If Looks Could Kill

So, my dog is a little jumpy, right? Whether it's my fault or his genetics, I don't know, though I suspect it's a little of both, because there were a lot of very loud "NOs" when he was a puppy and the breed is known for being shy of strangers who aren't part of their pack.

Atticus and I were out for his morning constitutional this morning, and just after he'd finished his dookie in the street by the curb and had moved up onto the sidewalk to await his reward, this woman and her two kids come strolling down the street. And one little girl – couldn't have been more than six or seven years old – suddenly starts jumping up and down toward Atticus, shouting, "LOOK A DOGGIE! LOOK A DOGGIE! LOOK A DOGGIE!"

Not surprisingly, Atticus nearly does to himself what he's just done in the street, and starts spazzing out in an effort to get away from the crazy little maniac bearing down on him; and he's – again, not very surprisingly – freaking out even more 'cuz he's tethered to me by the leash and rapidly shorting how far he can run because he's circling me and tying us both up.

I must have given that child a look that would have boiled water, 'cuz the mother let out the most obviously nervous laugh I've ever heard, and snatched the child away from my cowering dog as I extricated myself and continued to glare.

I'm kinda well known among my friends for being able to clearly communicate what I'm trying to say without ever opening my mouth, and in this case, I was supremely effective.

Not, of course, that the woman will make any effort to ride herd on her obnoxious, rampant, privileged brood.

This is How We Should Live

Atticus at the Park

As displayed below, Atticus has a little move when he wants to let me know he's annoyed: He tries to shake off his harness.

Notice how I try to distract him from that by getting him to "sit." He won't lie down, he won't roll over or play dead, but for a bribe, he just might sit:

I'm Hot

Well, not me so much as my World of Warcraft character.

How much of a geek am I?  A pretty big one, granted.

Still, with abs like these, you wonder why I don't want to hang out on the beach in the real world?

And look at the size of my hands!

I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'.

New Weepies

I know it pretty much singles me out as a menopausal girl, but you know that The Weepies are, like, my favorite singing duo of all time, right?

Well, they've got a new album out, and of course I downloaded it today.

I'm still listening to it for the first time, so I'm not quite ready to pronounce judgment, but as a menopausal girl, you can rest assured that I pretty much love it.

Go buy it now.

Don't Doubt the 'Cus.

A couple of days ago, A.Pants and I were out walking The Cus. Being me, I don't recall the exact circumstances, but we were walking along and A.Pants said something that, were I feeling sensitive, might have been construed as denigrating my dog's intelligence.

Just to be a smart ass, and, really, expecting to look like a nitwit, I stopped dead in my tracks and said to the dog, "Atticus..."

He stopped and looked at me.

"...where's A.pants?"

Atticus turned and looked directly at A.Pants, then looked back at me.

We spent the next few minutes belly-laughing, and I secretly swore to myself that I was never, ever going to test the dog like that again, 'cuz he could never possibly surpass that moment.

I love my little dog.

I'm So Classy

From lunch, Friday afternoon, in the beautiful sunshine of Columbus Circle:

My Dog is Crazy

So, like any animal, Atticus chafes at the restriction of having to wear a leash.

But unlike most Shiba Inus, he doesn't generally like to get too far from me, so I can – under certain circumstances – let him off his leash to run free.

Generally, when we're re-entering my apartment building after a walk, I'll unclip him and let him run up to the apartment on his own. He likes to make a game of this:

2 Columbus Circle

Spring has finally sprung in New York!

Today was the first of several beautiful days in the forecast, and I couldn't help but get myself out of The Velvet Prison while there was still light outside. For the first time, I noticed that 2 Columbus Circle, the future home of the Museum of Art & Design, is being freed from the netting that's covered it for quite some time.

The new building is pretty interesting, but the return of spring is the most interesting thing of all:

Big Bear, Here We Come

I've booked tickets for a Memorial Day trip. I'm taking a risk posting this here, 'cuz my arrival there is supposed to be a bit of a surprise for someone I have seen in a very long time. But I'm fairly certain that they don't actually read this blog, so... fingers crossed.

View Larger Map

Top Girl(y Men)s

I was chatting with ChickenKurry today, and he idly asked me what plans I had for the weekend. After describing in detail my plans for A.Pants' birthday, I mentioned that we might or might not be seeing the dress rehearsal of Manhattan Theater Club's Top Girls on Sunday. This exchange followed directly:

ChickenKurry (10:48:09 AM): interesting
ChickenKurry (10:48:48 AM): i must say, the first thing that popped into my head when you wrote "Top Girls" was the image of manly men who prefer to wear women's clothing while, er, um, "pitching"
ChickenKurry (10:49:02 AM): i guess that doesn't make them very manly
Me (10:49:21 AM): that's 'cuz you're a soulless gay man with no connection to real culture beyond the golden girls and bel ami porn.
ChickenKurry (10:49:46 AM): wow, we've become so close that you can totally read me like a book

On the Road, Again

Atticus took his third- and fourth-ever subway rides this weekend, and to be honest, I don't think he liked it any better than the first and second. Just too damn noisy, smelly and weird for his little nose and ears to handle.

Our first subway outing was back in January, when we took the train into Manhattan for a Shiba Inu Meetup. Atticus loved meeting all the other Shiba Inus...

...but I fear the train ride was a little much for him.

This time around, we were going to spend the weekend with A.Pants, and rather than put him in the ridiculous gay carrying bag I bought for the trip to the meetup, I decided to use Atticus' travel crate. I was sure that being in an enclosed, den-like space would make him feel safer while on the train. Sadly, this time wasn't a whole lot better, since he's grown a lot and he doesn't really love getting into his travel crate anymore. Truth be told, the little bugger's outgrown it. It seems like only yesterday he slept in that crate every night. Now I cringe at the thought of him having to spend more than an hour in there.

Anywho, the rest of the weekend was a delight. Atticus loved A.Pants' apartment, which is, like, three times the size of mine; he also desperately wanted to make friends with A.Pants' roommate's cats. That didn't work out so well.

On the upside, there was a nice big back yard for him to run in, and I have to say, I've never seen him do his business quicker. He was out the sliding glass door, down the steps and peeing and pooping before I even managed to get down the steps.

Living in a place with a backyard would be terrible for both of us, I think. I'd never walk the poor little devil, and he'd just get fat if all he had to do was roll outta bed and take a dump in the yard. And I'd get fatter, frankly.

So, despite the scary train rides, I think the weekend was a success. I'm gonna, of course, have to buy a bigger travel crate, but I think there'll be more trips to Queens for the little pup. He liked the neighborhood, and everyone on the street wanted to meet him.

Crazy stuff.

Into the Wilds (Of My Bedroom)

I just saw the most remarkable thing. It's late at night (about 12:45 on Friday night/Saturday morning) and I'm waiting for the pain reliever with sleep aid I took to kick in, and Atticus was lying at my feet while I played a little World of Warcraft (badly).

Suddenly, my little dog sat up and gave a low growl in the direction of my bedroom door, which was closed. Now, I know for a fact that Betty Boop is asleep in her room and there's no one in the rest of the apartment, but suddenly Atticus is in full growl and the hair all along his spine is sticking up.

Totally freaked me out.

Has a burglar managed to get into the apartment, I wondered, in spite of the bells hanging on the door? Is he seeing a ghost?

Slowly, Atticus inched his way to the door, his hackles literally up, sniffing at something. I looked again at the door, where my scarf was hanging over the door knob, along with one of my hand towels.

Then it occurred to me; he didn't like the shape of the towel and scarf; it must have looked to him like the shape of an animal he didn't know. And suddenly my passive little sissy dog was ready to spring to my defense.

Or maybe he wasn't even thinking about me. Maybe he just wanted to sacrifice me and save himself.

Note to self: Remember that, no matter how domesticated, your dog is still an animal, and doesn't operate the same way you do.

There's That

As if to confound everything I've believed about my dog's sissified behavior, Atticus started lifting his leg to pee this evening, eschewing, at least for now, the girlish squat he's been affecting since he arrived in August.

I'm so proud.

Ugh.

Over the last couple of weeks, we've gotten a little taste of spring, and I have to say, I really, really liked it.

There was a time, not long ago, when winter, in all it's glorious wet and frigid wonder, was one of my favorite times of the year.

Not so much, now.

I'm discovering – and I'm not sure if this is a function of my growing older or just growing smarter – that I have less and less tolerance for winter. The odd part is that, as a self-involved, narcissistic gay man, I'm supposed to be less inclined, as my body degrades and comes undone, to appear unclothed in the baking sun. In fact, however, I find myself increasingly preferring the heat, and despite once being a "you can always add layers to keep warm" person, I'm absolutely ready for the broiling that generally hits New York in the summer. At this point, I won't even complain about the urine-soaked, baked streets and the skillet-like humidity.

Just bring the effing winter to a close, please!

Time to Man Up, Pussy Dog

Atticus is a timid dog, and this is, at least, partially my fault. My early, fumbling training methods were a mix of au courant dog psychology tactics and heavy-handed stern taskmaster tactics learned at the feet of my parents. So while I don't hit my dog, I can yell at him pretty forcefully and have, at worst, handled him by the scruff of his neck when he's been egregiously willful in his misbehavior.

Over the last couple of mornings, he's backslid (backslided?) in his training, and hasn't been holding his pee until I can get dressed and get him out the door. And, weirder still, he's taken to sitting down and just letting it rip. I've never in my life seen a dog that sat down to pee. I've seen them squat and lift their legs, but this is the first time I've seen a dog just drop his rump on the ground and open his bladder. How he managed not to pee all over himself would be deserving of admiration, under other circumstances. He did it again tonight, you see, and since he had just been outside, I felt the need to really reinforce the notion that doing so in the apartment is unacceptable. There were some very forceful "Nos!" handed down, and some rubbing of the nose in the pee.

All of this is a very long way of getting to the fact that, as I type, he's sitting in his pen, bedded down for the night, and he's giving me the "You're a Very Bad Father" look.

I forget that Atticus isn't a stupid dog, and he really probably didn't need the nose rubbed in the pee. He knew he was doing something he oughtn't. You could see it from the look in his face even as he was peeing (since, god help him, once it starts, there's no shutting it off).

So he's probably giving me the "I'd eat your face if I could only get my mouth around it" look because he's gonna spend the rest of the night with the smell of his own pee in his nostrils.

I know how I'd feel if I had to smell the faint whiff of my own urine all night. But then again, I didn't pee on his rug, so he can just deal.

Meanwhile, it's hard to stay angry at him when he starts doing this:

The Great Turning

Despite being a little bit rainy and gloomy, the weather's actually been kinda spring-like over the last week or so, in a non continuous kinda way.

Atticus and I took advantage of the nice weather this past weekend to have a nice walk in the park on a couple occasions.

On Sunday last, he and I were strolling along in the park when we passed this young dad and his little boy. I wasn't really paying attention, but a bird must have hopped in front of them on the ground.

"See that bird?" the dad asked. "That's a cardinal."

And I turned really quickly in time to see the bird before it took flight to escape the kid, who was about to step on it.

And I smiled, 'cuz I always smile when I see the first cardinal of spring.