 'nuther ball game.

They're triplets of wreckage. In fact from now on I think I'll call the barber Ruin 1 and Gingerlady Ruin 2 (Mook A will always be Mook A though he definitely qualifies for Ruin status). Each had a story, all are examples of physical devastation and all have been through the grinder of the medical system and government bureaucracy. But here they were standing about outside the barbershop, talking about the most hideous things like they were banal and quotidian because, I guess, for them it is banal and quotidian.

They all know each other's secrets: that they are all "that way" (if you know what I mean and I think you do); that Ruin 1 is a widower and has just had prostate cancer surgery and that Ruin 2 walks so weird because she has an artificial leg from a motorcycle accident and that A has the infamous appliance. In the talk they shared stories of hospital stays with room-mates from hell, of medication they were all taking and which was taking its toll on their pocketbooks, their psyches and even their sense of self (they all seemed to have stories of disorientation and disconnection). All of them told of how fucking awful the medical system seemed to treat them but—paradoxically—they were all three insanely happy that they lived in this country rather than in the United States where they would be merely sad statistics.

The conversation went on for quite a while, fueled by details which would make your hair stand on end and cigarettes (go figure). It was so strange that Ginger and I just sat there listening instead of pestering each other. At one point Ginger murmured, "Do you believe this fucking shit! Makes you glad we have a short life-span, doesn't it?" I know what she meant...it seemed better to die then to turn into walking junk-piles.

Ruin 1 has his own business so he has no safety net except his savings. He was supposed to take six weeks off, at least, after his surgery but because of the realities of his new life as a post-op he had to get back to work as quickly as possible because the cost of his drugs and diapers came out of his own pocket. Meanwhile, Ruin 2 is in so much pain that she has to take gallons of morphine and even if she had a great job, she couldn't afford it; so she had to get onto social assistance merely to survive. A himself is pretty much in the same boat: with the cost of appliances, drugs and medical supplies for his nurses visits if he wasn't on assistance he would be putting all of this on a credit card and so dealing with his bowl-of-crap life and debt-stress at the same time. The Ruins talked about how to save money on food, clothing, outings...life. Again Ginger whispered, "It's a miracle they have money to feed us." "Yeah, well," I said, "if they didn't feed me, I'd be long gone." And Ginger, who pretends to be so loyal she's never on a leash said, "For me it's not just if I'm fed, but what I'm fed. The second she penny-pinches on my meals I'll be out the door so fast she wouldn't have time to strap on her leg."

What is amazing is that the Ruins kept a sense of humour during their confab. It wasn't funny ha-ha but I guess it passes for a giggle in their dark little worlds. Witness:

A: So many times it hasn't been if, just how.

Ruin 2: I hear you.

A: Too late to die young and leave a beautiful corpse—

Ruin 1: —no kidding—

A: —but I keep wondering if I want to leave things tidy or a mess.

Then—yikes!—everyone laughed.

Ginger said, "I wonder if we wouldn't be doing them a favour by dragging them into traffic." I thought about that for a second and said, "We're both white dogs—brains are hard to get out of your fur." Ginger snerfed a laugh.

Like I said...not funny ha-ha.

October 30, 2009; Couplehood

What it's about: being able to snooze

I was sitting with the Mooks watching one of those idiot talkshows which features the same-old, same-old when one of the guests, a D-list celebritard, decided she was going to expound on couplehood.

First she explained that she had several kids, each from a different man, and that the kids all had a relationship with their father but that none of the fathers lived with this woman. She also explained that she liked it this way and that it gave her, her various exes, and her children a sense of freedom. I thought, "My God, she'd make a great dog! Fucking whatever walks by when she's in heat, putting out a litter of puppies, and then getting on with her life until it was time to wave her little snatch into the wind to attract the next batch of horny males!"

But the silly cow would not shut up while she was ahead and went on to explain that she thought that monogamy did not work and that she had an ideal situation everyone envied and that everyone was happy in it.

As I listened to this little nit, I had a good long look at my local couple—the Mooks—and wondered what they were thinking about what she said and about how, after 16 (going on 17) years, they accessed their relationship. I mean, there are mobs of people—dicks in hand, fingers in twats—who will line up to tell you that couplehood does not work and that they are all doing what comes naturally to all animals: waving their weary, chapped gonads at anyone who might sniff. But is this really true?

The Mooks, as I may have mentioned, do not swing from the chandeliers naked or plow each other up against the stove when the mood strikes (and I am profoundly glad of it); but they have discussed the success or failures of their life together. Lately, because Mook A is sick and is deeply grateful to B just for being there, they seem content. Also, when B comes home from work and natters on endlessly about the people he has to deal with, A actually listens and B is pleased by this. I mean...this is something, isn't it? I suspect that the aforementioned quasi-famous dunce doesn't have much to talk about with her various exes (Kee-rist, she doesn't have much to say, period...), and I suspect her only form of communication is shooting something male a glimpse of her crotchless panties, falling on all fours and then singing a rousing chorus of "Let me smell yo dick."

Here, in La Maison Mook, beyond the "I'm sick" and "I hate my job" stuff, there is a very quiet communication and I am a central part of it. These guys are tired...a lot. Someone is always sleeping in the living room—A on the La-Z Boy or B on Couchzilla—and whoever is not sleeping lives around it. There is no resentment. How do I fit in? Well, it appears that it has become my job to jump up on whoever is sleeping and snore along with them. There is a kind of peace.

Occasionally, when they are not tired (or eating—their second favourite passtime), they are discussing a movie or the news and really getting into it. I'm not saying they agree on everything (indeed, they agree on very little), but if you want to see the energy of couplehood looks and sounds like, this is when it happens.

Sure, in terms of mad, hole-driven fun the dithering TV twit is ahead in the race and, sure, there are more body fluids spurting about her place and, yes, her apartment probably has a more heady aroma (something like a crack whore's cooter), but I'll bet you good money that the starlet's kids are not nearly as centered or calm as I am (and that, in the future, one of them will make an appearance on a water-tower).

And another thing: when it comes to monogamy and couples and what have you, she doesn't have a fucking clue what she is talking about.

October 27, 2009; I'm Baaaaaaaaaaack!

Waiting by the door and wondering what comes through it next

Well, I'm back. Things have been so weird the last couple of weeks I don't know if I'm coming or going. The apartment is either quiet and empty as death or packed with all sorts of people doing all sorts of things.

First off, the Mooks have been a mess. Mook B got some sort of cold and was hacking and coughing all over the place. This, of course, he passed to Mook A who, as is his wont, took the cold and ran with it, finding himself hacking so hard that he would start to dry heave and then, wet heave. It's been a fucking symphony of unpleasant noises in this place—above and beyond the usual belches, farts and whistles.

My beloved, the primary care nurse, disappeared for a bit and as a result we were being visited by a new nurse virtually every day. It's very hard to establish a routine with these people—do they like me (ie: can I jump all over them) or do they not (ie: should I be a "good boy" and try and restrain myself)? So I've been keeping a fairly low profile which, for me, is damn near impossible—stinking of charm and handsomeness, as I do.

Anyhoo...

Mook A's cold got very bad and I started to worry that he might have that pig thing. When he tried to walk me he'd be doubled over in the middle of the alley, choking up a lung and spewing his germs everywhere. This got worrisome; it's one thing for a human to have the pig flu, it's quite another for a dog to have it. Can you imagine the shame? A dog...with a pig disease! I'd never fucking live it down. So during our walks I tried to avoid the sputum A was heaving into the atmosphere and as a result kept yanking on the leash and as a result he'd get enraged and as a result he'd start hacking even more until the two of us were becoming quite the neighbourhood spectacle.

It finally got so bad that, one morning, Cate was called in to walk me (as Mook B was working) and the visiting nurse told A that it was time to go to the emergency room. So, I spent the rest of the day alone. B did not come home, instead going to the hospital to join A and see what was what. When they got back A looked like utter crap but had a prescription for a lung infection (which was not pneumonia...yet, anyway).

The next day A had an appointment with his specialist nurse and, once again, I was left alone as B went with him. That seemed to take years as well 'cause they not only had to go to the nurse but A had bureaucratic running around to do to make sure his medical benefits stayed in place. When they got back home, both of them were exhausted and A just flopped into his easy-chair. Then, just to make things interesting, his appliance decided to come apart in his pants and all hell broke loose. A rushed to the bathroom, B hauled out the cleaning supplies, and I was generally ignored for the next hour or so. Now this had never happened before and because of that it left A even more shaken then he already was and he started to feel profoundly insecure and disoriented.

You know how I could tell? Well, I'll tell you.

A, as you may know by now if you've been paying any attention, is pretty much led around by his dick. For instance when he walks me he takes a particularly route that goes through two construction sites because there are workies there he finds particularly interesting. Well, he used to, anyway. Now he does this huge detour around the sites because the dust there makes him cough and when he coughs he heaves and sometimes when he heaves he barfs and I suspect he doesn't want his fantasy men to see him like that. Or at least, I thought that was the case until last week when—landsogoshen!—we had a visit from a male nurse. Now I think I know what kind of guy pushes A's buttons and, let me tell you, this particular nurse was definitely Mook A's type. I knew one aspect of the nurse was particularly pleasing to my little faggot: thick swirls of blonde hair on the nurse's forearms.

But guess what?

Nothing. Nada. Mook A is so fucked out and sick that he is not even responding to something as basic as a hairy guy playing around with his intimates. And now I'm wondering if he isn't detouring the construction sites because he just doesn't care anymore about workies and their jeans. And if that's the case...!!! Well, I dread to think what this all means.

Is he that sick?

It could very well be 'cause there's actually another sign. He's not playing that idiot game of his—World of Warcraft—which, after males of all sorts, was his number one obsession. This is part of the reason I haven't been able to blog: the computer has been off when it used to be on all the time so that he could log into that game. Now he just talks about the game and how much he misses it. It's during these soliloquies that I begin to realize a) just what a weird fucking bird he is and b) how bad things are. Weird because it's not only the game he misses but also a bunch of online characters with names like Mouse, Yogi, Jhae and Jes. Yes...Mouse and Yogi. Think about it: a 52-year-old homo who claims to inhabit the intellectual world going on and on about (now listen to me here:) Mouse and Yogi. Clearly there is some kind of disconnect and I'm starting to wonder if, when he coughs up all that phlegm, he isn't also coughing up large portions of his brain.

Mouse. Yogi. Jhae. Jes. Yee-ikes.

You just want to grab him and shake him or bite him or just shit on the floor to wake him up. You want to shriek, "Get a grip!" so that he doesn't float off into some crazy, private little world where all he does is cough, heave, barf and talk to imaginary playmates named...Mouse and Yogi.

I never thought I'd say this but: I want my old Mook back!