Dorrie

Wow. Astrid's coming home from her parents' house with a dog! Her name is Dorrie, and she's about eight months old, a mix of some sort, maybe pit and terrier. Cute, right? She reminds me of my dog when I was a kid, Biskit, who was also a black and white terrier mutt. Looks as if Dorrie is a bit smaller, and she's got shorter hair. I'm really excited, more so than I thought I'd be - the whole thing is completely unexpected. I didn't even know Astrid's family had a dog they wanted to give away. Seems Dorrie is a real city pooch: she tries to dig her way out of the huge yards she's been given to roam in the high desert, and longs to be with the two-legged creatures on the inside. It's a good deal: she's already housebroken, spayed, has her shots, and reportedly she's a real sweetheart.I've always been really ambivalent about owning pets, and to stretch the metaphor, about having kids. They seem like similar inconveniences to me, kids obviously the more labor-intensive of the two. I could easily live with never owning a pet, and therefore not having to deal with scooping poop, veterinary and care costs, the smell of dog in my carpet, the extra responsibility, the unknowns of their behavior--from potentially whiny bleats to the eventuality of all my shit getting chewed into pulpy sog. But my biggest fear is having to pay another being attention when I want my time to be my own. I live a somewhat solitary and often self-gratifying life. I'm glued to the internet. I contemplate about adult, human concepts. I write. I play with friends, adult, human kind of play. I come and go as I please. Will my self-indulgent life be altered irrevocably? Will I feel guilty if I ignore the dog while I'm doing my thing? Will I resent her for her neediness and be forever frustrated by her lack of sentience? (A crucial distinction if it were kids we were talking about and not dogs.)
I think there will be some benefits to having a lil pooch. It'll get me out for walks every day, which will no doubt be good for exercise, invigoration, anxiety reduction, and for accessing more outward social energy, and it'll be nice one-on-one-on-dog time for Astrid and I. And I think it'll also get us visiting with our friends-with-dogs more. So I think it might be a good way to get me out of my self-imposed shell more frequently. So I'm excited, if cautiously. I wonder how Dorrie will impact my sense of space and home. I wonder how co-parenting a dog will fit for Astrid and I. And I wonder about my threshold for dog slobber.

Bathroom

The office building where I bookkeep on Wednesdays isn't in a glamorous location. It's south of Market, next door to a detox shelter, down the street from the only food vendor in the neighborhood: a donut shop that also makes sandwiches. Still, I love the view from the bathroom, and I often gaze outside after peeing just to give myself a little repose during the work day.

This is facing north toward downtown. If I had a better camera, it would capture more depth, the tall buildings in the background would look crisper. I enjoy the corrugated metal roofs of the offices in the foreground. The view puts me in touch with the collective consciousness of cubicle workers everywhere who have nothing but carpeted grey walls to stare at all day.

Every time I use the bathroom in this building, I have to laugh at the idea of gender. As if it's not enough that the universal symbol for "ladies' room" is a silhouette of a skirt-wearing person, the actual key I use to get into the bathroom is printed with a floral pattern. I don't work for a particularly conservative company; it's just the way it is, no questions asked. Never mind that I haven't worn a skirt since approximately 2002 (at a dead celebrity party for which I was dressed as Dorothy Parker, martini in hand) and before that probably during George H.W. Bush's administration.

Inappropriate Therapy Dream

Dreamt that I was in a therapy session, which was also a performance review, with my client and my supervisor. My client was my ex-girlfriend N. She reported to us that the therapy had been enjoyable and productive so far, to her surprise. Relieved at this news, I then proceeded to tell my client/ex that it was time for us to start talking about termination, since it's clear that I should no longer be her therapist. I was nervous about "breaking up" with her in this way, and she was a little upset, but nothing unmanageable.

After she left the office, my supervisor and I chatted lightly and she revealed that she had previously done therapy with N.'s current partner. She then showed me cards she'd received for her birthday, a card from my friend Mag with pressed, dried sunflowers in it, and a card from my friend B. with pressed, dried tulips in it. As many of you no doubt are aware, Mag and B. themselves are a long-ago broken up ex-couple. And, as you can imagine, neither of them know my supervisor in "real life."

Venture some interpretations, dear readers?