Girl's Best Friend

I lost my dog yesterday. She was 18 and lived a long life, and she was my best friend. I wrote this poem a couple of weeks ago about her.

Girl's Best Friend

I miss the heavy electricity
of your body against my knees,
the way your heart goes "tha-thrum"
and mine sings "ba-bum!"

Mom says it's hard to watch you go "downhill,"
but what she means is that it's hard to watch you die.

First you couldn't come downstairs to sleep with me,
so I came up and slept by you.
Then you couldn't sit with me on the couch,
so I come down to the floor to sit with you.
Now your feeble legs are unsteady,
and I think you've lost weight on purpose
because they wouldn't support you anymore.
You weave from side to side.
You don't answer when you're called
and I feel so selfish for making you
live in this terrifying darkness.

But all I have done this year is grieve
and the world seems so harsh
when I think about it without you in it.
No one wagging at me, or meeting me at the door.
No fur to cry into, no doggie kisses anymore.
But this is the world I must get used to
because I don't want you to hurt anymore.

Cookie Monster: Origins

Long ago, in a galaxy far far away, there was a cookie-loving zombie alien. One day, he ate all the cookies in his solar system. (Teenagers, what can I say?) So he asked his mom where he could get more. "There are a whole bunch on Earth," she said. "But you have to have their money to get them, and you can get their money by getting a job."
"Okay, cool. See you this afternoonllenium." So he borrowed the spaceship (bet he didn't return it with a full gas tank, the punk) and came to Earth. He landed in New York City. The people had delicious-looking brains, but they were puny. The cookies, on the other hand, were ginormous compared to the ones he was used to. He really really wanted some.
He saw a sign outside a cookie store that said, "Help wanted: Monster needed for children's TV show."
So he went inside and asked what he had to do. When he found out all he had to do was eat cookies as fast and messily as possible, and sometimes sing, he signed on the dotted line immediately. When he was done for the day, he called his mom (and used up all the roaming-galaxy minutes). "Mom!" he said excitedly. "I got a job - and all I have to do is eat cookies!"
"That's great, Alistair," she said. "Who are you with, what are you doing after work, and when are you bringing my ship back?! I have a meeting next millennium and I can't be late!"
"All right, all right. Let me just work a couple more years and I'll be home."
"Fine, but you have to finish your schoolwork when you get back," his mom said.
So Alistair Cookie Monster continued to live on Earth and eat cookies instead of brains, because they're really more delicious anyways.

Spring and Fall

 by Gerard Manley Hopkins

 to a young child

Márgarét, áre you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! ás the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sórrow's spríngs áre the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

Click on this to view the site where I copied the poem

Having experienced a different kind of loss recently, I find myself just as sad over something just as trivial as falling leaves. There is a physical sensation of dry mouth and choking, as though I had inhaled a cloud of dust. But the emotions are what define grief: denial, anger, bargaining, sadness, acceptance. I recently lost my full-time job, through no fault except corporate greed, and since I knew there was no talking my way out of this one, I seem to have skipped the bargaining stage. The most difficult part has not necessarily been dealing with reality, since my reality appears to be improving as a result. The most difficult part has been answering the same concerned questions over and over and over, ad nauseum. I don't mind answering those people whom I know actually care, but even their queries still exhaust me. What are you going to do? Where are you working now? Or the worst, from complete strangers: Are you losing your job? Though there were clear signs all over the store stating that we were closing and this was a liquidation sale. Keeping patience and gracefully answering were at times mutually exclusive. I finally just started telling the strange public, "I'm sorry, I don't feel comfortable discussing my personal life with people I don't know." The etiquette of privacy seems to have been lost somewhere in the technological evolution of a cell phone in every hand and a Facebook profile of every person. Only a quiet rage against the injustice of it all has allowed me to bare my heart here. Before I sink back into my relative, comfortable anonymity, let me just say this to those of you who really care: a hug speaks a thousand appropriate words, and I will never turn one down.

A video about 29 for the 29th of February! This song cracks me up. And Marc Cohn is a fabulous singer. Enjoy!