“The Witness”
Last week I was talking to an ex-lover about Mojo, and how his health was failing. I think to cheer me, he reminded me of when we made love; Mo would be on the other side of the door howling like a mad dog, unable to see if his mistress was being killed or what. If only he would have been okay with having Mo in the room – others can attest to the fact that he (what a sense of humor!) would grab one of his squeaky toys and start squeaking it, well, um, rhythmically. You try and keep a straight face. Anyway, it got me rethinking about all the moments of my life that only one singular little being, the Mo-man has witnessed.
As my friend noted, “He’s seen them come and go! All of them!” But really the lovers are the least of it. Oh the secrets! The things no one would admit publicly: watching “The Bachelor” and “Survivor”, those middle of the night eating crackers in bed sessions, reading old love letters when feeling blue, the endless talking to myself (although he always thought I was talking to him), the singing, the dancing by myself in the living room, the days when I was in the midst of my divorce and would wake up at 3am and go out on the deck and smoke and cry, the hours spent gardening, the long drives to Stinson, or Sonoma or Big Sur or San Luis Obispo, the cranky, bitchy Claudia, dying my hair, cutting my toenails, doing the dishes, propping up a chair under a motel door to keep us safe on our road trips, driving in circles while being lost on those road trips, eating cherry pie for dinner, falling flat on my ass walking out the front door, arguing with men, drinking with my friends, conspiring over the phone with my attorney, barfing, shitting, pissing, farting, burping, and sometimes going to bed without brushing my teeth.
Oh, and how he watched me. From the first day he came to live with me, I called him the shadow. This dog was not going to let me out of his sight. Mojo was a herding dog, and god dammit, if he couldn’t round up sheep, he was going to make sure he watched my every move. He stayed true to his vigilant pastime up to the time of his death.
And then, we switched roles. I got to watch. So I held him, and stroked him, and spoke to him, and looked into his eyes until his ragged breaths stopped, and the energy floated out of him and into my bedroom and swirled about the room like some sort of magical bird, and then dissipated like the morning fog burning off.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Anecdotal Mojo
In these last few days of life with Mojo, I am feeling the need to recount some of the wonderful moments I had living my life with him. They are not in any particular order chronology-wise or other, just moments.
"Strangers in the Night"
When we moved back to the city after living the good life in Sausalito for four years, life changed dramatically for both me and Mojo. I could write a list a mile long as to how my world was recreated, but everyone has experienced a move, and mine was unremarkable from the norm. But Mojo's take on things turned dramatic from the second we started up those ninety stairs to get 'home'. Yep, I said ninety. Over the years we've lived here, those steps have helped a lot in keeping us both in shape, because for Mojo they were the only way to get down to the tree. I'm talking about THAT tree. So three or more times a day we were doing those steps. But hey, at the time we were both four years younger, had been doing three mile runs together and doing the stairs didn't seem that daunting.
Our walks were the second biggest change to our new move. In Sausalito, Mo roamed off leash peeing and pooping at his leisure in the voluminous ivy that lined the streets. There are no sidewalks, so he became adept at listening for and getting out of the way of cars. There were tons of adventures to be had on those hillside roads for both of us; the occasional raccoon or skunk for Mo, and I once met and dated a cute republican (although our affair was short lived as you can imagine).
Back in town, I leashed him for the first couple of weeks, not sure if he'd think it was okay to bolt towards a cat or another friendly looking dog. He's a smart dog and lived in the city, and in fact the same neighborhood before our stint in Sausalito, so he caught on pretty quickly. Soon we were enjoying our walks with him either a few steps ahead, or more likely lagging behind endlessly sniffing and pissing on trees and bushes.
One evening while walking a couple blocks down our street, Mojo stopped dead in his tracks and stared into the dark at a little cat walking toward him. Walking toward him! The look on his face was incredulous. Didn't this cat know she was facing off one of the all time great small creature chasers? What fool cat would have the nerve to walk TOWARD the dog who willingly (thank god for leashes) would have thrown himself over the edge of the Grand Canyon to nab one of those little scampering chipmunks? She deftly moved closer and closer as Mo lowered his head in that way all dogs do, as if to say, "One step closer and I'll..." and then she brushed her entire body right across his chest. He lifted his head and rolled his eyes upward in what appeared to my anthropomorphic eyes as a mixture of fear and ecstasy. Just then, the unthinkable happened - the cat laid down right in front of him and started writhing around on her back.
Well.
Mojo couldn't quite believe what he was seeing, and every time he looked down at her, she would stick her face toward his and he would look away. She got up and swept her body across his again and sashayed over to some bushes where she found a nice low branch to scratch her back. Mo followed but kept his distance.
This went on for a couple of weeks with the 'meet-ups' happening about every other night. Mojo was totally into it. We would walk down the south side of Green St., and when passing her house on the opposite side, he'd start scoping out the scene to see if she was there, and if she was the meandering and tree sniffing would end and he'd start trotting in her direction. And always, when she saw him she would run up to him and touch her nose to his and do that chest rubbing thing. Clearly the two of them were quite enamored with each other.
On a rainy evening, doing our usual night time walk, we approached her house. Mo looked around in the bushes, underneath the car parked in front, up and down the street. No cat. I watched him and happened to look up at the apartment building we stood in front of, and there, in the bottom floor window stood Mojo's love pacing back and forth. I grabbed him and pointed toward the window where after a few moments he caught sight of her.
It was one of those moments when a song comes to mind (at least in my mind) and that song was Sinatra's "Strangers in the Night". You know, exchanging glances, wondering what were the chances... and so on. I let him stare at her for about five minutes in that pouring rain, and then had to leash him just to pull him away.
We eventually learned the cat's name when one balmy evening her caretaker had her window open and was drinking wine around the table with friends. "My dog loves your cat."
"She's not afraid of dogs, she lives with one." I wanted to tell her that Mo and I both witnessed the cat run and hide from another dog that had walked up and interrupted their romantic interlude, meaning that she didn't love ALL dogs - but instead I asked about her name.
"Willa"
"Oh, like the writer?"
"The who?"
"Willa Cather, the writer."
"No, I'm not familiar. Just Willa."
Well it would figure Mojo would fall in love with a cat who had the same name as a writer, since he has been the sole witness to my many late nights pounding away on the computer.
It touched my heart that these two different species could seemingly fall so hard for each other. It makes me think about acceptance and that elusive unconditional love. To me, that's the best part about living with our four-legged friends, that all the best we could ever hope to be - they are.
"Strangers in the Night"
When we moved back to the city after living the good life in Sausalito for four years, life changed dramatically for both me and Mojo. I could write a list a mile long as to how my world was recreated, but everyone has experienced a move, and mine was unremarkable from the norm. But Mojo's take on things turned dramatic from the second we started up those ninety stairs to get 'home'. Yep, I said ninety. Over the years we've lived here, those steps have helped a lot in keeping us both in shape, because for Mojo they were the only way to get down to the tree. I'm talking about THAT tree. So three or more times a day we were doing those steps. But hey, at the time we were both four years younger, had been doing three mile runs together and doing the stairs didn't seem that daunting.
Our walks were the second biggest change to our new move. In Sausalito, Mo roamed off leash peeing and pooping at his leisure in the voluminous ivy that lined the streets. There are no sidewalks, so he became adept at listening for and getting out of the way of cars. There were tons of adventures to be had on those hillside roads for both of us; the occasional raccoon or skunk for Mo, and I once met and dated a cute republican (although our affair was short lived as you can imagine).
Back in town, I leashed him for the first couple of weeks, not sure if he'd think it was okay to bolt towards a cat or another friendly looking dog. He's a smart dog and lived in the city, and in fact the same neighborhood before our stint in Sausalito, so he caught on pretty quickly. Soon we were enjoying our walks with him either a few steps ahead, or more likely lagging behind endlessly sniffing and pissing on trees and bushes.
One evening while walking a couple blocks down our street, Mojo stopped dead in his tracks and stared into the dark at a little cat walking toward him. Walking toward him! The look on his face was incredulous. Didn't this cat know she was facing off one of the all time great small creature chasers? What fool cat would have the nerve to walk TOWARD the dog who willingly (thank god for leashes) would have thrown himself over the edge of the Grand Canyon to nab one of those little scampering chipmunks? She deftly moved closer and closer as Mo lowered his head in that way all dogs do, as if to say, "One step closer and I'll..." and then she brushed her entire body right across his chest. He lifted his head and rolled his eyes upward in what appeared to my anthropomorphic eyes as a mixture of fear and ecstasy. Just then, the unthinkable happened - the cat laid down right in front of him and started writhing around on her back.
Well.
Mojo couldn't quite believe what he was seeing, and every time he looked down at her, she would stick her face toward his and he would look away. She got up and swept her body across his again and sashayed over to some bushes where she found a nice low branch to scratch her back. Mo followed but kept his distance.
This went on for a couple of weeks with the 'meet-ups' happening about every other night. Mojo was totally into it. We would walk down the south side of Green St., and when passing her house on the opposite side, he'd start scoping out the scene to see if she was there, and if she was the meandering and tree sniffing would end and he'd start trotting in her direction. And always, when she saw him she would run up to him and touch her nose to his and do that chest rubbing thing. Clearly the two of them were quite enamored with each other.
On a rainy evening, doing our usual night time walk, we approached her house. Mo looked around in the bushes, underneath the car parked in front, up and down the street. No cat. I watched him and happened to look up at the apartment building we stood in front of, and there, in the bottom floor window stood Mojo's love pacing back and forth. I grabbed him and pointed toward the window where after a few moments he caught sight of her.
It was one of those moments when a song comes to mind (at least in my mind) and that song was Sinatra's "Strangers in the Night". You know, exchanging glances, wondering what were the chances... and so on. I let him stare at her for about five minutes in that pouring rain, and then had to leash him just to pull him away.
We eventually learned the cat's name when one balmy evening her caretaker had her window open and was drinking wine around the table with friends. "My dog loves your cat."
"She's not afraid of dogs, she lives with one." I wanted to tell her that Mo and I both witnessed the cat run and hide from another dog that had walked up and interrupted their romantic interlude, meaning that she didn't love ALL dogs - but instead I asked about her name.
"Willa"
"Oh, like the writer?"
"The who?"
"Willa Cather, the writer."
"No, I'm not familiar. Just Willa."
Well it would figure Mojo would fall in love with a cat who had the same name as a writer, since he has been the sole witness to my many late nights pounding away on the computer.
It touched my heart that these two different species could seemingly fall so hard for each other. It makes me think about acceptance and that elusive unconditional love. To me, that's the best part about living with our four-legged friends, that all the best we could ever hope to be - they are.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Burning Desire
***I just found this piece I wrote many, many moons ago.***
I was hanging out at home on a Sunday morning, drinking coffee and reading the paper, the girls were happily arguing over something in their room, all was well until the phone rang. My good friend, Dara, whispered frantically, “You’ve got to get over here!” Dara and I had met in a ceramic class in 1990. I knew I had to get to know her after seeing her performance art piece in which she ranted at the pots and bowls in a raku fire pit as if they were her dead mother. She was so weird, I was attracted to her immediately. Tall with jet black hair, she had the body of a fifties country-western singer: slender, with huge breasts and no hips or ass. For me, Dara represented that kooky, bohemian side of San Francisco. Hanging out with her was always an adventure. Over cocktails and cigarettes, she recounted the stories that made up her life. As a child, she lived with her artist-mother, in a loft south of Market way before it became trendy. A teenage bad girl, she did it all: skipped school, smoked, drank, had a fake i.d. and dated older men. Dara married one of those older men at age eighteen and promptly had two children with him in two and a half years. By the time she was twenty-four, she was divorced. After telling the judge during her divorce proceedings that she would not stop smoking marijuana, she lost custody of her kids. The morning of Dara’s frantic phone call, her children were visiting her for summer vacation. I became alarmed that something terrible had happened to one of them. Something terrible had happened, but not to them - something terrible had happened to her. She could barely get the words out between her embarrassment and not wanting her kids to hear. “I can’t believe what happened," she sputtered. “I was masturbating with a small candle,” she continued in a whisper.
“A votive?” I asked simultaneously imagining what the possibilities were with a tiny church candle.
“No, a taper.” she said with growing anxiety. “Ten or twelve inch?” My fantasy life was really starting to run wild now. “Look I don’t know, I used it the last time I had someone for dinner, it burnt down to about three inches.” Okay, what harm could a three inch taper do while masturbating, hey, wait a minute, “Where were the kids while you were using this candle?” Dara was living in a small studio apartment. Her daughter slept with her and her son camped on the floor in a sleeping bag. I personally wouldn’t dream of masturbating in the same room in which my kids were, say, watching cartoons. She was losing patience with me and my fascination over her creative abilities, “I sent them to the store for cereal, look, are you going to help me, or what? This is a big fucking problem!” I grabbed hold of my senses and asked, “Okay, you were masturbating, what happened?” What she told me next really cracked me up, no pun intended. “The candle is stuck - " she moaned.
“In your twat?” I said authoritatively knowing that if a woman could get a baby out of her vagina, she could certainly get a candle out. “No, I’d be able to get it out, the god damn thing is stuck up my ass!”
“Oh! Oh fuck!” I said trying to sound sincere as I suppressed a burst of laughter. “Do you know of anything I can do?” she sounded desperate. I gave it some thought. The last time I had anything stuck up my ass, it was more of a natural problem. I asked, “Have you tried sitting on the toilet?” Exasperated she answered, “Of course, it was my first instinct.” Dara’s frantic words came out high and thin. This was not the relaxing Sunday I had in mind, but what could I do, she was, well, stuck. “I’ll be over as soon as possible.”
It took about an hour to gather up the girls and make the trip across town by bus. I’ll admit that on the way, I had hoped the damn thing had come out before we got there. Maybe she relaxed a bit knowing help, well, at least company, was on the way, and it slipped out as easily as it had slipped in. No such luck. We arrived and she whispered in my ear that she was still, so to speak, burning the candle at both ends. The first order of business was to get the kids out of there. The studio apartment was just not big enough for the four of them, Dara, myself and that damn candle. We sent the kids down to the park.
“I took a laxative,” she stated dejectedly. I on the other hand, found it hard to wipe the smirk from my face. “Have you tried squatting?” I didn’t want to get invasive right off the bat.
“I’ve tried everything, it feels weird,” she said, close to tears.
“I bet," I said still trying to look and sound serious. I put on my thinking cap, “Do you have any gloves?” (I was thinking surgical, not white at this point.) Fortunately she had a box of hair dye and we used the gloves provided by Lady Clairol. I crouched on the floor between my friend’s legs, about to use those Lady Clairol gloves in a way, I’m sure the company had never dreamt of. I put a couple of fingers inside her vagina and I felt the offending candle. Then I really started to brainstorm, “Okay, let’s try coaxing it out, I can feel the top of it, so when I say to push, I want you to push like you’re taking a shit and I’m going to gently push on the top of the candle and maybe we can get it out."
At this point, she was game for anything, so I said go, and she pushed and I nudged, she pushed and I nudged. We tried this routine for about fifteen minutes, but, no-go, the train wasn’t departing the station, the candle wasn’t going anywhere.
Hysteria was well on its way, before I realized it and made the mistake of saying, “Maybe you should go to the hospital.”
“No!” she cried. Dara was starting to lose it, (her composure, not the candle). “Look,” I said gravely, “plenty of people must go in there on a daily basis with all sorts of odd things stuck up their asses, this is San Francisco, for Christ sake!” She wasn’t buying it, “I can’t go in there like this, it’s way too embarrassing.” She moaned, looking at me intently, “Do you think I could die?” Hmmm, I tried imagining the death certificate, “Cause of Death: candle, a burned down taper, used at victim’s last supper, stuck up ass.” I told her I didn’t think anyone could die this way, but still, it couldn’t remain in its current location. It had to come out. We entertained the idea of melting the wayward romance enhancer, we thought that perhaps a nice hot enema might do the trick. But then, it would have to be a boiling hot enema, so we gave up that idea. “Get back on the toilet,” I ordered. She needed to get a grip, and at the same time loosen up. I on the other hand was starting to lose my patience with the candle and her creative use of home furnishings.
She was ready to do anything I told her. She waddled into the bathroom and shot me a very worried look before closing the door.
I sat down at the table in her tiny kitchen and noticed the unread newspaper thinking that she should have been reading it instead of masturbating with candles. But then, it was the Sunday Examiner, a notoriously bad read. Ten minutes later the kids came back, all rosy-cheeked and chatty. They had to pee. I had the unfortunate task of telling them to hold it, Dara had a tummy ache and was in the bathroom. Of course kids don’t care about anyone else’s toilet problems, when they gotta go, they gotta go! Another five minutes of pissing and moaning, or should I say moaning about having to piss passed, and then, Dara finally emerged from the bathroom, and one kid after the other charged in. By the look on her face, I could tell she had triumphed over her waxen enemy, it was pure relief, the look that said, “I have been spared telling an orderly that I have a candle stuck up my ass.”
We never figured out what it was that made the candle pop out. Whether it was the finger nudging, the laxative or just plain gravity. Maybe it was a combination of all three. As I hustled my children out of her front door, I turned and said, “Next time, use a zucchini!”
We walked down the hallway, and my older daughter asked, “What’s Dara going to cook, Mommy?”
I was hanging out at home on a Sunday morning, drinking coffee and reading the paper, the girls were happily arguing over something in their room, all was well until the phone rang. My good friend, Dara, whispered frantically, “You’ve got to get over here!” Dara and I had met in a ceramic class in 1990. I knew I had to get to know her after seeing her performance art piece in which she ranted at the pots and bowls in a raku fire pit as if they were her dead mother. She was so weird, I was attracted to her immediately. Tall with jet black hair, she had the body of a fifties country-western singer: slender, with huge breasts and no hips or ass. For me, Dara represented that kooky, bohemian side of San Francisco. Hanging out with her was always an adventure. Over cocktails and cigarettes, she recounted the stories that made up her life. As a child, she lived with her artist-mother, in a loft south of Market way before it became trendy. A teenage bad girl, she did it all: skipped school, smoked, drank, had a fake i.d. and dated older men. Dara married one of those older men at age eighteen and promptly had two children with him in two and a half years. By the time she was twenty-four, she was divorced. After telling the judge during her divorce proceedings that she would not stop smoking marijuana, she lost custody of her kids. The morning of Dara’s frantic phone call, her children were visiting her for summer vacation. I became alarmed that something terrible had happened to one of them. Something terrible had happened, but not to them - something terrible had happened to her. She could barely get the words out between her embarrassment and not wanting her kids to hear. “I can’t believe what happened," she sputtered. “I was masturbating with a small candle,” she continued in a whisper.
“A votive?” I asked simultaneously imagining what the possibilities were with a tiny church candle.
“No, a taper.” she said with growing anxiety. “Ten or twelve inch?” My fantasy life was really starting to run wild now. “Look I don’t know, I used it the last time I had someone for dinner, it burnt down to about three inches.” Okay, what harm could a three inch taper do while masturbating, hey, wait a minute, “Where were the kids while you were using this candle?” Dara was living in a small studio apartment. Her daughter slept with her and her son camped on the floor in a sleeping bag. I personally wouldn’t dream of masturbating in the same room in which my kids were, say, watching cartoons. She was losing patience with me and my fascination over her creative abilities, “I sent them to the store for cereal, look, are you going to help me, or what? This is a big fucking problem!” I grabbed hold of my senses and asked, “Okay, you were masturbating, what happened?” What she told me next really cracked me up, no pun intended. “The candle is stuck - " she moaned.
“In your twat?” I said authoritatively knowing that if a woman could get a baby out of her vagina, she could certainly get a candle out. “No, I’d be able to get it out, the god damn thing is stuck up my ass!”
“Oh! Oh fuck!” I said trying to sound sincere as I suppressed a burst of laughter. “Do you know of anything I can do?” she sounded desperate. I gave it some thought. The last time I had anything stuck up my ass, it was more of a natural problem. I asked, “Have you tried sitting on the toilet?” Exasperated she answered, “Of course, it was my first instinct.” Dara’s frantic words came out high and thin. This was not the relaxing Sunday I had in mind, but what could I do, she was, well, stuck. “I’ll be over as soon as possible.”
It took about an hour to gather up the girls and make the trip across town by bus. I’ll admit that on the way, I had hoped the damn thing had come out before we got there. Maybe she relaxed a bit knowing help, well, at least company, was on the way, and it slipped out as easily as it had slipped in. No such luck. We arrived and she whispered in my ear that she was still, so to speak, burning the candle at both ends. The first order of business was to get the kids out of there. The studio apartment was just not big enough for the four of them, Dara, myself and that damn candle. We sent the kids down to the park.
“I took a laxative,” she stated dejectedly. I on the other hand, found it hard to wipe the smirk from my face. “Have you tried squatting?” I didn’t want to get invasive right off the bat.
“I’ve tried everything, it feels weird,” she said, close to tears.
“I bet," I said still trying to look and sound serious. I put on my thinking cap, “Do you have any gloves?” (I was thinking surgical, not white at this point.) Fortunately she had a box of hair dye and we used the gloves provided by Lady Clairol. I crouched on the floor between my friend’s legs, about to use those Lady Clairol gloves in a way, I’m sure the company had never dreamt of. I put a couple of fingers inside her vagina and I felt the offending candle. Then I really started to brainstorm, “Okay, let’s try coaxing it out, I can feel the top of it, so when I say to push, I want you to push like you’re taking a shit and I’m going to gently push on the top of the candle and maybe we can get it out."
At this point, she was game for anything, so I said go, and she pushed and I nudged, she pushed and I nudged. We tried this routine for about fifteen minutes, but, no-go, the train wasn’t departing the station, the candle wasn’t going anywhere.
Hysteria was well on its way, before I realized it and made the mistake of saying, “Maybe you should go to the hospital.”
“No!” she cried. Dara was starting to lose it, (her composure, not the candle). “Look,” I said gravely, “plenty of people must go in there on a daily basis with all sorts of odd things stuck up their asses, this is San Francisco, for Christ sake!” She wasn’t buying it, “I can’t go in there like this, it’s way too embarrassing.” She moaned, looking at me intently, “Do you think I could die?” Hmmm, I tried imagining the death certificate, “Cause of Death: candle, a burned down taper, used at victim’s last supper, stuck up ass.” I told her I didn’t think anyone could die this way, but still, it couldn’t remain in its current location. It had to come out. We entertained the idea of melting the wayward romance enhancer, we thought that perhaps a nice hot enema might do the trick. But then, it would have to be a boiling hot enema, so we gave up that idea. “Get back on the toilet,” I ordered. She needed to get a grip, and at the same time loosen up. I on the other hand was starting to lose my patience with the candle and her creative use of home furnishings.
She was ready to do anything I told her. She waddled into the bathroom and shot me a very worried look before closing the door.
I sat down at the table in her tiny kitchen and noticed the unread newspaper thinking that she should have been reading it instead of masturbating with candles. But then, it was the Sunday Examiner, a notoriously bad read. Ten minutes later the kids came back, all rosy-cheeked and chatty. They had to pee. I had the unfortunate task of telling them to hold it, Dara had a tummy ache and was in the bathroom. Of course kids don’t care about anyone else’s toilet problems, when they gotta go, they gotta go! Another five minutes of pissing and moaning, or should I say moaning about having to piss passed, and then, Dara finally emerged from the bathroom, and one kid after the other charged in. By the look on her face, I could tell she had triumphed over her waxen enemy, it was pure relief, the look that said, “I have been spared telling an orderly that I have a candle stuck up my ass.”
We never figured out what it was that made the candle pop out. Whether it was the finger nudging, the laxative or just plain gravity. Maybe it was a combination of all three. As I hustled my children out of her front door, I turned and said, “Next time, use a zucchini!”
We walked down the hallway, and my older daughter asked, “What’s Dara going to cook, Mommy?”
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