Tag Archives: humor

The Best Kind of Motivation

by

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about motivation and its many forms. It’s a timely topic, of course, because this is the general time of year when people are already beginning to give up on their New Year’s resolutions, which often seem to involve unused gym memberships and anti-chocolate sentiments that are frankly unnatural. (This video blog by danisnotonfire is a terrifyingly accurate summary of same.) Personally, I don’t go in for New Year’s resolutions; I like to make resolutions and completely fail at them year-round, because I feel like with any skill it’s important to keep in practice. So my struggle with motivation is more or less perpetual.

My dog Trudeau with a snowy muzzle

This face right here is pretty motivating, too. If I don’t take this dog outside, how is he supposed to frolic joyfully and cover himself in snow?

It’s not that I don’t want to do the things I should be doing, it’s mostly just a matter of overcoming inertia. If it’s a choice between staying on my computer or running the dog, the choice is obvious because one of them’s entertaining and the other one’s going to leave me gasping like a landed fish. And then once I’ve dragged myself away from whatever is fascinating me on my computer screen to take the dog for a run, I have to spend the entire duration of our exercise making myself keep going when I’d really rather walk or stop or possibly collapse into a heap in the nearest pile of snow. (Trudeau does it all the time, it seems like fun.)

Still, I’m pretty serious about the running, I want to improve, I want to keep going, and it makes the dog so happy that he has like joy-seizures, so I drag myself out of the house for it. Plus, in cold weather like we’re having, it’s easier to keep warm at a run than at a walk. (Usually I can’t feel my face, but you don’t need your face for running, anyway.) I also motivate myself with a solid rewards system: I have a few good audiobooks on my MP3 player, most of them read by either by Benedict Cumberbatch or Tom Hiddleston, and which I am only allowed to listen to if I’m running. (As it turns out, beautiful voices murmuring in your ears while you exercise is really motivating and also kind of distracting. Not that I’ve jogged face-first into any lampposts or anything. Yet.)

Today was finally the breaking point of our long cold snap; I’d been pondering a movie matinee but I didn’t want to waste the weather, so I resolved to at least take the dog for a short run. Between my hectic holiday work schedule and my traditional end of year being-sick-a-thon, I hadn’t gone running in at least a month. Trudeau was absolutely beside himself when we headed for our usual running route, but I wasn’t doing so awesome. I managed to turn my ankle just crossing the street before we even got to the park, which is probably why as soon as I started carefully picking up the pace, my knee started making its own contributions of weakness and shooting pain. I ran it off like every one of my gym teachers ever have wisely advised, and for most of our run — which really I should call a “slow meander” because I was trying to ease back into it — I was doing pretty good. Around the halfway point, everything started to hurt and I really, really wanted to stop running.

And then I found my motivation.

There hadn’t been anybody at all out and about on the walking path, but suddenly Trudeau started craning his neck back behind us and generally acting like a psycho, which is usually a sign that somebody in the vicinity has a dog and Trudeau thinks he needs to fight it. I looked back and there was nothing there. So I urged Trudeau on, but I don’t know if you realize this, it’s really difficult to keep up a steady pace when there’s a 110-lb jackass on the other end of the leash displaying behavior that’s usually only seen on Jersey Shore. So I turned to look again, and this time I saw what Trudeau was so worried about: a big black lab sprinting after us through the snowy field beside the trail, right across the frozen pond.

I found my second wind, dropped a few dog biscuits on the trail in hopes that our follower would get distracted, and we ran for it. Every time I thought we’d lost him, the little bastard would turn up again, keeping a careful distance but running for us flat-out every time we started to pull away.

For all I know that dog was running after us shouting the doggy version of “Let me love you!” but he was a good 80 pounds and didn’t appear to be neutered and frankly, unleashed dogs are the bane of my very existence in any case. They might be perfectly friendly, but Trudeau has a talent for being so offensive to other dogs that even the saints among them want to give him a beating, and the last thing I want to deal with basically ever is a dog fight and the vet bills that are always sure to follow.

So I dropped more dog biscuits to slow him down, and he probably thought it was all a great game where I run like hell and he gets dog biscuits, but that all ended when I turned and stood my ground, shouted at him that he was a very bad dog and go home, and started lobbing snow balls. At which point the lab looked at me like I had crushed all of his dreams, like he thought we were bros, man, and then he turned and wandered back the way he came, like it was all fine and he didn’t want to hang out with us anyway.

I was relieved to finally be rid of him, but then I realized I was back at the entrance to the park, and I’d run my entire route without hardly thinking about the agony, and then I wondered if maybe I could convince that lab to terrify me regularly, if only I could bring along enough dog biscuits.

What We Have Here Is An Interspecies Failure To Communicate

by

My dog Trudeau is a constant source of bewilderment to me.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m pretty good with animals. At least, I think I am, if I judge myself by the standards I’ve developed from watching It’s Me or the Dog and My Cat From Hell. Admittedly, I might be skewing my sample about what constitutes an average pet owner by only comparing myself to people who are in such desperately bad situations with their pets that they have to go on television before the nation and admit that they’re the worst pet owners ever. At least it’s good for my self-esteem.

It’s just that reading an animal, at least on a basic level, isn’t that hard. I’ve always thought it’s pretty easy to tell the difference between a horse’s “oh yes, please scratch me there” face and its “if you touch me there I am seriously going to bite you in your most sensitive and squishy bits” face. A cat will clearly tell you whether it is pleased with your attentions as its minion or whether it’s about to scratch your face off as punishment for your impertinence, and it can communicate that with nothing but the tip of its tail. Dogs are even easier, because their happiness involves full-body wriggling and tail-wagging while their “I am so freaked out I might try to bite your jugular” body posture tends to be unsettling in a way that our human hindbrains can recognize as an impending wolf attack.

This is the expression that means he’s pining for the fjords.

It’s not like Trudeau himself should be all that complex a puzzle, anyway. He’s not by nature neurotic or hyper or mean or moody. Sure, with some of those ultra-intelligent herding breeds you end up expending so much energy just trying to keep them busy that eventually you find yourself thinking that it wouldn’t be that hard to teach your dog to play Scrabble. And anyway, Scrabble is the last of your worries because you’re starting to suspect that while you’re at work, he’s building a nuclear reactor in the basement. Trudeau is decidedly not one of those dogs. He’s mild-mannered, eager to please, quite trainable, and overall pleasant (unless you’re another dog, in which case he’d like for you to come closer so he can punch you in the face but he might warm up when he gets to know you better). He’s usually pretty low-maintenance. Usually.

The problem is simply that we don’t speak the same language, and this leads to frustration on everybody’s part. Like, sometimes I’ll be doing my thing, chilling on the couch with my laptop watching cat videos on the Internet or whatever it is people do (people being me, it usually involves staring at pictures of Tom Hiddleston and making whimpering noises), and Trudeau will come stick his head all up in my business, which I’m pretty sure he finds funny because of the squawking sounds I make while I’m desperately trying to keep his drool and my keyboard from meeting one another. In any event, this sort of aggressive affection is international Trudeau-speak for “I want something and I want it too badly to be polite about it right now so can we just set aside the Canadian prime minister jokes and please get on this issue right now.” I’m totally magnanimous, I can rise to the occasion and refrain from making cracks about Canadians and politeness, obviously. The problem is working out what the “something” is that he’s so desperate for.

Most of the time it’s not complicated: he wants to go out, or he thinks it’s his mealtime regardless of whether it’s anywhere near his actual mealtime. (He recognizes that time is not linear and is rather a big ball of wibbly wobbly timey wimey… stuff. Which means it should always be dinner time.) But when he’s just been for a nice long walk an hour ago, followed up by a trick-training session to exercise his mind, a rousing game of “find the treats I have hidden around the house,” and a delicious supper, it’s kind of hard to think of what else he might need. And since he doesn’t actually speak English, except for a few key words like “sit,” “stay,” “roll over,” and “outside,” he can’t even give me the nod when I’ve hit the right item on a whole list of potential answers. I usually rattle them off aloud anyway, because it makes me feel like I’m being proactive about the situation. When “outside” fails to elicit any sort of obviously enthusiastic response, I’m forced to get more creative.

He may try to convince you that he’s never been on a walk before while you are in fact still in the middle of taking him for a walk. Do not believe his lies.

Does he want a snuggle? Is he just trying to weasel his way onto the couch? Maybe he’s distressed that I’ve moved the ottoman to where I can put my feet up on it and have therefore screwed up the room’s feng shui? Is Timmy down the well? Is he concerned about the situation in Gaza? Am I neglecting him? Does he feel like his life is passing him by and he’s not achieving any of his dreams and he’s only just realized that he’s never going to be able to start that woodworking business he’s always dreamed of because he doesn’t have thumbs? Is it just a general sense of ennui? Does he want to discuss his feelings? Do we need to hug it out?

Usually I end up trying at least a few of my more practical suggestions, like giving him a hug or relocating to the floor so I’m in a better position for snuggling if that’s he needs. I’d offer to buy  him a lathe or something so he could hone his woodworking skills but honestly I think it would all just end in tears. I try explaining that to him gently while he just stares at me, getting more and more frustrated, expressing his dire and all-consuming need for something by decorating me with streaks of drool.

Once we’ve dispensed with this ritual, I’m usually flabbergasted enough to try the things I’ve already ruled out, and since he’s never actually succeeded in convincing me that I haven’t actually given him dinner yet, I usually end up taking him outside, where it quickly becomes apparent that at some point he has slurped down his entire very large bowl full of water and does, indeed, need to relieve himself again. Or he just needed a nice wallow on his back in the grass. Or he was dying to try to make friends with a neighborhood squirrel. (Not normal friends, though. Murder friends. Trudeau is not pro-squirrel.)

Mostly, I think it’s just a test he likes to conduct occasionally, to make sure my obedience training is coming along: he wants to make sure that he’s still able to convince me to take him outside on demand for no apparently obvious reason. Which actually is okay with me, because I live in fear of the day that he truly realizes how quickly he can get me off the couch and out the door just by hacking like he’s about to toss his proverbial cookies. I don’t think my nerves could take it.

There Is A Time To Every Purpose Under Heaven, Including Shaking Your Money-Maker

by

Sometimes I worry about my fellow Utahns. Do you think it’s possible to die of being too uptight?

I went out tonight even though “going out” is not really my forte. One of my favorite bands of ever, Hey Rosetta!, was opening a show at In the Venue, and although that’s not exactly my favorite place in the world, I figured if one of my favorite bands could come all the way from Newfoundland, I could probably drag myself out of the house to see them. I was pretty excited about this excursion, even though I was going out by myself and would end up texting half the night just to appear slightly less forever alone. (This strategy doesn’t work, by the way. Everybody totally knows you’re forever alone, and texting your friends in Canada only reminds you of how lame it is that you don’t live in Canada.) I spent my workday humming “Welcome” to myself and chair-dancing. I’m not proud. Hopefully nobody saw me.

The band’s set was awesome, in case you were wondering. The club was absurdly hot, the sound system was slightly embarrassing, but if there’s one thing that Hey Rosetta! knows how to do, it’s very gently rocking your face off. (In the best way, though. Like, they blow your mind in a totally considerate fashion.)

It’s entirely possible I was the only person there just to see the opening act, and entirely possible I was the only one there who had ever heard Hey Rosetta! before, and for awhile as I watched the stone-still crowd I was kind of worried that maybe none of these people were going to appreciate the native songs of Newfoundland… it’s always more fun when you can share the things you love with others. Of course, the awesomeness of Hey Rosetta! is an unstoppable juggernaut of truth that cannot be denied; the crowd seemed to be digging it, and between songs their enthusiasm and appreciation was evident. But they still were not moving. I am familiar with this phenomenon because I’ve been to a few other shows since moving back to Utah, but I still can’t get used to it. For awhile there, I was worried that I’d unwittingly stumbled into some sort of theme night. Like maybe we were all supposed to be pretending to be exhibits at a wax museum, or possibly we were playing a game of red light green light and nobody was in charge to give us a green light. A couple times I saw one or two people bobbing their heads. (Solidarity, brothers!) Otherwise, as far as I could tell, I was the only almost-dancer in the room, and I wasn’t doing much more than swaying and giving my hips an undoubtedly embarrassing shimmy. (By Utah standards, I believe this is the equivalent of being drunk, high and godless all at the same time.)

Look, I know what it’s like. I’m a native, and in my time away from the beehive state I came to embrace the place that my heritage has given me in the greater social scheme of things, which generally consisted of being the most unhip, uncoordinated person in any given room. Utah is all about repression, and you can’t help but absorb that shit like a sponge when you grow up here. I’ve come to terms with it. But I feel like every time I go out to see a show around here, the entire audience steals my gig by being very Utahn and very white and refusing to move at all, ever. And then I feel pressured to set an example somehow — look! Dancing is allowed! — but I don’t actually know how to dance so then I just get insecure and what I’m saying is, your refusal to dance is bad for my self-esteem.

I know it’s rough, you guys. I know there’s not a lot of space. I know dancing can be awkward and weird. You can start small. Bob your head. Tap your foot. Let your hips get in on the action. I know it seems a little sinful but that kid in Footloose had some pretty convincing arguments about why God would be down with you dancing, and personally I trust Kevin Bacon’s research and believe it to be impeccable. Nobody’s going to judge you for getting your groove on. When I go full plaid, I kind of look like this guy:


Guy starts dance party

That guy danced like an idiot and look how well it turned out for him! He made a ton of friends and started a movement and was even the subject of a TED Talk. Just think: cut loose and you could become famous on the Internet! Nobody’s expecting you to be Channing Tatum. (You were expecting that to be a stripper video, weren’t you? Admit it.) Just start with being the flailing guy on the hill, and go from there.

Maybe we should all learn to dance together. There are resources out there for people like us, my fellow unhipnicks. We can learn. I believe this is a reliable educational source, and once we’ve mastered those moves we can go on to the advanced seminar. When you’re done with that, you can study this video of Tim dancing with a tambourine. (It’s not homework, it’s just awesome.) I believe in my heart that if we all work on unwinding our spines, extracting our broomsticks, and letting the devil into our pelvises (that’s totally going to be the name of a new dance I’m going to invent), we’ll all have a much better time.

Sincerely,

me

P.S. I love you all, even though I find your lack of dancing disturbing. And you really ought to go buy some Hey Rosetta! CDs or something.

Driving Along the Twisted Road (or, Why Everything Is Better With Fisticuffs)

by

“In Paradise there are no stories, because there are no journeys. It’s loss and regret and misery and yearning that drive the story forward, along its twisted road.” – from The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

I love conflict. I love messy entanglements, vicious fights both physical and verbal, estrangements and inner struggles, war and strife, murder and mayhem. I love damning secrets, shadowy maneuverings, sibling rivalries, forbidden romances, fistfights and poisonings. There is nothing I love more than a good old fashioned dust-up, either literal or metaphorical.

I also have a book on my shelf called The Coward’s Guide to Conflict, because in my own life I hate every single one of the things I’ve listed above. (I haven’t read that book yet, by the way. It sounds too confrontational for me.) I am completely ill-equipped to handle any sort of squabble. If two random people on the train start having an incredibly mild disagreement, I’m mortified.

Gentleman 1: I say, old fellow! You’ve just bumped my elbow, wot.
Gentleman 2: Oh dear me, I’m dreadfully sorry old chum, but I daresay you needn’t take that tone with me. Perhaps we should discuss the matter over tea.
Me: Oh god please let the train crash and kill us all, I can’t handle this level of animosity.

If people I actually know are having a full-blown argument, forget it; it’s like watching your parents fight, and I’d rather run away to Tibet to become a yak-herder than even have to witness it. I can’t even blame parental drama; mine weren’t together anymore by the time I was born, and as far as I remember nobody else in my family was the type for full-blown fights either (we seemed to have a preference for cold wars, or possibly I just ran away at the first sign of trouble and just never actually witnessed any fighting first-hand). Maybe there just wasn’t enough strife in my household when I was a kid; I never learned how to cope. At the first sign of incipient conflict, I freeze up like a startled rabbit and start singing Soft Kitty to myself.

Maybe my inability to handle that sort of thing in my daily life is why I’m such a junkie for it everywhere else. If there’s one thing that I want from my entertainment, it’s conflict. I want the characters to be struggling with themselves, with each other, with their environments and their societies and possibly with giant radioactive jellyfish from the deep. I want them to be fist-fighting cougars and experiencing all sorts of heart-rending angst and wrestling with their inner demons or their own personal arch-enemies. Conflict is a great way to poke your characters and provoke a response, and of course the response is the satisfying part; that’s where we learn what our characters are made of. We figure out who they are — and become invested in their lives — by seeing them freeze or fight back. If Romeo and Juliet had successfully hidden their relationship and eloped to Las Vegas and been blissfully happen together until they were old and grey, that play would’ve been boring as hell and furthermore, we wouldn’t have really cared about either of them. The meat of the story is in what happens when everybody else finds out about the secret forbidden love affair, and how our heroes react to it all. (In Romeo and Juliet’s case, of course, they reacted by being overdramatic emo teenagers, and look how that turned out.)

Spoiler alert: They totally both die.

This issue of conflict is, I believe, why it’s so impossible these days to find a good romance film. I love romance movies, the sappier the better, so my standards are not unusually high. I have, in fact, watched Chasing Liberty more than once, though mostly that was so I could look at Matthew Goode. That movie at least has a bit of conflict as an obstacle to our heroes’ love, though mostly it’s just Mandy Moore throwing endless hissy fits. But contrast that with Leap Year, another romance movie that I watched just for Matthew Goode (damn you, man), and you begin to see the problem.

See, Leap Year should’ve been a sure thing. It’s got Matthew Goode and Ireland and I’ve liked Amy Adams since she did Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day (Lee Pace for the win!). But mostly Matthew Goode in Ireland, okay? Two gorgeous things that look gorgeous together. Only the trouble with the whole concept is, there really aren’t any obstacles to our characters becoming romantically involved. Sure, she’s got a boyfriend she’s trying to reunite with so she can propose to him, but in these sorts of films the boyfriend is always a bit of a tosser and the relationship is always devoid of human warmth, so you can’t figure out why our girl wouldn’t just go for it with the hot Irishman in the goatee. (Except in those cases when the current partner — who is eventually going to be dumped by our romantic lead — is quite a nice person and overall gets shafted, and then you get distracted by what a couple of dicks the “heroes” of the film are. For an example of this, see Colin Firth in The Accidental Husband. It’s not even remotely a good movie, but it does have Colin Firth and Jeffrey Dean Morgan in it, so. Now if they’d made Jeffrey Dean and Colin the two romantic leads, that would’ve been a whole different and much more interesting film. TAKE NOTE, HOLLYWOOD.) Lacking any substantial reason to keep the movie going for the next hour and a half by keeping our lovers apart, the writers seem to default to artificially creating conflict by making the two romantic leads so obnoxious that even the viewer can’t stand them.

“Hey there, I’m hot and we’re in Ireland, you want to hook up?”
“LOL nah, I haven’t showed you all of my personality defects yet. Before we can get to the snogging at least one of us has to suffer a hilarious concussion and there have to be a few jokes about sex and/or bodily functions.”

(Oh, and lest I give you the mistaken impression that Matthew Goode only does films that are moderately to severely dreadful, I’d like to encourage you to watch A Single Man. His part is rather small on screen but is the center of the whole plot, and it’s just a gorgeous, heart-rending film in general. Also, it made me cry like a tiny little girl. But if that’s not your sort of film either, then surely you liked  him in Watchmen. SURELY. ILU, Matthew Goode. Call me.)

For an even better example of this phenomenon of hard-core lack of anything compelling happening, you could try watching the worst romantic comedy I have ever had the misfortune of viewing, namely The Back-Up Plan. Or, you could stab yourself in the eye with a rusty spoon. The latter would probably be less painful. The thing is, in our modern world, when you take two single and unrealistically attractive people who live relatively normal lives and are not secretly werewolves or engaged in centuries-long familial blood feuds or whatever, there really just aren’t that many reasons for them not to make it work. Sure, relationships fail all the time for a ridiculous variety of reasons, but when it comes to our entertainment we’re generally not interested about a story of boy meets girl where they meet and rather painlessly get together and then discover that ultimately they’re just not compatible because one of them leaves wet towels on the floor. When it comes right down to it, you’re going to need just a touch more drama than that.

(At this point I feel like I should maybe apologize to people who loved Leap Year — I know you’re out there — because god knows we all have those movies that we love even though logically we shouldn’t, but if you really genuinely loved The Back-Up Plan, then I think YOU should apologize to ME.)

Luckily, we have plenty of types of conflict to make our characters’ lives more interesting, even if we don’t necessarily want to introduce any of those forms of conflict into our own existences. (Existensi?) The generally accepted classifications that I learned in school were Man vs. Self, Man vs. Nature, Man vs. Society, Man vs. Man, Man vs. God and Man vs. Machine. The really juicy characterization comes in when these are used richly and in combination. Take The Avengers, for instance. Bruce Banner — perhaps better known as The Hulk — is a classic and quite literal example of Man vs. Self, because the thing he’s most afraid of and struggles with most is himself. But he’s also got some serious Man vs. Man (with the enemy and with his own allies) and Man vs. Machine going, on account of the faceless alien invasion and all that. You could even call some of his struggle Man vs. Nature, even though the wild beast he’s fighting is a part of him. (There’s also an added element of Man vs. God, and I’m pretty sure we all enjoyed how that turned out. Well, everybody except the god in question.) And that’s just one character in an ensemble of other characters who are just as richly drawn. I’m pretty sure when Joss Whedon was making this film his big decisions were which conflicts to cut out because he had too damn many good ones, rather than trying to think of some contrived problem to shoehorn in to liven things up a bit. (I find that, as a general rule, things never need livening up when The Hulk is involved.)

If your story is lacking in conflict, maybe you should outsource the job to The Hulk. Just tell him to smash and watch as he creates a multitude of glorious explosions, plane crashes and other catastrophes for your entertainment.

By sheer random happenstance, just as I was deeply pondering the nature of conflict and how much I hate pretty much any movie with Matthew McConaughey in it these days, I stumbled across a series of writer’s workshops being put on by a local library. The first talk, by local fantasy author Paul Genesse, was all about conflict: why every story needs it, and how to find it without forcing it. (You can find Paul’s presentation notes over here on his blog if you’re interested.) Paul gave a great presentation and we had some terrific insights from the audience as well. I picked up a few great pieces of advice I hadn’t heard before, and was particularly intrigued by the extremely strong opinions some of us had about what qualities in the face of conflict make characters either heroic or utterly intolerable. It seemed we all quite vociferously agreed that characters who let situations push them along, rather than acting to create their own destinies, are pretty much too irritating to be borne. Paul summed it up rather well this way:

Conflict means letting your character make choices. The stronger the character, the more difficult the choices.

The rest of my notes are, I’m afraid, less eloquent. Paul was discussing at one point what sorts of things don’t actually work in creating conflict… like making characters argue for no good reason. (Are you listening, Leap Year? ARE YOU?! I will punch you.) He also brought up my favorite point of writing ever, which is that we can best reveal who our characters are not by giving extensive descriptions of them at every opportunity but by putting them in uncomfortable situations and letting them sort it out. I might have transcribed his thoughts a bit unfaithfully though when I wrote a reminder to myself that read, “When writing lots of exposition, kill yourself.”

See? That’s a great example right there. I could’ve just written a straight-up description of what Paul told us, but instead I added a little Woman vs. Self drama in there. I’m just trying to keep it real. Now if you’ll excuse me, all of this talk of conflict is getting to me, and I think I need to go find a shark so I can punch it in its face.

My Dog Trudeau Makes Some Seriously Poor Life Choices

by

My dog Trudeau is kind of an idiot. I say this with all possible love and affection, but seriously though.

“I don’t know what you mean. I am ALL CLASS.”

Case in point. Trudeau is kind of dog-aggressive, meaning that sometimes he gets on just fine with other dogs and sometimes he is a colossal tool. This makes my life difficult primarily because it’s generally impossible to tell, when Trudeau reacts with excitement to another dog, whether he wants to play with it or beat it until it pees itself. Also, since Trudeau weighs in at 110 pounds, he can be a little hard to handle when he decides to get in touch with his inner bastard. As a result, he’s simply restricted from getting anywhere near other dogs, which clearly drives him crazy and doesn’t help the problem, but what the hell, dog? You’d be able to indulge in all the glories of the dog park if you weren’t such a son of a bitch.

I guess if you’re a dog this could be like… the canine equivalent of Chucky? Or clowns, maybe.

We’ve been working long and hard on his ability to listen to me rather than flipping his lid, but still, he is a dog. It’s not like I can just explain things and expect him to be rational. I thought at least his issues were rooted in some form of genuine dog behavior voodoo until the other week when we were passing a vendor’s table at a street fair. The guy had a stuffed German Shepherd toy on his table to show off the collars he was selling.

Trudeau caught sight of this completely fake dog and went full Cujo. I have never, in all the time I’ve had him, heard him bark and snarl and generally just go ape-shit the way he did over that stuffed toy. I’m pretty sure we gave the booth vendor — who had his back to us at the time — a heart attack. His life probably flashed before his eyes.

Once I’d dragged Trudeau away from the offending plushie, I said, “What the hell, dog?! THAT IS NOT EVEN A REAL DOG YOU JUST WENT INSANE OVER.”

And he said, “What? That was totally justified. He said something about my mom.” Or at least, that’s what I imagine he said. It’s sort of what he said with his eyebrows. I don’t actually think my dog talks to me. Honest.

Still, sometimes I think his general psychopathy is the least of his problems. A few days ago I took him for a walk on the local parkway, which runs along a sort of small swampland and is generally just choked with weeds and gnats and kind of nasty river grasses. (It’s actually not always a pleasant place to walk and it’s kind of covered in graffiti for some reason but whatever, it’s close to home and well removed from Utah’s insane drivers.) Trudeau chose to divert himself by eating vegetation, which normally I don’t mind — I feed him greens myself and I think variety is important to a dog’s diet, plus eating grass seems to be an important part of settling his stomach when he’s feeling not-super. But normally he’s eating a few handfuls of grass here and there. This time he chose to eat weedy seed-heads. You know, the kind that sort of look like wheat, with essentially big spines on them? The kind that look profoundly inedible? Things sort of went like this:

Me: Oh my GOD, dog, STOP eating those things! You are going to puke them back up and it is not going to be pleasant because they are practically BARBED.
Trudeau: You’re not my real mom! *noms*
Me: This is not going to end well for either of us, you realize this.
Trudeau: These are SO GOOD! *noms* Let’s take some home! We can grow our own! I’ll poop the seeds out and we can start a GARDEN, lolz! *noms*
Me: I hate you, did you know that? I wish I could just let you walk home by yourself so nobody would know that we know each other.
Trudeau: I don’t know what you’re so upset about. *pukes*

He waited until we were at the farthest point from home, of course, and then he started throwing up seed-heads, one seed-head at a time. We’d take ten steps and then he’d start hacking like a twelve-pack-a-day smoker, and leave behind a little puddle of vileness with a single sprig of vegetation at its center. Walk ten steps, repeat. When we finally got back to the river again, I let him eat swampgrass for a good five minutes, which finally settled his stomach, but that really could’ve gone either way… it could’ve just caused him to puke even more violently for the next twenty minutes. These are the kinds of choices that our dogs drive us to.

Trudeau is known for his poor food choices, though. He once chose to sneak a drink from a pasture drainage ditch while I was busy re-tying my shoelace, and took a nice big drink of brackish, standing manure run-off water. (That didn’t end well.) The photo below was taken his first time at the ocean, and as you can see he is drinking huge mouthfuls of seawater, presumably because his previous mouthfuls of seawater made him thirsty.

He will also eat anything that is thrown at his face, and simply assume that it is edible. He’s a very trusting soul. Usually he won’t bother to smell or taste it, he’ll just shovel it down his gullet. I’m pretty sure if I threw a chainsaw at his face he’d swallow it. Actually, we could possibly turn that into a sideshow act and maybe he’d earn his keep for once. Lord knows he’s not going to acquire any other sort of gainful employment, unless you can count “being a total knob” as an occupation.

If you enjoyed this post, I would like to offer you some additional recommended reading. You might enjoy my previous post about the day I threatened to develop psychic powers just so I could destroy my dog remotely, but I also want to very seriously recommend both Texts From Dog (every moment of it is pure genius) and Hyperbole and a Half‘s blogs titled Dog (in which the author administers an IQ test to her dog) and Dogs Don’t Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving, in which the Simple Dog discovers she’s magical and can make food, and the Helper Dog has a nervous breakdown. Both of these authors are seriously genius and I hope you will enjoy the ever-loving hell out of them. While you’re doing that, I’ll be over here, giving my dog Trudeau this IQ test…

It’s Just Like the Road Warrior, Only with Minivans

by

The thing about driving in Utah is, it’s kind of like taking a detour into Bartertown. Sure, you were just minding your own business, driving along the back roads of the American west, maybe treating your dog to a nice vacation and doing your best to improve the lives of feral desert-dwelling children, and then suddenly you find yourself in a Thunderdome cage match, fighting to the death under the approving gaze of Tina Turner.

All of what I just said is absolutely true, except for the part about Tina Turner.

It’s possible that you came to this land on purpose, or that it wasn’t worth the hassle to drive around it on your way to somewhere else, or that your ancestors’ plane crashed here and you don’t know how to escape. I suppose it’s not far-fetched that anybody would come here on purpose; certainly Utah is jam-packed with natural splendor, if you’re into that sort of thing, and Mormons, if you’re into that sort of thing, and apparently a growing number of vegan eating establishments, if my newspaper is to be believed. But the trouble is mostly that it’s packed full of Utahns. And for reasons that nobody can quite explain, they insist on driving to places.

The minute you hit that border, mark my words, it is going to be like The Lord of the Flies up in here. One minute you’re driving along in a civilized fashion, using your turn signals and gallantly allowing traffic to merge, and the next thing you know you’re passing on the right, you’re squeezing into spaces that only Mini Cooper drivers could contemplate before, and you’re using the broken fenders and blood-stained seatbelts of your vanquished foes to create your own personal body armor.

Hey, nobody’s going to blame you. Once you’re across that border, all bets are off, and it’s up to you to protect your car and your family of four and the dog and your extensive collection of Journey cassette tapes. And if that means mounting a harpoon on the roof of your Subaru or ripping out a grown man’s throat with your teeth while hanging out the window of a vehicle doing 75 miles per hour on the highway, then so be it.

To give you the best chance of surviving your foray onto Utah’s practically post-apocalyptic roadways, I would like to offer you some important rules to live by.

1. Every other driver on the road is your enemy. Show them no mercy.
This is the first and most important rule. You might think that lady in the minivan with ten kids in the back is just some soccer mom hauling pretty much the whole team to a match, but in reality those hooligans are her road gang and they are prepared to bathe in your blood. Always remember to screw the other guy before he can screw you; it’s every man for himself in the arena, and as we all know, two men enter, one man leaves. Of course, that doesn’t mean that other drivers won’t form alliances in order to screw you over harder than a single man could do alone. These roadways are full of roving gangs of minivans and they are not afraid to Mormon roadblock you.

2. In order to deter attack, you must engage in displays of dominance.
You stand a better chance of surviving if other drivers are too frightened to fight you. This is why you must engage in ritual displays that will intimidate other drivers. The way in which you drive can send a strong message; for instance, if you always drive with a distance of only 0.2 microns between your front bumper and another vehicle’s rear bumper, it’s sort of the equivalent of humping the other driver’s leg while chanting, “Yeah, you like that, don’t you? Who’s my bitch? Who’s my good little bitch?” By refusing to allow other vehicles to merge in front of you, you signal your unwillingness to be mounted. Should you choose to decide to drive in two lanes at once rather than picking a single lane, this is a lot like lifting a leg and marking your territory. You get the idea. By engaging in subtle — and completely unsubtle — displays of dominance, you will demonstrate to other drivers your willingness to destroy them and to violate their spouses. This will also help you to identify which of the other drivers on the road will challenge you — they’ll attempt their own dominance displays in response — and which ones will roll over and piss themselves.

3. Predictability is the same thing as kill-ability.
An enemy who can anticipate your movements is an enemy who can effectively target you. This is why it is essential to keep your movements unpredictable, and actively practice misdirection. Never use your turning signals, except when you are not actually turning. Have you encountered a roundabout? Treat it like a four-way stop. Actual four-way stop? You go when you decide, not when the law dictates; hell, roll right through that bad boy, or refuse to go even when it’s your right-of-way. Traffic light out? Just blast through there as fast as you can, I’m sure it’ll be fine. Train coming? Flip a U-turn across the tracks; an oncoming train is a great way to shake pursuers, if you manage to survive. I know because I saw it in a movie once. I think it had Vin Diesel in it.

4. Take every opportunity for clever concealment.
Of course, you’ll be wanting to cut other drivers off as much as possible — as we’ve discussed, if anybody’s going to be doing any leg-humping here, it ought to be you — so it’s important to practice concealing yourself on the open roadway. When beginning to overtake another vehicle, spend as long as possible in that vehicle’s “blind spot,” that area where you are nearly invisible thanks to your disappearance from the other driver’s rearview mirror. Imagine yourself as a lion on the savannah, creeping up on a helpless baby gazelle. You may also find it helpful to conceal yourself by finding a large vehicle — like a camper or eighteen-wheeler — and driving so close to the bumper that it looks like you are in fact being towed. It is the perfect camouflage, particularly from police, and though it may seem dangerous to be following that closely at highway speeds, I’m sure you’ve seen The Fast and the Furious plenty of times, so you’ve got this.

5. Posted signs and road markers may be misleading. Do not trust them.
We all know that posted speed limits are merely meant as a challenge and that lowered railroad crossing arms are just an excellent opportunity to teach your car how to jump hurdles like a fine show pony. But road signs and markers in Utah add an extra layer of complexity that will keep you second-guessing even as you’re trying to engage in open combat with your fellow drivers. There may or may not be a sign to let you know that your lane is about to end abruptly. You may be rerouted into a single slow-moving lane for months by construction signs which never actually yield forth any construction. (More the fool you if you accept these delays by following the directions of construction signs. They’re not the boss of you.) When it rains, you are entering a special bonus round in which the lines on the road completely disappear and you are free to occupy as many lanes as you possibly can at any one time, while engaging in a billiards-like driving strategy where instead of simply turning the wheel to direct your vehicle to the appropriate off-ramp, you merely careen into the vehicle next to you and use the rebounding force of the impact to propel you in the right direction.

I know what you’re thinking. Utah? The reality can’t be that hard-core. Those people are known for their ties and their interesting ideas about marriage, not for their murderous road rage. Surely the drivers are worse in places like New York or Boston or Los Angeles. (Little-known fact: Drivers in LA are intense but you can rest assured knowing they’re all stunt drivers.) And it might be true that drivers elsewhere are more aggressive, but you’d be hard-pressed to find any drivers who pay any less attention to the road than Utahns. I think maybe it’s because they’re expecting God to protect them and also they had a very poor science education. They don’t realize that two objects can’t occupy the same space at the same time. Oh, and also, they want to kill you and use your sun-bleached skull as a football. I’d wish you luck, but honestly, I have to drive here too, so now that you know how to survive your next foray into the Deseretdome, I sincerely hope that you’ll stay out of my way because otherwise I will have to destroy you and everything that you love.

A Serious Matter of Attribution

by

I have a problem with Johnny Depp.

Now, before you lynch me, I should point out that my problem isn’t actually Johnny Depp. Just like this quote, which has been circulating around Facebook often enough to make me homicidal, also has little to do with Johnny Depp.

Yeah, I made my own version of it just for this blog. Why? Because I’m particular about typography.

I have nothing against Johnny. I’ve quite enjoyed him, from Scissorhands to Sleepy Hollow (although his Wonka was a little too psychopathic-pedophile for my tastes). It’s just that this type of misattribution drives me absolutely around the bend, which is why despite the fact that most people probably never get tired of looking at Johnny Depp, I have grown so annoyed just by the sight of his face that I want to punch someone. This is just another reason why I shouldn’t be on Facebook at all, I guess, but I am, so rather than froth at the mouth and post gentle correction after gentle correction on my long-suffering friends’ walls, I thought I should just blog about it.

You see, that quote up there, the very lovely and profound quote about that most fascinating emotion, isn’t Johnny Depp’s. They’re actually lines he spoke, in character, for the film Don Juan DeMarco. As such, they probably shouldn’t be attributed to Depp but rather to the character, since it’s screenwriter Jeremy Leven’s Don Juan and not, in fact, Johnny Depp who has so eloquently waxed poetic about life and love. You savvy? (Heh, see what I did there?)

By way of illustration, allow me to demonstrate how easy it is to make Johnny Depp look like a complete idiot and/or psychopath by attributing to him some other lines from his characters.

When you attribute quotes that actually come from ALICE IN WONDERLAND’s The Mad Hatter, Johnny starts sounding like maybe he needs some rehabs to go with his tea.

Or you could use this quote from the title character in ED WOOD to make Johnny sound like a transvestite. Transvestites are often both awesome and fun, but Johnny might still be pissed if you shared this around on Facebook without checking to find out whether he himself is in fact a transvestite. (Don’t be modest, he like totally reads your wall EVERY DAY.)

Or you could use this quote from Raoul Duke of FEAR & LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS to make it sound like… well actually, he probably is rich enough that he could make girl-on-polar-bear action happen if he really wanted to. If I were him, I would instead import a polar bear, train it to carry me into battle, and outfit it with its own suit of armor and possibly a small cannon. But that’s just me.

You see my point, I’m sure. Of course, Johnny isn’t the only person to suffer from this misattribution malady. (According to my spell check I just made up the word “misattribution.” Screw you, spellcheck.) Every line ever uttered by any character in any play written by Shakespeare tends to be attributed as simply, “-Shakespeare.” By this logic, Shakespeare must’ve been a Danish prince stranded on an island while trying to murder his Moorish rival while going mad and wandering the wilderness with his fool, and a lot more besides. He was a very busy man. A similar conundrum makes crediting the screenwriter or author for a character’s quote problematic; writers do not necessarily share their characters’ opinions, though they do put words in their mouths. The safest bet then, if you’re looking to attribute a quotation for a character, is to attribute the quote to the character by name, and also cite the work in which that character utters the line. That way everything’s nice and simple, and people who are intrigued by the sexual shenanigans of polar bears even know where to find more information on the subject! It’s a win-win!

So, just in case you’ve found yourself to be terribly inspired by that slightly abridged opening quote — you know, the one from Don Juan DeMarco? — and you want to share it on your Facebook wall, I want you to know that because I’m such a giver, I’ve made a new version of it for you. You’re welcome. I’ll be posting it on my page if you’d care to share it and help me stamp out rampant misattribution on Facebook. I won’t even ask you to change your profile picture to a cartoon character or post that you’re going on a vacation you aren’t actually going on. Sometimes it’s super-easy to do the right thing.

You Ask, I’ll Answer (Though I’ve Probably Made It Up)

by

One of the things that I love most about having a blog hosted on WordPress is that it provides me with all sorts of interesting stats that, otherwise, I wouldn’t have even thought to want. I can find out who’s linking to my blogs, whether people check out my blog after I comment on theirs, how many visitors have stopped by, which blogs they liked the most… in short, it allows me to stalk all of you more effectively.

The best part is, of course, the common search terms that people use to find your blog. One of the nice things I’m getting lately is people searching specifically for the name of the blog or for my name, which is an awesome sign that I now have more readers than just my grandmother. Other people are searching for entirely different things, though. For awhile there I was getting a lot of stuff like “white worm snake” and “florida worm lizard face” (Google was undoubtedly directing them to my Featured Creature Friday post on The Amazing Amphisbaenians). These days, it’s all about the jellyfish. Sure, those people who are searching for “jellyfish with purple spots” or “deep sea jellyfish” might be seeking some sort of genuine, scientific taxonomical information for their school report or whatever, but I’m glad that instead I was able to warn them about the inevitable jellyfish invasion. Put that in your report, kids. If you dare. (And whomever among you searched specifically for “jellyfish are dicks”? I salute you.)

Other people are looking for things I only wish I could provide. “Roller girl fairies in pagosa springs”? Roller girls I can give you, fairies might be harder. “Horse book that is purple”? You’ve got me there.

I have noticed a trend however in search results directing people to me when they’ve asked very specific questions. So I’d like to just as a sort of general public service do my best to answer a few of those burning search engine questions. First up:

My stupid friend got stung by a portuguese man of war what should i do?

Well Carl — can I call you Carl? — if you’re right there on the beach with your stupid friend after said friend has fallen victim to an attack by a Portuguese Man o’ War, what you need to do is get out your smartphone, get on Facebook, and defriend his ass immediately. I mean sure, granted, technically the Portuguese Man o’ War isn’t actually a jellyfish, it’s a siphonophore, which is actually almost creepier on account of how it’s not just one organism, it’s an entire colony of ocean-going evil. But the point is, in the war against the jellyfish your friend has fallen victim to an animal that isn’t even really a jellyfish. It’s like getting into a war with bears and then being killed by a koala. It’s not dignified. Your friend has served his purpose by being the stupider, easier prey for the Portuguese Man o’ War, but now it’s time to move on, maybe find another sacrificial friend just in case. When they make a film about your exploits in the Great Jellyfish War, you don’t want to end up being “Private #3″ who dies in the opening sequence.

Next caller!

Do red roans buck more than other horses?

No. They are magnificent and majestic beasts, however, and if you’re considering buying a red roan horse and are worried about whether it will buck or not, just remind yourself that they are in fact the next best thing to owning a unicorn.

Can slugs only be slime mold?

My God man, that is a good question. I mean, I have absolutely no idea what you’re asking but you did ask it with a kind of bizarre confidence that frankly, I’ll bet the ladies find insanely attractive. But the answer to your question — whatever your question was supposed to be — is no, slugs cannot only be slime mold. That’s like saying that teenagers can only work at the McDonald’s drive-through or that dogs cannot fly. Stop trying to pigeonhole the slugs. Stop trying to kill their dreams. YOU MONSTER.

What does it mean if you see an echidna?

Well, first of all, it means you’re either Australian or you’re at the zoo. (Or you’re in New Zealand, I guess, which is actually the best option because doesn’t Frodo live there?) As far as I know if you see an echidna it doesn’t mean anything like four more weeks of winter or not to wear white after Labor Day (I guess it’d be Labour Day for you, mate). Apparently if you dream about an echidna though, it means you’re innocent like a child and your belly is exposed to Mother Earth or something like that. I don’t know, I looked it up on the Internet and it seems like what they’re trying to say is that you’re kind of immature and you should put more clothes on.

There were a few other questions, but they were frankly so incomprehensible that I couldn’t imagine what they were after… and one was seeking anatomical details on donkeys that, frankly, I feel are best left between the donkey and his lady-friend.

Featured Creature Friday: The Inevitable Jellyfish Invasion

by

Look, this week I do not have anything cutesy to tell you about some freaky little animal that you have never met before, okay? There is something more important you need to know, and I’ve been trying to get the word out but nobody is listening. And by the time the world wakes up and pays attention, it’s going to be too late.

EVERYBODY LISTEN, OKAY? LISTEN. THE JELLYFISH ARE GOING TO KILL US ALL.

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. You’re all, “Oooh, jellyfish, they’re so pretty even if they sting, and I liked that part in Finding Nemo!” Well, Finding Nemo was nothing but underwater propaganda. They were trying to make you think that the ocean’s got all these nice friendly creatures when really the ocean is more like Australia: most things there are trying to kill you. But mostly the jellyfish.

Oh, I’m sorry. What’s that? You’re not afraid of jellyfish? You think I’m overreacting? Let’s go over all the reasons why jellyfish are the enemy.

1. They are not eco-friendly. Most animals contribute in some way to the rest of the food chain, whether it’s their waste nourishing kelp beds or their dead bodies feeding other creatures or whatever else. But jellyfish think they’re too good to contribute to the community. According to this article, jellyfish basically eat everything and turn it into a “gelatinous biomass.”

During a jellyfish bloom, food webs may thus be plucked and rearranged, configured to feed jellies that in turn feed almost nothing. Whether this represents the future of Earth’s oceans depends on whom you ask, but it’s an interesting phenomenon in itself.

“Jellyfish are consuming more or less everything that’s present in the food web,” said Robert Condon, a Virginia Institute of Marine Science and co-author of a jellyfish-impact study published June 7 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “They’re eating a lot of the food web, and turning it into gelatinous biomass. They’re essentially stealing a lot of the energy, then putting it away.”

A vivid color illustration of my worst nightmares come to life: a diver among giant Nomura jellyfish. Photo from the Yomiuri Shimbun.

When you put it that way, they pretty much sound like alien invaders from outer space, bent on consuming all of our planet’s precious resources. Or possibly just houseguests who are always high and useless and eat all your Cheetos. Jellyfish, go get a job. And when I say “go get a job” what I mean is “please exterminate yourselves for the good of all life on earth.”

2. They’re in ur ocean, sinkin ur battleship. And how, you wonder, would some jellyfish sink a ship that weighs, say, 10 tons? By being a f***ing jellyfish the SIZE OF A REFRIGERATOR. And sure, you might be thinking to yourself that the jellyfish were only getting revenge on account of the fact that this particular fishing trawler was out harvesting jellyfish, but what you might not realize is that jellyfish are not loyal. Sure, they swarm so you might think, “Aw, they’re sociable creatures and have family values!” No. Jellyfish are dicks. If they decide to sink your boat it is not out of any sort of loyalty toward their fellow jellyfish, it is only because they are being dickish. I mean, sure, they didn’t actually ram the boat all Moby Dick-style or anything, and maybe the ship only sank because the fishermen were trying to haul in a bunch of freakishly huge jellyfish and the things were too freakishly heavy and they caused the boat to capsize, but I will bet you anything that those jellyfish planned it that way.

If you’re not horrified enough just by that story, here’s some photographic evidence to help you along the jellyfish-lined road to eternal nightmares.

3. They are lulling you into a false sense of security. Like for instance, you might watch this video of a swimmer navigating unharmed among thousands of jellyfish in Palau, and think to yourself, “Holy shit, jellyfish are amazing, it’s like he’s swimming in a sea of magical fairy creatures!” If you think that, it only means that because of your gullibility, you will be the first to die when the inevitable jellyfish invasion occurs.

If the sight of this vulnerable pink human surrounded by jellyfish does not chill your blood, then you are not afraid enough. You will not survive in the coming war.

4. They are working with the algae to create a new world of slime. Aside from the obvious implications of how liveable a slime-world would be for human beings and other life, it’s also important to note that this means that the jellyfish are forming alliances with other creatures in their quest to destroy us. Their ability to negotiate trade and supply agreements as well as treaties with the algae is an obvious sign that the jellyfish are more advanced than mankind has ever given them credit for.

5. They are storming beaches all over the world, in their own gelatinous D-Day. They claimed 1600 victims in Florida. On Memorial Day. Which leads us to item 5.a: the jellyfish understand our customs and rituals and are actively mocking our cultural events.

6. They are taking over the ocean. In typical human fashion, we are unwitting accomplices in our own demise, because jellyfish have been wildly successful at living and reproducing lately because we’ve given them lots of help. Warming up the oceans was pretty nice, made them and their no-good hooligan pals the algae feel right at home, and the way we’ve overfished basically every fishery everywhere certainly cut down on competition for delicious jellyfish-food.

We must ask ourselves, how long will it be until the jellyfish decide to leave the oceans and come after us on our home turf? How long before they abandon the seas in favor of our jacuzzis and insanely comfortable sofas? Smithsonian Magazine has my back on this one, you guys.

Smithsonian Magazine, in a 2010 feature, counted the apparent predicament of jellyfish blooms as one of 40 things to know about the next 40 years, suggesting jellyfish might be on their way to dominating the biomass, or organisms in the oceans. The article pointed out that the creatures are reproducing in astonishing numbers and showing up where they had not been seen before.

7. They have been developing a secret cadre of deadly jellyfish warriors in the form of box jellyfish. They’re among the most venomous animals in the world, but they also have terrifying features like eyes that come in clusters of six on each side of their “bell,” and the ability to move through the water at a rate of about four knots, unlike other jellyfish who mostly just drift around like the lazy bastards they are. The box jellyfish are the ninjas of the growing jellyfish army.

(Edit: Comrade Angela, who is deep in enemy territory in Australia, has written to let us know of the dangers of the tiny Irukandji jellyfish. They are an extremely small stealth form of jellyfish. And being stung by them is the venomous equivalent of being bitten by 100 cobras simultaneously. Come on, ocean kingdom. Surely that is overkill.)

8. Much like zombies, even when they are dead they will not stop trying to kill you. And you can’t aim for the head because JELLYFISH DO NOT HAVE HEADS. Or brains. Or central nervous systems. We are so totally doomed, you guys.

It may be that in the end, we’ll all be killed by swarming jellyfish or ninja jellyfish or even zombie jellyfish, but right now I can only suggest that to avert disaster, every human being should come to know our greatest enemy by discovering more about the jellyfish. In that video they might look like some kind of amazing intelligent life like something out of that sweet-ass movie The Abyss, and you know something? Maybe they are. Maybe they’re exactly like that. Except that in this scenario we’re all Ed Harris (but maybe with better hair) and at the end of this movie instead of saving us the beautiful alien jellyfish will KILL EVERY LAST ONE OF US and force our pets to do their bidding.

I’m just saying. Watch yourselves. Be safe out there.

A post about the day I threatened to develop psychic powers just so I could destroy my dog remotely

by

Don’t be fooled by this face.

trudeau-winter2010-055

Look, I understand: he’s difficult to resist. I know he looks all innocent and angelic. He’s using those eyebrows on you and he’s totally working it and all you can think is, “Aw, what a handsome fellow! He’s so well-behaved and charming!”

That’s what he wants you to think. He wants you to be impressed by his easy-going and affectionate nature. He’s trying to draw you in, and when you make the mistake of thinking that “adorable” is the same thing as “trustworthy”… well, then he’s got you.

Then when you least expect it, he’s gone.

trudeau-winter2010-027

A couple of weekends ago, we had a pretty good snow storm here. I spent most of my Saturday doing chores around the house. I took Trudeau with me to check the fencelines, because we have electric fencing all around our little pastures and dry lots, and the strands tend to sag pretty alarmingly when the snow clings to them.

trudeau-winter2010-025

At first I had Tru clipped to the leash that I’d looped around my belt, but it wasn’t terribly comfortable for either of us. It’s hard to get any work done when you’ve got a dog attached to you and he makes it his mission in life to step in front of you every two seconds and then stop dead. Or just suddenly jolt off in another direction, because all he really wants from life is to eat snow. (It wouldn’t exactly take an experienced wilderness tracker to follow Trudeau’s trail in the snow: just look for the giant paw prints punctuated every few feet by a huge bite-mark in the snow.)

So, to enrich both our lives and prevent myself from ending up on my butt in the snow, I let Trudeau off his leash.

dsc_0026

I was prepared, mind you. I’ve been here and done this with Trudeau before, and I know very well that without proper incentive, his understanding of the word “come” is conditional at best, in addition to the tragic medical condition he has which causes him to be occasionally inexplicably struck deaf. This is why I had a comprehensive collection of hot dog bits in my pocket.

trudeau-winter2010-035

To give him credit where it’s due, the Sasquatch actually did great. We did a complete circuit of every fenceline on the place, shaking off the snow and checking that none of the strands were down. Tru didn’t stray more than ten feet from me, and he came when called every time, (because he knew me for the god I was, the all-powerful dispenser of hot dogs). We hauled more firewood into the house, cleared the snow from the top of the backyard trampoline, shoveled the front walk and the back deck, fed the barn cat, filled the stock tanks, then did another circuit of the fencelines, this time adding flags of vinyl taping at intervals to make the fence more visible for the horses.

It had been hours and hours, and many a piece of hot dog had passed between us, but Trudeau is a traitor, and he doesn’t understand these things that are supposed to keep us together, these bonds of love and processed meat. We were flagging the fenceline at the road, and he started to slip under the fence, and I made the designated sound that meant, “Don’t you dare, you little son of a bitch, I will hunt you to the ends of the earth.” And when he didn’t seem to find that convincing, I shouted, “Trudeau, COME!” in a tone of voice which is not to be disobeyed.

He stopped just outside the fence, and turned to look at me as if weighing up his options: the freedom of the open road versus the lure of hot dogs. His love for me versus the fact that somewhere out there, he might find new and interesting animals to chase. Maybe some that spray smells or shoot needle-sharp spines! What incredible adventures awaited him out in the snow-white world, if only he could throw off the shackles of his oppressor and his heroin-like addiction to hot dogs.

He stared at me for what felt like a long moment, completely ignoring another command to come, and then, clearly mistaking himself for Cool Hand Luke, he bolted.

dsc_0068

I tell people that I started running for my health, and to keep my dog exercised, and because my toe shoes make it incredibly fun. These are all true, but sometimes I have to admit to myself that the most useful aspect of working out is that I’m better able to chase my dog down and destroy him.

It’s not that I get mad that he disobeys, it’s that I don’t react well to animals attempting to cause me heart attacks. Sometimes I’m a worst-case-scenario sort of person, and the moment something goes wrong with my dog, all I can think is that he’s going to be hit by a car or attack another dog or find himself drawn into the international arms trade. I worry.

Trudeau headed straight across the (thankfully not terribly busy) road and down one of the gravel side streets. I sprinted after him, and quickly encountered a driver moving very slowly down the road, obviously having just passed my dog and looking disapproving. I trust that by the manic and murderous look on my face, they can rest assured knowing that we weren’t just out for a nice weekend stroll.

Coming up the road, I got to experience a heart-stopping moment of panic when I realized I couldn’t see Trudeau anywhere. He’d disappeared that quickly, and he could be anywhere. There are mountain lions in the area, and I don’t expect they’d invite Trudeau over for poker night. I might never know what had happened to him; he might simply vanish, never to be seen again.

I had just long enough to consider every possible nightmare scenario and how I was so going to kill the recalcitrant beast when I found him, and then my idiot dog wandered back onto the road from the bushes he’d been studiously sniffing, and he caught sight of me, and his expressive eyebrows took on an expression that was less, “Ha ha, freedom!” and more, “Oh, shit.”

“Trudeau, come.” I didn’t shout it this time, I growled it. My tone of voice implied that if he did not obey, I would be coming over there to personally rip his throat out with my teeth. There was a suggestion that I would enjoy it.

And he came. He came practically on his belly, and he threw himself at my feet as if to throw himself upon my mercy, and I chanted to myself, “You can’t kill him for coming, you can’t kill him for coming,” and I had to just let it go. Because he came. Too little and too late, and I hate to see him groveling but also, every part of me was experiencing the instant relief that came from being able to touch him and knowing he wasn’t gone. He came, knowing full well that he’d done something very, very wrong, and I was so happy about finding him before he’d gained any real distance, before he’d had a chance to hitchhike to Mexico or take up the life of an itinerant sheep-farmer in Argentina.

So I petted his stupid head, gave him the last of the hot dog, and told him he was a good boy even though it was a horrible, egregious lie. I clipped on the leash that I had wisely kept attached to my belt, and we went home to finish flagging the fence, and pretty soon I even let him off the leash again, because he seemed to realize now that I was serious about the “if you ever try that again I will develop psychic powers just so I can kill you with my mind” thing.

trudeau-winter2010-046

Then I took him back inside, and I shucked off my layers, and we went into my room and I made him snuggle with me as punishment. We sprawled out on my bed and I tried my best to hug him to death, and I buried my nose in the soft, sweet-smelling fur at the top of his head, and was very glad that he hadn’t made it to Argentina.