Why would you invite a journalist into your life?

Why did I invite a journalist into my life as a human, when I knew that she could expose me as a household pet, a dog?

I did it for several reasons. One -- I craved publicity like a narcotic. The thought of my name and my photograph carried to tens of thousands of homes and offices in the form of a newspaper article created a sensational pleasure in my heart and stomach that I could almost taste like a filet mignon dinner. And then hundreds of thousands of online viewers would read my words, heed my story, come to appreciate my quirks and contrarian ways. But best of all was the fact that perhaps I could fool a journalist into thinking I really was a human being, not a dog sitting up in a chair with his front paws waving frantically and barking something that sounded like 'yup-yup.' Perhaps this journalist had no moral compass or a diseased imagination, like mine, that would lead her to put words in my muzzle and create an elaborate, untraceable, plausible, backstory for me. I could only hope.

Another reason I did it was from loneliness. I needed someone to love me and take care of me, not on a 'good boy' level, but on a human empathetic level -- the level where my problems become my companion's problems and there are hugs and shoulder rubs and sometimes tears flow and sometimes shared laughter makes you feel like a god. I saw humans treat each other like that, and I wanted in.

And then there was a thorn. Or a cockle burr. Anyway, something sharp and unforgiving was digging into my stubby tail and I needed someone to pull it out for me. I couldn't reach it. I had nightmares it was a giant black bug actually devouring my tail a few bites each day. 

PETA arranged the interview for me. They are mostly animals masquerading as people -- some of them are very good at it; they become very articulate and learn to manipulate shoelaces and such things. But one thing they never do is actually help out a fellow creature like me -- they wouldn't touch my tail with a barge pole. And Boris Johnson, over in Great Britain, is actually a hedgehog that had been left for roadkill a few years back. But I really can't go into details about that kind of thing -- it's not a healthy pursuit, if you know what I mean.

She was gorgeous, my journalist. Her blend of scents reminded me of nipples and snapdragons. She was young and fresh -- and gullible. She actually began interviewing me for real, nodding her head enthusiastically whenever I barked 'yup-yup.' But about ten minutes in she began to look troubled, and her pheromones switched from eager and sexy to doubtful and angry. She was going to expose me as a dog -- or even worse, terminate the interview and not write anything at all about me. I had to try something else to win her confidence and interest back.

So I told her I was actually a transgender cat stuck in a male dog's body who was being forced by white slavers to masquerade as a young man. I don't know how I was able to tell her that exactly, but there was some kind of seconds-only bridge between us, born of deep desperation, that allowed her to pick up on my ridiculous fib. She scribbled furiously, and then texted her editor on her smartphone to ask for column space in the Sunday edition for what she called a 'bombshell.' He texted back okay, and my journalist started taking photos. 

The rest you know about, if you're ever on social media. I've been officially adopted by the last reigning Nawab of Oudh. I'm scheduled to fly out to Lucknow this evening, and Oprah has given me a pair of matching Samsonite chew toys. Before I leave I'm appearing on Ellen DeGeneres to talk, or bark, or meow, about 'being a transgender cat trapped in a dog's body.' Ellen will take the paperclip (for that's what it turned out to be) out of my tail on air at the end of the show. Ratings should go through the roof. 

@EllenBarryNYT

Dialing.

I got up too early, wrote a postcard to an old friend I don't remember anymore, took four different kinds of pills that have to be taken on an empty stomach, made a pitcher of lemonade, and then spent an hour ticking off a fantasy grocery list. It contained things like frog eye salad, lutefisk, khanom chin, dilly beans, scrapple, anchovy pizza, lingonberry jelly, leeks, elephant garlic, marinated artichoke hearts, chicle, frozen Cornish pasties, salted duck eggs, and 2 gallons of whole chocolate milk.

Then I got sleepy sick, with a subtle headache that wouldn't admit to being painful, and nano-term memory loss -- I couldn't remember why I was typing on my keyboard or what my fingernails were. My head was a bowling ball. So I wrapped myself in several large kitchen towels that smelled of bacon grease and lay back in my recliner with a thin pillow under my chin to hold my head up. And slept for three whole hours. It was wonderful; when I woke up I felt pardoned from some shabby, disreputable crime. 

But my mind had skipped ahead to Saturday. I always wrote postcards and made lemonade on Friday, so now I was waking up and it must be Saturday. My body knew it was Saturday on a sub-atomic level. But when I  messaged my daughter on Facebook to ask if she and the kids were gonna go up to Park City to go skiing she replied it was Friday, the kids had school, so they weren't going until tomorrow. I wrote back that I knew that, ha ha, and I must be getting senile, LOL. 

But I didn't know it was still Friday. It didn't feel like a Friday; it felt like a lackluster and laid back Saturday when you make pancakes and roll sausages around in an iron skillet like you were torturing Lincoln Logs. And they always burned, but who cares on a Saturday? Just put them in a bowl of syrup for a coupla minutes.

I bitterly regretted failing to purchase a wall calendar this year, but they kept falling off the fridge door and besides a calendar wouldn't tell me what day it really was, not unless I was marking off each day like a prisoner in a stone cell. Who's got the energy to do that every day, anyway? I can barely manage to bush-hog my nose hairs on a daily basis. My Tracfone doesn't tell me the day of the week. I wondered if the cable TV would list the day of the week if I turned it on. But I have a hard and fast rule to never turn it on before 5 in the afternoon. Then I remembered my mother dialing the rotary phone on the kitchen wall to find out the date and time, and the current temperature. She did that at least once a week. 

So I called 911. But they were very rude and said I could be arrested before they hung up. The girl who answered had a nasty foreign accent. I bet the city outsources all their 911 calls to India or Timbuktu. I was so upset by this that I ate the last piece of brie in the fridge that had not been wrapped properly and was now as hard as a bar of soap. I took warped pleasure in gnawing on it and savoring the iron flavor. 

What finally settled the issue was the sound of vacuuming from the hallway. They only ever vacuum the halls on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Never on Saturday. When I opened my apartment door to make sure, there they were -- vacuuming in a businesslike and very Friday manner. And on my door handle someone had hung a plastic bag full of individually cellophane wrapped oatmeal cookies and six tiny fruit punch juice boxes. I threw it all away in disgust, but then dug out the juice boxes for the grand kids. They'd never know I'd put 'em in the garbage first . . . 

At a complete loss as to what to do with a day I had already written off as done, I went out to buy bird seed and got a pedicure. Then I wrote out all the above and emailed it to Hannah Knowles, a General Assignment reporter at the Washington Post.  At least it would take her mind off of all this impeachment nonsense. 

Verses from Today's New York Times. ** Fiona Hill Testifies ‘Fictions’ on Ukraine Pushed by Trump Help Russia. ** Arab Thinkers Call to Abandon Boycotts and Engage With Israel. ** China’s Vaping Boom Alarms the Government.

@npfandos  @shearm

Politically driven falsehoods

are President Trump's stock-in-trade;

He sells 'em to every sucker

like watered down warm lemonade.

He's gonna cry 'Wolf' once too often,

and even his cronies will cringe,

when Americans finally kick him

right in his stupendous white fringe!

**********************

@halbfinger

Love thy neighbor, if you can --

otherwise, a true wise man

will put up with what can't be

changed in modern history.

Jews and Arabs need to learn

there's no shame in a u-turn.

*****************************

@suilee  @elsiechenyi

In China vaping was the way

to have a generous payday.

They made the e-cigs for the world,

as flavored smoke around them curled.

But now in Beijing there's a hint

that they don't like inhaling mint.

And so another treasure trove

from the market place is drove.

Ain't a bizness well worth saving

if it panders to our craving?

Beijing isn't thinking straight;

an e-cig sales tax would be great!

All that money raked in high

(so what if some folks have to die . . . )

Time for lobbyists to drive

falsehoods so e-cigs can thrive.

Economies are spurred, you know,

not by health but by more dough!

More Postcards to My President.

For my bones are vexed.

Have mercy upon me, O Lord; for I am weak: O Lord, heal me; for my bones are vexed.
Psalm 6:2. 

Getting up is hard to do;

not like in days of youth.

Back then each day would start with strength

and buoyancy, in truth.

But now my bones are vexed each morn,

and only pills prevent

me staying in my bed all day

like tons of dried cement.

I'm weak and ask for healing

in my daily prayers amain;

but accept that life, sometimes,

is best viewed thru some pain.

Oh Lord, there's healing in thy wings --

but whether ill or well,

I thank thee for the time I've spent

with this frail mortal shell!

Photo Essay: . 山の色は神の色です

Verses from Today's Washington Post. ** University says a professor’s views are racist, sexist and homophobic — but it can’t fire him. ** Senate passes short-term spending bill, sending legislation to Trump hours ahead of shutdown deadline. ** Secret Service spent quarter of a million dollars at Trump’s properties in first five months of his term, records show.

@TheArtist_MBS

Tenure for professors is an academic right;

one for which great scholars have put up a goodly fight.

I'm not saying it is something that we ought to dump;

I just thank God it can't be applied to Donald Trump!

******************************

@ericawerner

Unlike organizing ants,

Congress flies by seat of pants.

They can't pass a budget bill

bigger than a baby krill.

Even when their brains are clear,

they can't find their derriere. 

**************************************

@partlowj  @OConnellPostbiz  @Fahrenthold

Take, oh take, the presidency,

and go shake the money tree.

When you charge the going rate,

to visit Donald's real estate,

and rack up all those charges sweet

on Secret Service balance sheet,

even if he's kicked out now

he has milked the big cash cow.

Postcards to my President.

The sinister red balloon.

A sinister red balloon followed me home from school one day when I was a kid. It came right into the house with me, and floated up to the living room ceiling, rolling gently in the air currents. My mother didn't like it the minute she laid eyes on it.

"Get that thing out of the house, Timmy" she told me. "It's the wrong color red -- something's bad about that red color."

"S'not my balloon" I told her sullenly; she liked to blame me for everything in the world. "It just came along with me from school -- "

But before I could say anything else she exclaimed "Oh, my tuna fish gravy is burning!" and scuttled back into the kitchen, flapping her frilly apron in alarm. She turned up the radio to hide the smell.

Then my two sisters clambered onto the coffee table to grab the sinister red balloon, because they thought that would upset me. But they got blisters from handling it and went crying upstairs to put Ponds cold cream on their hands. Serves 'em right, is what I thought.

My big brother came home, with his dumb girlfriend, from high school, and tried to impress her by squeezing the sinister red balloon between his hands like a sponge to make it pop. But it wouldn't pop, no matter how hard he pushed his hands together. The balloon oozed out between his hands like a greasy red blob and floated back up to the ceiling. His dumb girlfriend looked at me like I was a plate full of thumb tacks and cottage cheese. 
"You should just shut up" she told me rudely. And I hadn't said anything. My older brother took her out into the garage so he could work on his crummy old car and they could make out in its musty leather backseat. 

Mom didn't wait for dad to come home for dinner. He always worked too late, and stopped at White Castle for a couple of sliders on his way home at night. After dinner mom got the broom and used the handle to prod the sinister red balloon out the front door. It floated slowly up into the branches of an elm tree and settled down for a long siege of our house.

It stayed lodged in the elm tree all winter. Even the banshee blizzards that came in February didn't move it or cause it to deflate. Snow piled up on top of it in a tight little cone, and icicles flowed down around its fist-shaped knot. That spring my friends and I started throwing rocks at it, to kill it, but we always missed. One of my rocks went far astray and broke a porch window at old Mrs. Henderson's house next door. Mom made me mow her lawn for free all summer long  to pay for the broken pane of glass. 

In July we went up to Lake Superior for two weeks on a family vacation. The beach was all slimy pebbles, and the water was too cold to stay in for long. The stove in our cabin emitted strings of black snaky smoke that wouldn't come off our hands and face unless we used a gritty pumice soap. I thought we were all cursed by some lake witch for disturbing her nearby cauldron or something, and made up my mind right then and there that there was no more happiness left in the world for me. 

When we got back home the sinister red balloon was gone. I thought that that would happiness to seep back into my life, but soon all the leaves on the elm turned a brownish yellow and dropped off. Then small branches snapped off in the slightest wind and cluttered up our yard with their brittle groveling. They were very hard to rake up with the rasping bamboo rake we had -- the bamboo tines snapped off like strands of uncooked spaghetti. And the tree began to stink -- dad said it was air pollution from the damn Purina feed plant down the road, but to me it smelled like fermented wood pulp; something I had once smelled at a newsprint factory on a field trip at school. The sinister red balloon had poisoned our elm tree as a final act of revenge before it lifted its siege.

That fall a man came to cut down the elm tree and used a chain saw to slice it up into logs for our fireplace. But our fireplace wasn't real -- there was no flue up the chimney, it was just a decorative brick gewgaw with a mantelpiece to place ceramic nondescripts on. So the logs were dumped helter-skelter in the backyard by the swing set to molder and turn ghostly gray. The pile sprouted lichen and moss and little club ferns, and housed a colony of voles that ate Mrs. Henderson's lapdog. Dad had them exterminated and then had my older brother load up the woodpile, log by log, into the back seat of his crummy old car to take down to the Mississippi to throw in the river. It took him six trips to get it all, and he lost his dumb girlfriend because she said his car was now full of nasty wood crickets that got in her hair. Turns out, though, he had a spare girlfriend waiting in the wings, and got her into the backseat of his car without missing a beat. She was a redhead, I remember, and gave me a packet of red birthday party balloons while smiling too wide, saying at the same time that she was from Duluth, on Lake Superior, and her cauldron was hungry for handsome little boys like me. I noticed all her teeth were pointy, just before I hit her in the face with my heavy leather baseball glove. 

This story is so true that I'm starting to forget it; that's why I've written it down and had it printed in the company newsletter several times. 

A long string of railroad cars.

I was driving through Indiana thirty years ago when a long string of railroad cars, barely creaking along and scarred with black and red graffiti, delayed my journey on a dusty blacktop road as I waited for them to pass slowly by.
Roadside weeds embraced the ditches on either side of me near the tracks; they were filled with vibrant, pulsating insects that responded with crude joy to the heavy Indiana summer sun. Milkweed pods gaped at me. Thistles bristled. An empty, rusted can of Cento peeled tomatoes still retained its bright yellow and red label, which lifted me, elevated my spirits for a moment on my spiritless quest.
There were no other cars on the blacktop road -- it's like they knew about this wall of train cars that would block their path for an hour, and drove down some other road that had a viaduct or bridge or something. How could they know about it, and not me? I started to sweat lonely salt dew and drank a warm black bottle of Pepsi. I threw the empty glass bottle down into the ditch next to the empty Cento peeled tomatoes can. My momentary afflatus evaporated as the train cars groaned on their steel wheels. I could turn around and go find some way around the long string of train cars, but it might take many hours of driving on derelict blacktop roads that buckled like a walnut shell. And the queue of train cars might follow me, no matter how hard I tried to avoid them. Blocking my path, peeling time from me like it was my own skin in a torture chamber. So I decided to stay put and face my uninteresting fate. I turned off the engine. I sat. I puffed out my cheeks and let my lips flap like an idiot baby. At least I wouldn't starve; I had a full pack of Wrigley's Doublemint Gum.

Then another car pulled up on the other side of the long string of train cars. So . . . there was still life left on Planet Earth after all! I felt an insane longing to yell at the other driver, encouraging him not to give up and leave, but to stick it out with me -- we'd see this thing through together, eventually meet up, shake hands, maybe embrace, and make a date to meet back at this exact same spot a year later to celebrate our narrow escape from the pointless, dragging, wait. I could just make out the other driver through the heat haze, dust, and gaps as the train cars glacially rolled by. He got out to look up and down the long line of train cars, then got back in his car, backed up, and drove away. I was bereft once more.

I thought of boyhood summers in Minnesota, of cleaning and oiling my bicycle chain; sitting on the exposed front porch, covered in an old blanket, drenched and shivering as a thunderstorm passed overhead. Each summer day as a boy I was filled to the brim with something pagan and sensual -- now as a man I was stupidly waiting on an obscure road for empty railroad cars to pass me by, booming hollowly and laughing at me as they trailed away into the Indiana murk. 

The caboose appeared so suddenly that I barely registered the man on its rear platform, in bib overalls and smoking a pipe, who waved at me. At last I was free to go. There was nothing stopping me now. I started the car, drove over the bumpy tracks, and sped off past the ceaseless rows of dull green corn on either side of me. I would live out this day, not as a boy again, not as a carefree happy child of summer, but as a man who promised himself a chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes with gravy at a modest diner with neon signs buzzing in the twilight somewhere further down this strange yet now consoling blacktop road. I had survived a severe bout of introspection, and lived to tell the aimless tale . . .