A Dog's Life

Most days I am so busy, I don't know which end is up.  Even if I find a bit of time here and there, it's spent watching TV shows or reading blogs.  My brain is just too tired to function in any sort of a creatively active way.  Then, all of a sudden, I find a respite--a few days when work slows down and my running around stops.  The first thing I do is have a couple of cocktails, all 1950s Don Draper styles, to relax and unwind.  

Inevitably, my boozy unwinding comes with a price.  As I come up with something to fill my time, for instance, I suddenly realize that I had just spent one too many hours hours taking photos of my dog.  Indeed, suddenly a combination of booze and time makes a photo journal of my dog's life seem like a perfectly logical way to creatively pass the time.   

Since I am very much invested in productively spending my time (I have thoroughly assimilated the Protestant work ethic), the only thing that remains is to post the said photos on a blog in the name of, obviously, productively spending my time.  So, without further ado, here is Grover's aka Stinky's photo journal.

Porndog: Grover enjoys exposing himself whenever he gets an opportunity to do so.  The best place to do it is his very own bed.

Most dogs shy away from an evening in front of the fire, but not Grover.  He cannot wait for the weather to get cold so he can sit in front of a warm fire and reflect on the day's events.

Sometimes a dog can get really sad cause he needs a haircut in the most desperate way.  Then, he gets a haircut and style and he's all, "come and get it bitches!"  

To his utter surprised disappointment, however, no matter the stylish cut, all dogs, both ladies and gents, cross the street when they see him coming.  No matter the cut, the barking annoys all potential canine friends.  The barking is a self-defense mechanism.  I mean, what small dog doesn't have a Napoleonic complex?

The height of creatively yet productively spending time came at the end of last October when I dressed Grover up as Princess Leia in preparation for Halloween.  I don't think he's forgiven me for it just yet.  He keeps bringing it up.

A Twofer & Postscript

Trying to make up for lost blogging time and feeling inspired.  First of all, soon after I posted "some pole dancing," a friend shared a website with photos of creatively altered signage--signage which is otherwise harmless.  Here is where I found a play on the word polish.  Whoever did this has got my vote.

Then, while catching up on my Polish news, I found a fascinating story.   Near Wroclaw, a sizable city in western Poland, the police stopped an 18 year old with marijuana in his possession.  When asked where he got it, he told them that he found it in a nearby garden.  The police investigated and found a garden with about 17 pot plants growing almost as high (oh yeah!) as three meters.  The garden belongs to a 77 year old woman who apparently had no idea what it is that grew in her yard.  She keeps chickens who really enjoyed feeding on the plants and she saw no harm in them pecking on the greens.  The police confiscated the robust bushes, but now they have no idea what to do with the nice old lady.  The story was titled "She Fed Pot to Chickens."  The most informative of the short article's lines?  "The coop of hoot" (translation entirely mine).

Finally, as if "some dance pole" and a pot grandma weren't enough, just as I was checking the TV schedule for this week (which has like 50 million new shows on it), I saw the title for "The Millionaire Matchmaker" reality show episode: "The Plastic Surgeon and the Pole Dancer."  Now I'm wondering whether the universe is conspiring for me or against me cause, obviously, it's all about me, the ultimate Pole.

Pole Dancing

One of my colleagues (who shall remain nameless), affixed this cartoon on my office door just the other day:

http://www.speedbump.com/cg_speedbump.php

 

How very apropos for this blog!  For a while now, I've been meaning to explore, per Sweet Lady's suggestion, the very many ways in which I can play with the word Pole (not to mention the many ways one can play with a pole/Pole) as in North and South, as in pole dance and dancing pole, as in have pole, will travel (ok, I just made that one up).  I would love to get more suggestions and creative ways of integrating Poles into your lives, people, so bring them and share them!  Pray tell, how have poles/Poles affected your life?
 

Back Pains

I want to get back to regular blogging but have to get my back back to proper behavior.  First the semester hijacks my brain and energy, then my lower back starts hurting, and now it's in full blast mode of "I have trouble walking upright like the human I am."  But!  For once in my life I have health insurance that covers chiropractic care (I spent much too much of my adult life without any insurance at all) and while I enjoyed getting high on pain meds the last time this happened, I much prefer medical care that actually aims to improve one's health.   [A couple of years ago, when I couldn't get out of bed and ended up going to the ER (it was a Saturday), they gave me pain meds, something like strong ibuprofen, and sent me home.]  I never ever used the phrase "I feel so blessed" until my first chiropractic appointment this afternoon.

My lower back started hurting back in the ole' days when I waited tables to pay for college and life (alas, when in our twenties, we tend to hurt less for shorter periods of time).  I hated that job more than anything, no matter the restaurant I worked in and even the one where I adored my boss.  Aside from leaving me with several emotional scars, it's left me with chronic back and knee pain.  Thanks to those giant trays, I now have trouble walking up and down stairs without my knees making freaky creaking sounds.  As MY (I have one!) chiropractor (and new best friend) told me today, you are too young for this.  Here here! 

Heat versus Brain

It has been unbearably hot over here in STL.  Temperatures in the 100s with heat indexes that much higher.  My brain feels like that anti-drug use commercial.  Eggs, hot pan, and "this is your brain on drugs" as the eggs sizzle away.  There is so much work to be done, but I have been beyond lethargic.  Plus, when your work consists of reading and writing, you want to leave the house and go for a walk, for example, to get away from the page.  Not possible at this juncture.  Even Grover gets out of breath walking round the block. 

Heat puts in mind the "emotional races" of my previous post on immigration and I found yet another volume in which the authors expound on the dangers posed by the lesser races of Eastern and Southern Europe.  In a chapter titled "The Immigration Problem: ITS PRESENT STATUS AND ITS RELATION TO THE AMERICAN RACE OF THE FUTURE" by Robert DeC. Ward published in the 1904 volume of The Survey (by Edward Thomas Devine and Paul Underwood Kellogg who were "Survey Associates, Charity Organization Society of the City of New York"), Ward writes: "The question before us is, therefore, a race question.  Slav, Italian, Jew, not discouraged by the problem of maintaining high standards of living with many children, are replacing native Americans.  ...  There can, then, be absolutely no doubt that the recent change in the races of our immigrants will profoundly affect the character of the future American race." How so, you may well ask.  According to Ward, it's a mixed bag and we should stick to our known superiority rather than risk tarnishing Anglo-American perfection:

The increasing proportion of Alpine and of Mediterranean blood will "soften the emotional nature, but it will quicken the poetic and artistic nature. We shall be a more versatile, a more plastic people, gentler in our thoughts and feelings because of the Alpine strain; livelier and brighter, with a higher power to enjoy the beautiful things of life," because of the Latin blood. "We may doubtless learn courtesy from many an Italian; virtue from many a Slav; family loyalty from many a Jew; the beauty and the refining influence of music from many a Hungarian." Turning to the physical side it is clear that the average stature will be reduced and that the skull will become broader and shorter. He would, indeed, be a hopeless pessimist who should maintain that this racial change will have naught but undesirable effects, mental and physical, upon the future American race. We probably need less nervous energy and push; we shall undoubtedly benefit by a quickening of our artistic and poetic nature; we shall probably not be injured by an infusion of some of the "conservative and contemplative stock which comes from eastern Europe." The good qualities of the new races we may need; their defects we should be willing to do without. Yet, when all is said regarding the benefits which we may, or even must, derive from these new elements in the blood of our race, are we not, as it were, giving away to the philosophy of despair? Are we not, most of us, fairly well satisfied with the characteristics, mental and physical, of the old American stock? Do we not love American traits as they are? May we not be rather reckless in assuming that everything will settle itself for the best? It may be that the American race of the future is to be a far better race in every respect than the old one. But we should remember that, as it has been put by a recent writer, "in forming a race of unknown value, there is being sacrificed a race of acknowledged superiority in originality and enterprise."

Way to deliver a backhanded compliment!  Why should we pay for poetry, music, or family (stereotypes all) with shorter statures and smaller brains when we are so perfect already?