2.21.24
Happy winter!
I’m down for all weathers except sultry – but winter, ah! Humans don’t dress for it, so they shiver. We canines don’t know from shiver. Maybe pint-sized ratcatchers and lapdogs – chihuahuas, mini-greyhounds, Pekingese – bred for mouse-holes or boudoirs – see snow as an uh-oh. I’m of sturdier, furrier stock. (Funny that the comparative of furry and noun for the merchant peddling our pelts are the same word. Only they’re not, they’re lookalikes, having arrived at their present shapes by different routes. Human language is a hoot that way. Yet how many users prize their heritage? They kick syllables around like clods (formerly clots), maul pronunciations, rough thoroughbreds like mutts. It may be argued – has been, I think – that language alone explains human authority – that the ability to differentiate and define is the source of their species’ improbable eminence. Just think, we dogs might be ruling the roost if we could do more than yip, bark, growl, purr! (Others argue that the opposable thumb explains human supremacy. That strikes me as less glamorous.))
Nothing in particular on my mind this wintry morning except howdy and giving daddy-o a day off. You should hear how he carries on knowing you’re coming for a stroll (stroll is his word). “What might we talk about!” he groans, grimaces, grinds his molars. How he loves you! – looks forward to your arrival, yet dreads it too, lest he bore you. Bore, in Carll’s lexicon, is a crime worse than infanticide – or canicide! (Yup, it’s a word. Look it up.) If he bores you, Carll explains – though I haven’t asked – you’ll exile him to invisibility, a living hell, for what is life but being alive in another’s mind! Bore is not a canine concept. If a shy-paws withholds her or his privates from inspection, non fa niente, there are plenty more to sniff.
He loves to write, my cher maître, couldn’t live otherwise, he says, but fears writing goop. Sometimes fear gets the better of him and he has trouble writing at all. I find this odd. If you enjoy doing something, do it – if not, desist – quit fretting others’ verdicts. Who cares what they think! I like everyone and they like me because I greet them unreservedly, unselectively, without prejudice, invite them to romp, and if they’re not up for it, no worries, have a nice day. Just be yourself and – if you’re young, exuberant, and incredibly cute – the world will love you back! No neuroses in Dogville – fears, sure, dangers abound, but none we’ve concocted – Margaritaville 24/7 – without the bar tab!
What surprises me about humans – from an evolutionary vantage – is their superfluous complexity. They’ve got way more thoughts than they can use and some of these sicken. Pride, vanity, greed, envy, resentment, rage – what use these corrosives of calm! It hurts being a human and feels dandy being a dog – how does that make sense? We dogs don’t know from suffering. We hurt, sure – who doesn’t? – but suffering is a human innovation.
Dogs don’t need God, booze, cocaine, videogames, football, wars, murder, a UN, none of it. Though some of us have an attitude – check out the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, if you doubt it – we feel no avidity for titles, rank, ladders, awards. We just are – here – now – as are you – so let’s boogie. The very idea of superiority and inferiority would give us hives if we got hives.
Might such dog-sense be applicable – even advantageous – to the screwed-up human condition? Not my lookout. Just now my paws itch for the nip of snow. The glee of it!
I’ll go bother Carll.