November 29, 2009; Vacation, Part II

This fat fuck is on my fucking balcony! Is there no respect!

There are a few things that are worrying me with Mook B in France and me alone with Mook A. I'll start with the lack of sleep I'm getting. I'm now in Mook A's bed for the duration of the other one's vacation and though it is as cozy as you could want, it gives on to the fucking kitchen and—worse!—he leaves the kitchen door open all night in case I want to walk about and get some water. But I'll be damned if I'm moving from the fucking bed in the night hours as, I tell you, there is a ghost in there.

There's one thing you should know about dogs. We know our ghosts. When you see us pricking up our ears or hear us whining or growling at nothing...think again! It isn't nothing. We not only hear and smell the spirits which roam about, we can sense them even when they're barely around. You've seen dogs reacting strangely to places which seem perfectly banal...well, it's the ghosts. Yes, yes, yes we know that you humans think it's all bunk but that's because you're stupid.

So, for now, I live with the damn thing and dread that it will try to make its presence felt even more. I'll tell you this...I get awfully thirsty at night and I'm really happy when the sun starts to rise.

Meanwhile, there is other craziness here. Mook A is starting to talk to me. I don't mean: "Get off the fucking couch!" or "Go lie down!" I mean chats. He has taken to watching two or three movies a day and although this used to keep him fairly docile and let me sleep (curled up beside him) lately he's started to get mouthy. He always talks at the TV (losing his mind when some right-winger shows up on CNN), but this is different. We were watching Appaloosa and he said, "Do you like Westerns, Leo?" (Note: he pronounces my name in English, Mook B in French.) I glanced up at him, thinking he was just jabbering, but he was actually looking at me, waiting for an answer like. "I don't usually enjoy Westerns," he went on, "but this one has Viggo Mortensen and Ed Harris and that is a whole lot of eye candy." Well, I should have known. I thought he'd shut up, but he went on. "I like Ed Harris for his eyes, which I noticed for the first time when he was in The Right Stuff. And Viggo...what to say about Viggo..." He sighed like a teen girl reading Tiger Beat. "I fell for him when he took off his shirt in Psycho. I was hooked. And I don't think he's married."

Well...a: Too much information and b: You can dream on about Viggo and you. But A went on telling me he didn't usually like Westerns 'cause the guys didn't take their shirts off but I can tell you this about Appaloosa: it was the gayest film I've seen since Brokeback Mountain. If Mortensen wasn't in love with Harris, I'll eat my Harley Davidson collar!

There is one good thing about Mook A's talking. When we're out walking, and because it's late autumn, the squirrels are everywhere and getting more aggressive and snotty with me. They've taken to taunting me on the street, running up a tree (just out of reach) and chittering at me...mocking me. That's when A steps in. "You fucking little coward!" he bellowed at one this morning. "Come back down on the sidewalk and face the music, you fucking tree rat shit. You'll be making all sorts of different noises when Leo's finished with you!" Then he turned to me and said, "Right?" I snerfed that he was quite right and he laughed his head off. You gotta like that about him, at least.

Meanwhile, we're hearing nearly nothing from Mook B in France. Apparently his sacred little iPhone is a piece of shit over there and that's after he paid to get it unlocked; a whole 250 Eurines or whatever the fuck those commie faggots over there use to buy their scag and child prostitutes.

Anyhoo...

Five days together, alone, and no one is dead yet...so I suppose that's good.

November 26, 2009; The Vacation, Part I

This is the Straight Guy (SG). Of course, he isn't sitting very "straight", in any sense of the word, but he's not far if I need him.

Mook B is away in Paris and it is the third day I have been alone with Mook A.

It started badly with A giving me a bath the first day. If you watch CSI or those shows, it seems to me that rapists sometimes force their victims to bathe before doing bad things to them. But as it turns out, in A's own charming turn of phrase, "If you're going to sleep in my bed, I don't want your filth and your nasty arse in there with me."

The first night was the worst 'cause I found out there's a ghost in the kitchen. A's bedroom is right off the kitchen and he left his door open so that I could wander or drink water in the night, but I didn't move from that fucking bed 'cause all through the night there were sounds—bumps, clunks and skitters—coming from there I had never heard before and I don't think I slept a wink. A finally got annoyed with me jumping up and down in the bed in consternation and yanked me over to the other side of the him and forced me to lie down and curl up.

The best thing about the time so far is that I almost got away. It was the third or fourth walk together and as we came out and when I usually sit as A lights his cigarette before starting, I decided to see what would happen if I yanked as he did this. Sure enough, the leash-handle flew from his hand and I was free. But here's the thing: this is a new leash (one of those extensible ones) and it all snaps back into this really heavy box. So as I ran down the stairs to get away, that fucking box was smacking me in the ass and when I got to the sidewalk my only concern was to get it away from my butt. Needless to say A caught up to me and what made it all so much worse was that Ginger was a few feet away watching this spectacle. She snerfed with disdain and I knew that my wooing of her had taken a giant leap backward.

So, just to assure A that he had not reacquired the upper hand, I decided to add something totally new to my repertoire! As we walked along this lady came over to pet me. At first I did my usual joyful song and dance for her but as her voice hit some level of delight, in octaves only a dog can hear, I decided to bite her. Not a playful bite, but a good little nip on the end of her fingers. She yelped and A pulled me back, apologizing profusely. As we walked away he was completely confused—as was the plan—and was saying, "What the fuck was that all about?!" It was soon forgotten, however, so on a later walk he wasn't expecting anything when this huge, hysterically happy and opera-soprano-high-voiced lady shrieked from across the street how cute I was and made her way towards us. I, again, did the little dance of joy but then, again, bit her too adding a series of maniac snarls for effect. The lady jumped back and said, "Is this normal for him?! Is he angry?! Is he happy?!" A just grinned stupidly, dragging me away, and said, "He's never done such things before." Heheheheh...

Except...

When we were out of view of civilized people he got insanely angry, knelt beside me, bellowed in my face and, for good measure, clomped me in the head with the leash-box. From then on, 'til today, he did not let me approach other people and when a little girl in the schoolyard begged to pet me he told her, in grave tones, "He's a mean dog, sorry."

Now, as I've said, there is a thin line between being the neighbourhood dog who's got 'tude and the neighbourhood dog who's out of his fucking mind and only the truly sick dogs want to cross that line, so I'm going to have to be careful about this or I see in my future short-leash walks and—save us all!—a muzzle. I wouldn't put that past A.

However, I am examining possible escape plans. Winter is coming and I really don't want to do the whole alleys and parks thing again so I thought that—should I get away—I'll run over to Straight Guy (SG)'s house. You know: the one who had the fire and lived here a couple of days? He owes me for taking up my space and maybe he'd keep me safe 'til Mook B gets back or until I can find another place to live. I don't want him to adopt me, no, 'cause I've seen his place (when Mook A was watering his plants this summer) and this guy is way too much of a clean-freak to want a dog around him permanently.

So, as you can see, except for the ghost in the kitchen (I wonder who it is!), nobody is dead and there haven't been any natural disasters.

Yet.

November 23, 2009; Better

Now what?

I am much, much better. But, just for good measure, after all the nausea and diarrhea had passed I took a dump on the kitchen floor in the middle of the night right in front of the fridge. I was hoping Mook A would get up for his midnight pee and glass of water (which he gets from the fridge) but no such luck. However, because I had been sick, I wasn't even punished for it. Must remember that.

I suspect you wonder why dogs eat crap on the street which makes us sick. Well, first: we don't know it's going to make us sick and it all smells good. But, most importantly, second: being a dog is an art and we must suffer for our art.

Meanwhile, my appetite is still not what it was, I'm lazy, the weight is coming back from sheer inertia... Oh! my fucking Christ! I'm turning into Mook A! Before you know it I'll be nerding out online with people named Mouse and Yogi!

I suppose that it's just as well that I'm turning into the Mook as in a piddling 36 hours or so it's going to be him and me alone as Mook B is off to Paris with his fucking iPhone (the better to keep tabs on the battle of wills between me and A). Worse, my other buffer, Cate, is now in Florida and is paying the price of abandoning me—her e-mails report the resort she's staying at is a deadzone. (Which, in Florida, means there's no one around who can wipe his or her own arsehole for the blubber, wrinkles or arthritis).

Right now Mook A and I are enjoying a kind of détente. We spend a lot of time cuddling (for warmth not love, fuckwads!) and watching TV. Thankfully, A is feeling so brainless these days we don't have to slog through his usual favourites—art films—we're getting lots of explosions and blood which is the way I like it; nothing like watching humans blown away or being devoured by zombies to cheer up a condemned dog.

Mook B keeps asking A what he wants from Paris. Indeed, between Cate and B, A is being drowned in solicitousness. I have apparently become invisible. No one asks me what I want from Paris or Florida or fucking anywhere. B has stocked the freezer with all of A's favourite foods but I continue to survive on a diet of crap kibble soaked in store-bought broth. You know what that tastes like? A Floridian's arsehole is what.

The only consolation is that Mook A's own asshole still looks like it belongs to the head cheerleader for the prison football team, so my beloved nurse visits five times a week now with a swing nurse on weekends. I wonder if their code of ethics requires them to report if I'm starving to death, being beaten or have a bladder that's about to explode. Mind, if their code of ethics requires that, I suppose it certainly requires them to report when I kill Mook A in his sleep and eat his fucking face off.

Pray for me.

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 14, 2009; Identity Crisis!

A little down the street from us live these two women. One of them is like a thousand years old and she's a bit like one of those crones in a fairy story except her hair is really, really blond. She lives with her daughter who is getting up there, in terms of crone-ism, and her hair is bright, bright red. They have a cat.

Now this cat and I have a strange relationship. Once, while walking with Mook A, the cat seemed to show some interest in me while not showing the hostility that virtually every other cat in the neighbourhood gives me. I started to approach the cat, also without hostility. The redhead told the Mook, "She really, really hates dogs" but that didn't prevent the crone, who had the cat on a leash, from approaching me and the Mook with the animal. It was strange. It was creepy-mysterioso. The cat and I touched noses. The redhead said she'd never seen anything like it.

Three days ago I was in the alley (again with A) and we came up to the apartment building where the biddies and their feline live. The cat was in the backyard behind a fence and when it saw me it came forward to the fence. This is where things get weird. I approached the fence slowly as did the cat. A gave me all the leash that I wanted so I wasn't strangling. The cat and I only had the fence between us now. We could almost touch. I could smell that hideous smell cats have but all that did was to intoxicate me a little. The cat hissed at but it was a gentle—almost lulling—sound and it moved back. I moved back. We both moved forward but so, so slowly. Almost touching again, now, she hissed a little and I noticed that she was a she

and that she stank of something else besides cat...she smelled of wet pussy (if you know what I mean, and I think you do). She moved back, just out of reach, and hissed a little and I felt I had to do something to get her to come forward again so I started to snerf and whimper and hop about. That's when Mook A said, "That's enough" and dragged me off.

"I have no fucking idea what that was all about," he said to me as we left. "I think you're getting really, really crazy and all that back and forth and shit was just a little bit queer, Little One." Note: every time Mook B wants to crawl up my asshole and hit my every nerve he will accuse me of the one thing that hits: queerness. I don't know why...must be a queer thing. But when he calls me queer and uses that epithet, Little One, I want to kill him, myself...the world. But it did make me think. What the fuck was going on between me and that fucking cat? Was it something—ick!—sexual or was that cat trying to dominate me and, from all appearances, succeeding? And what is a dog dominated by a cat but a prison bitch. Might as well just bend over and stay that way.

It gets worse.

Mook A, again, was walking me that night and when we were done he asked Mook B, "Have you ever noticed our dog walks a little faggy?" B laughed but A went on, "You know, he's always rushing ahead and when he rushes without running his back hips sway from side to side and you start to notice how little...and dainty...his paws are and how the nails clicking on the sidewalk sound like high heels."

Fucker! I could have explained that smaller dogs have to walk fast to keep up with their mooks and that we can't help how we look doing it and that all of this is the reason we tend to try to beat up on big dogs because big dogs call us "Sissy" all the time. It's how we are and it's the 'tude and...it's how we are!!!!!

But then it gets so worse.

Two night ago I was rough-housing on the couch with B. It was wild and wooly and before I knew it I was trying to hump his arm and had a massive hard on. All play stopped. A said, "Well...there you go. He's gay after all!" B laughed—laughed!—and said, "You think we've turned him?" There was much mirth between the two of them but I wasn't laughing. Not laughing at all.

Yesterday, as a kind of joke between them and the world, the Mooks bought me a new collar. It had studs on it and was made of black leather and the brand name was Harley Davidson. They both thought this was riotous but I'll tell you now: I am going to earn those studs.

Watch me.

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!