Will write for food

I’m thrilled to announce that my new novel will finally be coming out next year, and that two articles of mine will soon be published in Orpah magazine. I’m not trying to brag, but these feel like real achievements to me. I have struggled to get to these places, and to get published feels truly rewarding.

But when I called my father to tell him the news he said, as he always says, “Are you getting paid for these articles?”

He never says, “Congratulations!” or “That’s wonderful!” or “I’m proud.” He wants to know if I’m getting paid.

For his deepest conviction has always been that I’m not getting paid. That writing is a hobby, not a profession. He has said that often enough.  Getting a six-figure multiple book deal from the elite Random House imprint Villard silenced him for a few years, but now he seems to be back to his old conviction that I am a hack. Or worse, a prostitute, giving myself away.

Or maybe it’s just that he hasn’t gotten over the fact that, the very first time I published a story, back in 1991, my payment was a crate of oranges and two copies of the journal.  You must understand, I was thrilled to get that crate of oranges. This was the first story I had every written, and the first attempt I had made at a blind submission. I was swept up from the slush pile and published within a matter of weeks. For a first-time writer, that’s a real coup.  And, given that this was a Florida based literary journal, they naturally sent oranges. Why the hell not? That seems much more inspiring than a $20 check.

Anyway, I gather that my father saw, in that humble wooden ‘grown in Florida” crate, all my dashed hopes and dreams, all my failed attempts at ‘being someone,’ and all fifty thousand of my graduate school tuition feels going down the drain.

But, gentle readers and writers, I tell you this: I still take great joy every time I eat an orange and think of that crate. To me, it was a new beginning, a great brilliant sunshiny sign of the things to come.

I’m not trying to brag here. I’m just venting old steam. So I want to say to all you writers: be proud of yourselves. Be proud every day.  Don’t listen to the naysayers who look down on fruit baskets and complimentary copies.  For they have—forgive the metaphor—not tasted of the fruit.

Philip Roth once told me that, before Portnoy’s Complain was published, he called his parents to warn them that the book was going to be big, and that they were going to get lots of calls from journalists, and that they should be prepared. He told me his mother actually cried after that phone call, because she worried her son was suffering from delusions of grandeur, and would be seriously and lethally disappointed.

But what can you say? They’re parents. They worry for us. They see only what their own lives have delivered them. Our joy, our thrills, our pride, must come from ourselves, first and foremost. Once you have faith in yourselves, no one else can take it away.

So please, send oranges, and bananas, and apples and peaches and pears. Send love, send emails, send pictures of your dog. But don’t ask me how much I’m getting paid.

How the heck does one become a rock star? Or even a musician of little fame, but perhaps some critical success? Can anyone out there tell me?

Because I am going to try. Gosh darn it yes I am.

(Today, Sunday, is a no-swear day for me, so you won’t be getting any f-words in this post.)

Here is what I have done so far to launch myself on this musical path (all of which will be elaborated upon, in my lengthy convoluted way, in upcoming blog posts):

1) Finally convincing myself, after trying for a few decades, that my parents were wrong about me, and that I am not the most annoying, shittiest singer on the planet;

which let to:

3) getting over my crippling shyness about singing with others (I joined a gospel choir in Harlem)

which led to

3) getting over my crippling shyness over singing as a back up singer (I sang with the Revelons at CBCB the week before CBs closed),

which led to

4) Attending the fab-u-licions Ladies Rock Camp In New York City (this very long essay will hopefully be appearing in Oprah Magazine soon!),

which led to

5) finally realizing my dream of singing lead in a band (the rocking, babe-o-licious Wrex Abroad),

which led to

7) dreaming of forming a real band,

which led to,

8) really really wanting to do something about forming a real band, instead of just dreaming about it (I’m forty, for f—k’s sake),

which leads us up to where I am at the present moment, wondering on Sunday in September what I do next.

I have been writing songs, believe it or not.  I’ve written one a day since Ladies’ Rock Camp. Most of them are along the lines of Robert Smith—so depressing you have to lift the needle off the album after the third one, for fear that you might rush off to slit your wrists. But others aren’t bad. And for me to say that a poem of mine is ‘not bad’ is quite a leap, for no one is more critical of my work than moi. I am hands down the nastiest self-critic out there.

Anyway, I have now written three ‘concept albums!’ One of which is eight songs dedicated to my eight male muses, who were members of my all time favorite bands.

Another of which is the suicide album (a sure hit

And a third about karma.

Any takers?  Any leavers? Any lovers of leaving?

Anyway, I must say that the songwriting process (as it were00I have no idea what I am doing) has been gloriously fun. Much more rewarding than writing memoirs or novels.  Writing books has sucked all the life force out of me. Working with an editor who doesn’t really get my work has been debilitating. But still, I wrote and wrote and wrote and worked and worked and worked and struggled and struggled and cried for the past four years. Every morning I did this. From 11 – 2 (sorry, that’s ‘morning’ for me, you lovely office drones). Devotedly, even though it was killing me, I devoted the best part of my day, and the best part of me, to my books.

After Ladies Rock Camp, I changed that. I decided that maybe I’d be a less miserable human if I devoted the best part of my day to music. To something that gave me life. To something that got me excited about the future.   And baby, it worked.  With each song I write, I feel a sense of accomplishment that carries through the rest of the day. And sure, it might be grandiose (my songs might suck after all), but it feels good nevertheless. I have even started dreaming about my muses: Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, Pete Townshend, and even, once, Meher Baba—they come to me in my dreams and tell me I am doing the right thing.

When I was writing the first draft of my novel, I had only one visitation, from Mr. Henry Miller (who, honestly, I have never admired, as a human or a writer of prose.). I was staying at my agent’s country house at the time—the phenomenal and godly and wise Lisa Bankoff—and we had been talking about one of my subplots (a pregnancy scare), and Lisa said, most astutely, “Pregnancy is not a subplot.” And then, that night, in my dreams, Henry Miller waltzed in with his big round glasses and said, “Lost that subplot.” Just like that. Thanks Henry.

Anyway, I am way off-track. I am trying to become a rock star.  If Henry Miller has any advice on that, I welcome him. Otherwise, I am reaching out to the cyber public. To the myspace friends and the facebook acquaintances and the people who accidentally came to this site because they googled “Jimmy Page.” (Sorry, guys, it’s just me, a woman who has sworn off swear words.)

Send me a manager. And I’ll send you angels on high.

.

I suppose if I were to confess to anyone that I frequently dream of Pete Townshend, here would be the place. But don’t worry—it’s not that kind of dream. No sex, no drugs, not even rock and roll, really. He’s just a presence really—one who fills the room with peace, love, and a sense that everything is all right.

Sounds like Christ, eh? Is this what they mean when they call rock stars gods?
For years I have wondered…

After these Pete dreams—which tend to happen two or three times annually—I wake up feeling blissful. I wake up feeling loved. I wake up feeling as if some real connection has been made, and I wake up wanting to maintain that connection for the rest of my life.

But then, after a few minutes, the grim reality would set in: that I was alone, seemingly unloved, and Mr. Pete Townsend—the man with whom I felt so intimate in my dreams—had no idea who I was. And never had and never would. What a terrible feeling!
(I had similar dreams about a man named Tony Stacchi, with whom I went to high school, and upon whom I always had a secret crush. I haven’t seem him since high school But this is another story.)

Getting back to the Pete dreams: in 2004, I finally consulted a therapist. Not about my Pete dreams—believe me, those were the least of my “problems.” Those dreams were pleasant, and gentle, and if they left me momentarily mystified, well, I wasn’t going to complain. No, this therapist was helping me recover from childhood trauma. She was a saint, that woman—so compassionate and wise—and once I started to discuss my Buddhists, Pagan, Jungian, and Native American beliefs, she told me she also happened to specialize in dream therapy. “I don’t tell that to all my clients,” she said with the smile. “Not everyone is open to that.”

So I told her about Pete. I told her the love I felt from him, and with him, in my dreams. “He’s wonderful,” she said, “I love him, too.” (For a second I was jealous. Because I wanted to believe I loved his music and connected with his lyrics more than anyone else on the planet, thank you very much.)

But anyway, I told her that sometimes Pete and I sang together. Sometimes we sang his songs; mostly we sang songs that I had written, that I couldn’t remember when I woke. Sometimes he encouraged me, and told me I had a good voice. Sometimes he would hug me—not in a sexual way. More of a maternal/paternal embrace—something I have rarely experienced in this lifetime. I would close my eyes and just absorb this love.

My therapist listened with a beautiful smile. “Everything in a dream is a representation,” she said. “What do you think he represents?

Music, of course. Singing, playing guitar, writing incredible, magnificent songs. He represented self-expression, channeling anger, channeling pain. He was an artist who could transmute those negative energies of anger and sorrow into something beautiful, the way the Buddhas are said to do.
“He’s encouraging you to make music,” my therapist said.

I loved this interpretation. And it made perfect sense. All of my life I have wanted to be a musician, but my parents discouraged that from the start (another long story for another day). Basically they told me I couldn’t sing for beans, and could I please turn that god-awful music down?

Now, in my dreams, I was getting encouragement from one of the people I admire most in the world. (And the creator of most of the ‘god-awful’ music I listened to as a child). How cool is that?

The pure, almost celestial warmth and happiness I felt in his presence was simply Music was calling me back, the way they say God calls you back, i suppose.

This goes back to the question above: Is this what people mean, then, when they call musicians “gods?” Because they have the capacity, through their words and music, to call us back to a better place? Because they make us feel less alone?

It would be fun to find the person who coined this term (God of Rock) and get his/her opinion. But I’d argue that, yes, that is the role people like Pete have served on the planet. But this is another big topic I suppose.

What I can say for certain is that, in my reality, in the Jungian context of my dreams, Pete absolutely serves as an archetype. He is Music, embodied, in a half human/half ethereal form.

Would he be flattered, or appalled, to know this? Only he can say….
(Part of me wants to believe that his appearances in my dreams are true visitations; that he has traveled astrally across oceans and continents to give me—sad, special, talented, weird me—a reassuring hug.)

Regardless of what this all means, I shall thank Pete, again and again, for this role he has played in my waking life, and in my sleeping life—the world of the subconscious, the world of gifts from beyond. It took several years, but I finally got the message:

Sing, girlfriend. Reclaim your original self. Let it be pure, and easy. Amen.

Dear God:

Assuming You are internet savvy, please click on the following link and place a bid on my behalf:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110212877169

My birthday is January 31st.  Thank you!

REX AND THE CITY: A MEMOIR OF A WOMAN, A MAN, AND A DYSFUNCTIONAL DOG now out in paperback!

I’m not one to toot my own horn, and I consider that a big fat flaw, especially these days, when books sale based on hype more than they sell on the quality of the actual book. But whatever. I need to be more proud of my work. No more of this I’m-too-shy-I’m-not-good-enough crap. If I don’t promote myself, no one will.

So here goes. Four months* ago the paperback version of my memoir, Rex and the City, came out to critical acclaim! I’ve gotten excellent reviews, and people are actually reading it!

*Yes, four months ago. In this day and age, in which everyone who’s anyone (and even everyone who’s no one) has a blog, you find that most writers let their readers know about such things in advance. But I was too depressed this summer to get very excited about such things as my very own paperback book launch. That’s another story, one I won’t bore you with here.

What did I do to celebrate the launch? I set a copy of the book on fire. This has nothing to do with imbalanced hormones, or pyromania; rather, I saw it as a lovely and symbolic way to “let the book go.” I literally wanted to see the book transform to ash and smoke and float off into the cosmos. I felt it had a better chance of reaching readers this way.

If you are a Buddhist, or have read any of Wayne Dyer’s book, or practice something called “non-attachment,” then you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. If you’re none of the above, well, just chalk this all off to the fact that I live in Woodstock, New York, and that we do that sort of thing all the time here. There’s always something being burned in this town–and not just spleefs! I’m talking ceremonial burnings. Just last week I was invited to a bonfire hosted by a fresh divorcee, and we were encouraged to bring items to burn from relationships that “no longer served us.”

Anyway, it just so happened that the day my paperback book was released - June 23, 2007 - was also the day I handed in the first draft of my novel, NOTHING KEEPS A FRENCHMAN FROM HIS LUNCH. Right now I’m wishing I had set that baby on fire as well, but that is another story, one I won’t bore you with here (but rest assured that deep depresssions and writers’ deadlines seem to go hand in hand).

We waited until the sun went down, which in June was after 8 pm, and then my friend Greg torched up the bonfire and my friend Lilly cracked open the bottle of Veuve Clicquot. We sat on stones surrounding a great outdoor firepit, underneath an enormous, starry, mountain sky. I made a little speech about REX AND THE CITY - how I wished it well, how I encouraged it to move on and out into the world. This book is a memoir, so it will always be part of me–a literal chronicle of my life. But still, I felt it was important to separate myself from it, to not be attached to its outcome, to not worry about who’s reading it and who isn’t. So I set my book into the fire. Oddly, it didn’t catch right away. It just sat there, nestled in the flames, kind of like a passenger settling in before a long flight. {terrible metaphor, i know, but i am taking a medication right now that seems to produce nothing but stiff sentences and bad metaphors}

So while my book sat on its pyre but did not burn, I talked about Wallace - the dog about whom I wrote this book. I thanked him for being in my life, and for being the inspiration for this book. I thanked him for giving me so much love. I didn’t go too overboard with this speech, because dear Wallace is dead, and I didn’t want to make my bonfire audience too uncomfortable. They are all dog lovers, my friends, but not necessarily the types to make weepy laudatory speeches about their dead dogs four years after the fact. So I kept the real sentiments to myself.

I kept this missive to myself, also: the fact that I silently asked Wallace to watch over the book, this book that now finally had caught on fire. For some reason I felt that this transformation from book to smoke and ash would somehow make the book more accessible to Wallace–or rather, to his spirit. (Call me crazy, if you wish. I have been called better, and worse. ) Wallace had been cremated, after all, and now Rex and the City was being cremated, too. Ashes to ashes. I silently asked Wallace to help this book along on its mission, which is to spread the word about the importance of helping abandoned and abused dog.

So the book burned, and the Veuve Clicquot went down smoothly, and a young man named Clayton played the drums. You could actually hear its echo in the nearby mountains.

In the morning, I returned to the firepit to see what remained of the book and, yes, to collect some ashes to keep in an urn on my mantle. ( I find that sort of thing amusing, and it gives my family plenty to talk about, so why not?). My book, my first book, my little REX AND THE CITY had been reduced to a fine white powder, as soft as talc. The only thing that remained was about two inches of the bookcover–and it happened to be the illustration of Wallace’s face. I took this as a good sign. That I was being watched over. And that a force larger than me was watching over my book. I bid it Godspeed.

In honor of my appearance—as a “celebrity judge,” no less—at the 17^th Annual Tompkins Square Park Halloween Dog Parade, I thought I would post, on this blog, an expanded version of my doggie-Halloween story that originally appeared in The Bark magazine in 2003. (Half of this story also appeared in the book version of REX AND THE CITY). But anyway, on to the story…..

Rex and the City: The Curse of the Three-Headed Dog

There’s nothing like Halloween in New York City. New York is home to some of the most artistic and creative people on the planet, most of whom will jump at any opportunity to put on a show. Consider the city’s eight hundred thousand drag queens, who, just to take a trip out to the deli, will put on seven-inch platforms, a sequined butterfly shawl and a two-foot wig. In the weeks before Halloween, the whole city began to fill with a fizzy, randy excitement. Shop windows were crammed with bondage gear, feather boas, broquaded undies and outrageous wigs, and the window boxes of the West Village overflowed with chrysanthemums and pumpkins and squash—all in their final bursts of color before the decay of the winter set in. And all those flamboyant colors; all those sequins, feathers and rubber masks started to bring out everyone’s inner drag queen. And it was no different for the dog people. There are more that thirty dog runs in the city, and therefore more than thirty annual doggie costume parades.

At that point in time (1998) we had just started taking Rex to the Tompkins Square Park dog run. Each run in the city has its own flavor and “First Run” as it was called (because it was the first in NYC) was known for 1) the youth of its doggie parents (most were East Village kids in their twenties); 2) the number of pit-bull mixes (most of the young doggie parents adopted pits from the ASCPA in the East 90’s, or found them on the streets); 3) the number of dog-brawls that occurred daily (it was a transient neighborhood, with a lot of new dogs); and 4) The legendary First Run Annual Halloween Costume Contest, which drew the likes of Iggy Pop and Lou Reed.

When I first saw the sign for this Halloween contest in early October, I felt my entire universe expand. Dogs in costume! At the thought of this, something latent was awakened in me—something ancient and profound. I told Ted in no uncertain terms that we had to go to this contest.

“Are you thinking of dressing Rex in a costume?”

“Absolutely.”

“He’ll hate it.”

“No he won’t.”

Ted and I, by that point had begun to communicate in a really weird, passive way through the dog. We would convey our own wants and needs through Rex. For example, I might say to Ted: “Rex really needs to get away for the weekend. I think he wants to rent a room in a nice B&B.”

Anyway, I managed to convince Ted that Rex wouldn’t mind having to wear a costume. I can’t remember how we came up with the idea, but we had decided to dress him up like a little hiker. I think it all started with this brown wool hippy hat that used to belong to a stoner friend of Ted’s from high school. The hat was handmade in Peru, and slightly pointy on top, and had two strings that you could tie under your chin. Ted had asked me once if I wanted it, but I am much too serious a person to wear silly Peruvian hats. (The hats I wear cost $550 and I never even wear those, because I always buy them on a whim, and they are really only appropriate at English garden weddings, and I have not yet to date been invited to any weddings in the UK.) So anyway, I suggested we put the Peruvian hat on Rex, just for kicks.

This opened up a can of worms, of course, that determined much of Rex’s future. For I quickly realized that I got a true and unadulterated pleasure from dressing up my dog. “He looks so cute,” I shouted. “Oh my God. Get the camera.”

“The poor boy,” Ted said. “How humiliating.” But still Ted got the camera.

The rest of Rex’s Halloween costume quickly fell into place. Rex already had his own little backpack, for camping trips, and Ted agreed to donate a pair of ratty hiking shorts he’d had for years. He started to have regrets, however, when I spent $30 on a little wool sweater and cut strategic holes in his cherished shorts to accommodate Rex’s tail and privates, but by then it was too late. The contest was only one day away.

“You’re going overboard,” he said the next morning as I gussied up Rex. “Everyone else will probably show up with their dogs in cat ears and witch hats.”

“So what?” I said. “This is fun. Plus, we’ll win.” For a final touch, I put a Catskills trail guide in the pocket of Rex’s backpack, so that there would be no doubt that he was a hiker.

The day itself was one of those perfect fall days you read about: crisp, cool, clear, with the scent of autumn leaves and hot cider donuts lingering in the air. I insisted on dressing up Rex at the apartment and couldn’t contain my excitement at the cuteness of it all. I started to have visions of Rex being in the movies, of starring in dog food commercials, of his face gracing millions of cutesy-dog greeting cards. And a photographer from the Times would definitely be at the contest—one came every year. So maybe finally I’d get my picture in that paper. With my award-winning dog. “Oh my god, he’s so cute!” I said for the millionth time. (If I couldn’t have my own time in the spotlight, then, by God, Rex was going to have his.) “Will you take a picture of him before we leave? It’s his first party, in his first party suit.”

“Let’s not prolong the torture,” Ted said. “The poor boy.” Admittedly, looked downtrodden, as if he wished he had nothing to do with the human world. He kept lifting his eyelids, and twisting his head left to right, trying to figure out what was on top of his head. He also tried to pull off the backpack with his mouth, but he couldn’t quite reach.

“Let’s just go!” Ted said.

I enjoyed all the attention we got on our twenty-minute walk to the dog run, but Ted clearly did not. “Look at that dog!” people on the sidewalks shouted. “He’s so cute!” All around us, people laughed and pointed and smiled. I basked in their praise; I loved being in the spotlight, even indirectly. But Ted seemed pained.

“He’s such a dignified dog,” he kept saying as we walked through the East Village. “This isn’t right. You’re humiliating him. He’s going to grow up to be a pansy. He’s going to be like Hemingway, who was all screwed up because his grandmother dressed him in girlie clothes.”

“No, he’s not,” I said, undaunted. I stopped to talk to strangers and told everyone cute little anecdotes about Rex. “He used to be a shelter dog,” I would begin. “And he used to hate us. And he would never let us touch his head. And now look at him with his little hat….”

“Rex come,” Ted would say, pulling on the leash.

“Rex was enjoying himself,” I said to Ted when I caught up to him.

“That’s because that woman petting him has a hot dog.”

“No it’s not. It’s because she told him he was cute.”

On and on this went, all the way to the park. It wasn’t until a horde of pretty girls in go-go boots ran up to Ted to ask what kind of dog Rex was, that the tight, slightly pained look left Ted’s face.

When we reached the grassy area within Tompkins Square Park, Rex went immediately went into hunting mode. His steps slowed, his torso sank lower to the ground, and his nose twitched with the precision of a sonograph as he picked up subtle scents. You could tell he had forgotten he had a little ski cap on, and a backpack, and a toddler’s sweater and silly shorts. “Look at him stalking those squirrels!” the girls in the go-go boots shouted.

“Poor Rex,” Ted muttered. “The poor emasculated boy.” But this hadn’t stopped him from bringing along his video camera. He followed Rex along, zooming in for close-ups, as Rex crept slowly toward a squirrel.

When we finally reached the dog run, I was astounded at what I saw. You’re always going to find, at every Halloween contest across the country, a lab in Christmas antlers, and one or two Dog-zillas, and a golden retriever in a store-bought Yankees cap. But try to picture a Harlequin Great Dane dressed up as a giant sunflower. Or a matted grey Shitzhu dressed as a mop and accompanied by a short gay man dressed as a frumpy housewife. The costumes were spectacular. There was a shepherd mix in a curly black wig and Gene Simmons makeup, and a tiny leather jacket embossed with the logo: Kiss. There was a couple dressed up like farmers, carrying baskets of produce, and tucked within the vegetables was a tiny Chihuahua in a pea pod costume, shivering nervously the way Chihuahuas do. There were Pit Bulls sporting cow udders, and six Dachshunds spray-painted yellow to look like a bunch of bananas, accompanied by a giant man in a gorilla suit. “Wow,” Ted said. “I’m impressed.”

“I’m depressed,” I said. One of the great, but also one of the rotten, things about New York City is that no matter how creative you are, no matter how talented or clever or smart, there’s always going to be someone out there who’s smarter and more talented and more creative than you. Every second of every day.

“Look at that costume!” Ted said. And there I beheld my nemesis. Across the run, wearing Gucci sunglasses and surrounded by adoring fans, was a man and his golden retriever, whom he had fashioned into a Three Headed Dog. From a distance the two extra heads looked life-like, and they continued to look life like even as we got close. “How did you do that?” someone asked, through a crowd that was three-people deep. “With Styrofoam,” he explained. “I’m a set designer.” And he went on to describe how he had begun constructing the heads back in August, how he had required his dog, Butterscotch, to pose for an hour each evening as he painted her likeness on the busts, and how it had taken him three weeks to find the best “suspension mechanisms” to attach the heads to Butterscotch’s collar. Then of course he had to go out and find the perfect cape to conceal the suspension mechanisms. And the cape had come from Shanghai Tang ( a high-end Asian boutique on Madison Avenue).

“That shawl had to have cost six hundred dollars,” I said to Ted as we slunk away. “And did you see that they eyes on the Styrofoam heads actually blinked?”

“I’m blown away,” Ted said.

“If I had known people were going to spend six months on their costumes, I would have put more effort into Rex’s.” I stared at the three-headed dog’s magnificent cape. “I don’t even have socks from Shanghai Tang.”

“But look our puppy, he’s adorable,” Ted said. “And he’s being such a good boy.” Rex always stayed by our side at the dog run, because he was still intimidated by the presence of so many dogs. “Come on,” Ted said. “Let’s go sign him in.”

When we got to the registration desk, we found out we had to have a name for Rex’s costume. I hadn’t thought of a name. I thought the costume spoke for itself. To me, Rex looked like a little hippie kid, a Bates student, a Trustafarian going off on a hike. “How about Happy Camper?” I said to Ted. And don’t they always say First Thought, Best Thought? Because then, for some reason, I decided that I had needed to have a more literary name. Something more clever and tongue-in-cheek. I thought then of Jon Krakauer, the author of Into The Wild. “No one is going to know what you’re talking about,” Ted said. But I reasoned that we were in the East Village, a neighborhood full of artists and writers and tortured souls. Any of the above would certainly have read Into the Wild, which was the “it” book of the moment.

So we—or rather, I—registered Rex as “Jon Krakauer” and we took our place in line for the parade to begin. Ted gave me one of his looks—one I liked to call “The Crow.”

The contest began by everyone parading their dogs around the perimeter of the run as a group, and then each of the contestants was called one by one. The whole dog run was lined with was lined with giddy onlookers. As each contestant was called forth they hooted and clapped and cheered. The sound of so much applause was uplifting, and I laughing along, but then Rex’s name was called. The MC said: “And here’s Rex the English Setter, and he’s posing as, as, um, Jonathan Kra……Jon Cracker?” The crowd, who had just been cheering madly for the Mastiff-as-ballerina before us, now grew silent.

In this void, I told Rex to heel and we promenaded along. I smiled nervously and fakely, like a beauty contestant finalist who has just found out she was eliminated after just the first round. I tried to make eye contact with Ted, who was out there somewhere with the onlookers, but I couldn’t find him in such a crowd. Then our moment was over. Rex and I returned to our place in line, and then some other dog’s name was called. “That was our fifteen minutes of fame,” I whispered to the dog. “And it sucked!”

The Three-Headed Dog won of course, soon the dog and his costume designer were mobbed by photographers and fans. Dejectedly, I took off Rex’s short and backpack, so that he could go and happily hump the ballerina and bite other dog’s necks. “I should have just called him the Happy Camper,” I said to Ted as I stuffed Rex’s little hiking shorts into my bag. Across the run, I watched people congratulate the set designer. He seemed a bit too proud of his achievements; a bit too smug.

Ted thought the whole thing was hilarious. “Jon Krakauer,” he said over and over again. “Into the Wild!” He trained his video camera onto me and said, “This is Lee pouting because Rex didn’t win the Halloween contest.”

When he saw that I wasn’t laughing, he said. “Let’s go to Veselka’s and get some lunch.” Ted, like all good city boyfriends, knew that certain restaurants could always cheer certain mopey women up. For me, it was Veselka’s: pirogues (steamed, and stuffed with potatoes, cheese and broccoli), French fries, and a cold Pilsner Urquell on tap.

We leashed up Rex and headed off. As we were leaving the park, a nice young woman ran up and touched my shoulder. “I thought yours was the best costume.”

“Really?” I turned to her and smiled.

“He should have won first place.”

“Thanks.”

This is one of the wonderful things about New York: for every stranger who has the capacity to ruin your day—whether deliberately or not—there are always two or three more strangers who will extend to you a fresh, pure act of kindness.

“See?” I said to Ted at Veselka’s. “Someone got it. I wasn’t totally out of line.”

“Yes, Lee,” he said. “One in twelve hundred people gets you.” He touched my hand. “Make that two.”

Rex, as if he understood us, turned around at that moment and looked at us with what we call his “treat face.”

“Make that three,” Ted said.

This is not where the story ends, however, because from that day forward, for the next two years I tried to devise schemes to out-do the Three Headed Dog and his set designer man.

It was now the year 2000 and, much to my disappointment, the world had not ended as everyone kept insisting it would. Thus, I had to continue living my drudgery of a life. I started thinking about Rex’s costume in early August. Ted and I would be walking along the beach at Fire Island, or hiking in the Hudson Valley, swatting away flies, and I’d say things like, “What do you think of Tommy Hilsetter?”

“What?” Ted would say. “What are you talking about?” He was a serious hiker, who always kept his eyes on the trails, and therefore never really listened to me while he was hiking. Perhaps—and I am seriously just realizing this now, as I write: perhaps this is why he liked hiking so much. It was the only time he could legitimately tune me out.

“For Halloween,” I said. “We could put a little skull cap on him, and really baggy jeans that hang low off his butt. He could be a little ghetto dog.”

“I think that might be offensive,” Ted said. “A lot of kids from the projects play basketball in that park.”

“Well then how about Brittany Spears? We could get Rex some of those big plastic tits and a shiny pink thong.”

“That’s not very original,” Ted said. “Everyone with a Brittany Spaniel has probably thought of that. Plus, Rex doesn’t even look like enough of a Brittany to pass as one.”

Up ahead, we could hear that Rex had flushed out a wild turkey. He let out a war cry and took off through the brush.

“It would be hard to keep a thong on him anyway,” I said.

Eventually—I don’t remember how—I came up with the idea of Dogatella Versace. It was the year Jennifer Lopez had worn that infamous, diaphanous, one-button dress to the Grammys. (And if you don’t know what dress I’m talking about, I can’t help you). I like to think that the idea came to me in one great creative burst; a flash in which I saw the complete outfit: Rex in a mini J. Lo dress, with a long blonde Donatella wig, and his white fur tinted to Versace’s creepy shade of tan.

Eureka! My heart began to pound and the area behind my neck began to tingle, as it always does when I have tapped into The Universal Source.

There were two obstacles to expressing my creative inspiration, however. One was convincing Ted that his son needed to be swathed in Versace, and the other was finding someone to make the dress. Fortunately, we lived in New York City, the land of oddball specialists, so the latter was a piece of cake. At any given moment, you could open up the Yellow Pages and find someone to sing opera to your geraniums while you traveled to Reykjavik; you could hire someone to sew mink to the straps of your seatbelts so that you wouldn’t chafe your chest. And you could find a handful of talented, expensive seamstresses who would custom make a dress for your dog. I found my doggie dressmaker, by providence really, on Manhattan Dog Chat. She just appeared one day in early September, answering a post from someone who had some extra upholstery fabric and wanted to make a little jacket for her “hard to fit” Maltese.

Immediately I called this woman and told her about my Dogatella Versace idea. “How big is your dog?” she asked me. And when I told her Rex weighed seventy pounds she said, “Well, I usually only work with little dogs.” I felt myself getting defensive, and reverting into that hateful “Us and Them” mentality that, as a Buddhist, I try to not maintain: Us being big dog people (they are real dogs, after all) and little dog people. Meanwhile, she was probably thinking I was insane for wanting a Versace dress for a 70-pound spaniel. A male spaniel with no effeminate qualities whatsoever. But because I was the customer, and because I offered to pay her a hundred bucks, we agreed that she would pick out some J. Lo-looking fabric and meet me at my apartment for a fitting the following week. “He’s really cute,” I said added at the end of our conversation, because Little Dog People love to use the word cute.

Ted wanted nothing to do with this. He tried to list all the reasons why I should not dress our dog in drag (i.e.: you’re humiliating him, you have better things to do with your time) but in the end he saw how excited I was about the project and how unwilling I was to back off. “When is she coming?” he finally said in resignation.

“Next Saturday. At three.”

“Well, I’ll just make sure I’m not around Saturday at three,” he said.

When Sheila, the dressmaker, arrived at the appointed hour, we were both relieved to find that we liked each other immediately. You never know with the Internet. She was a theater person, a costume designer, who made clothes for dogs on the side, because it was profitable, and because she loved dogs. “I used to have one,” she said, “but now I travel way too much.” As she talked, she measured Rex’s ankles, and the length of his legs, and the distance from his neck to his tail. “Now, this will be the challenge,” she said, pointing at his privates. “We have to have the plunging neckline to mimic the dress, but it will have to fasten in front of his wee-wee. I’m just not sure it will hang right though.” She stared at Rex thoughtfully, considering how his body would handle the complicated drapes of cloth, and I was glad Ted wasn’t here to witness this. The “wee-wee” comment would have sent him through the roof.

Rex was a perfect fit model. I fed him liver treats throughout the whole process, so that he would stay still, and he didn’t try to lunge at Sheila when she leaned in too close to his head. I was so proud of his behavior, and of his progress as a formerly abused dog, that I started to get teary-eyed. “You’re like the mother of the groom,” Sheila said. “Or the bride, as it were.”

“It’s just that,” I said, wiping my eyes, “he’s a shelter dog, and he was abused, and whenever I see him interact tenderly with new strangers I am just so grateful.” “Now you tell me,” Sheila said. “But he doesn’t seem threatening. It’s usually the little dogs you have to watch out for.”

I agreed.

“Would you like me to take a picture of the two of you when I come back to fit the actual dress?” she said.

We hugged when she showed me the material she’d selected. It was perfect: sheer, green, bold, in a tropical pattern that mimicked the actual dress. Then I showed her the wig I’d bought, which was made of human hair and had cost me $50. “We mustn’t mention costs to my husband,” I said.

“My lips are sealed,” she said.

Then I told her about the Three Headed Dog Man.

“We’ll kick his ass,” she said.

I gave her cash and we arranged to meet for a final fitting in two weeks’ time.

In the meantime, I got a call from one of my mother-in-laws, who said she was going to be coming to New York for a visit. I absolutely love visits from my mother-in-laws (I happened to be blessed with not one but two dynamite mother-in-laws, who liked me despite the fact that I never cooked for their son/step-son, never wrote or called, never produced any grandchildren, and talked non-stop about my dog). But this visit was scheduled for the weekend of Halloween. I faced a true conflict. My manners, upbringing, and sense of general decency suggested that I should scrap the Halloween contest and act like a proper hostess. My mother-in-law was a sharp, sophisticated woman who, when she visits the city, likes to spend her time good restaurants and sample sales. But I’d already invested all that money into Rex’s dress, and I couldn’t get the smug face of the Three-Headed-Dog man out of my head. “Do you think I could talk you into going with me to a doggie Halloween contest?” I asked her on the telephone. “It might be fun.”

“Sure,” she said. “We can do anything you want.”

Her graciousness did not put me entirely at ease, however. I worried that I was

taking a risk with my reputation with that half of the family. In fact, years later, when Ted and I got divorced, I wondered if that particular weekend continued to come up in conversation, when the family sat around the dinner table discussing “signs.” As in, “we always knew that marriage wouldn’t work out; why, think of the time she forced her dog to enter a Halloween contest….”

Anyway, the big day of the contest arrived and I was nervous. My mother-in-law, had arranged to meet me at Tompkins Square Park so that she could do some shopping beforehand, and Ted had decided not to come at all. “I have to work,” he said, which I noticed was something he had to do whenever I had Rex in costume.

He had to work on St Patrick’s Day, when Rex wore a headband with sparkly shamrock antennae. He had to work on Easter (bunny ears) and the Fourth of July (flag hat). He was a hard worker, Ted, and that morning he apologized to Rex for not being able to spend the day with him. “Someone had to pay for all your food,” he said. “And your clothing.

I was busy combing Rex’s wig out. Then I combed my own hair.

When Rex and I got to the park, the sky was overcast and the day was humid—an uncommon phenomenon for October. I was wearing a turquoise vinyl jacket to match Rex’s costume, and the vinyl made me sweat. This for some reason made me cranky, and it was a mood I couldn’t shake. The whole vibe of the contest was off that year. Maybe it was the humidity, maybe it was me, but the dog run seemed less festive; less crowded. “There’s another doggie parade this year over in Chelsea,” someone told me. “All the drag queens are over at that one, I’m sure.” I felt a bit dejected by this—once again something better was happening someplace else, where I was not. And the best place to be is always Where the Drag Queens Are.

But then I got a good look at some of the costumes and felt better again. There was a Corgi transformed into a Hoover. There were two baby cocker spaniels dressed as a bride and groom. Then the Three-Headed Dog man entered the dog run and Butterscotch was dressed up as—get this—Dogzilla. I could hear Ted say, “How unoriginal,” and I couldn’t help but smile. Sure, it was a spectacular costume—he had created a twelve-foot, elaborately airbrushed Styrofoam tail, with spiky fins, savage scales, and moveable parts. But please. Even Aunt Mabel in Idaho could have come up with Dogzilla.

Two years had passed since The Happy Camper had faced the Three-Headed Dog. And Rex was a completely different dog by this point. He was happier, and better adjusted, and the dog run no longer meant “defend thyself” to him; it meant Play. So the minute I took his leash off inside the dog run, he took off after a Border Collie and the two of them ran like mad. “Rex!” I shouted. “Your dress! You’re ruining your dress!” I told him to come but he wouldn’t listen to me. It took fifteen minutes to finally cornered Rex and put him back on his leash. “Now stay still,” I said to him. “Sit!” His wig had been thoroughly dragged across the ground and was now tangled with woodchips and leaves. I told Rex he was the worst dog in the world.

My mother-in-law showed up just as the registration was about to begin. She waved to me from beyond the fence. Only dogs and their guardians were allowed in the run. I blew her a kiss and smiled. Rex’s wig kept slipping off, and every time he moved his dress would shift sideways, and he’d step on the hem with his back paws. “Stay still!” I snapped at him. “When I tell you to sit, you sit!” There was irritation in my voice, and I looked around to see if anyone had heard. Butterscotch and his guardian sat placidly in line, both confident that they would win the contest. Meanwhile, the Border Collie kept running up to us and biting at Rex’s wig. “Go away!” I said to her, and to Rex: “Stay still! When I tell you to sit, you sit!” But poor Rex wanted to play with the Border Collie. He wanted to stalk squirrels. But I was convinced the whole “effect” of his dress would be ruined if he even lifted his leg to pee. So every time he tried to get up from his sit, I’d apply pressure on his shoulders and push him back down.

Years ago, I’d worked at a children’s fashion magazine and one of my jobs was to assist the art director on photo shoots. Once a month, stage mothers would arrive with their stiffly coiffed sons and daughters. I remember my shock the first time I saw a toddler girl wearing makeup and four-inch heels. Her hair had been curled a la Shirley Temple, and she was unhappy that day—perhaps because of the shoes. But her mother was even unhappier. She kept insisting to me that Kelly normally didn’t act so ornery, that Kelly knew how to be a good girl. “She’s just being very bad today,” the mother kept saying loudly and bitterly “Very bad.”

Now the line of dog-contestants moved, and Rex stood up without permission and stepped on the hem of his dress. “Sit!” I snapped at him.

Then, suddenly, I saw myself: angry, snappy, perfectionist, dissatisfied.

I had become a stage mother. I had put my own needs before my child’s. When the beginning of the contest line-up was announced, I couldn’t even look at my mother-in-law. I thought she might see the shame on my face and I didn’t want to see it on her face too.

The crowd roared with laughter when Rex was introduced as Dogatella Versace, and they cheered madly when, later, he won first prize. Last year first prize had been a six-month supply of California Natural and a CD player; this year it was a $40 gift certificate to a new pet store. When we went up to the stage to take the prize, the judge hung a “Best in Show” medal around Rex’s neck. It was brass with a red white and blue ribbon that made him look like an Olympian. As the crowd clapped and cheered, a newspaper reporter snapped our photograph, but I refused to tell him my name. I, who for years had told myself I had sought the spotlight, was suddenly ashamed.

As soon as the contest was over I took the medal off Rex’s neck. Then I took off the dress, and the wig. “You were such a good boy today,” I told him, and then I knelt down and apologized for the beastly way I had behaved. “I’ll never put you through that again,” I told him. “I won’t even make you wear a birthday hat if you don’t want to.”

And so far, my promise has been good.

The medal still hangs on Rex’s bulletin board, which hangs above his “feeding station.” I’d like to think he notices this medal every time the bowl of ground turkey and boiled potatoes is set down before him, and that he somehow feels wistful, or proud, but mostly he just gobbles his food rapidly. Grateful, perhaps, that he isn’t being forced to wear a wig.

The (Dog) Boys of Summer

My dog Chloe has been in a serious relationship for two years now. Her boyfriend is a handsome English Setter named Rainbow, and they are very well-matched. Both weigh about sixty pounds, and both are not-very-birdie bird dogs. Both love play tug and keepaway; both love to swim in our nearby creek and hunt for fish (Chloe actually sticking her snout into the water and trying to catch them; Rainbow barking at the fish from a safe place on the shore.) In terms of hierarchy, Chloe is definitely the boss, which suits them both fine. Chloe always passes through doorways first, always wins the rope during games of tug-of-war, and will always try to steal Rainbow’s food. And because he will so willingly let her steal his food, we tried to feed them separately, for Rainbow is always on the verge of being too thin and Chloe is always on the verge of being too fat.

“Chubs,” is what Rainbow’s guardian, Greg, calls Chloe behind my back. I know this because Greg’s seven-year old son, Clayton, tells me everything. We are neighbors in idyllic Woodstock, New York.

But anyway, it makes me happy to see Chloe and Rainbow together. It makes me happy to witness dog love: the joyous, raucous way they greet one another; the impish, playful ways in which they bite each other’s ankles; and, at the end of the day, the adorable way they nap together, sometimes facing each other with their legs entwined, other times spooning like an old married couple. Always, their bodies are touching, and I love to see the content, tired look on Chloe’s face when she sleeps with her head draped across Rainbow’s neck. That look speaks of companionship, and ownership, and true love. It always makes me want two dogs, but that second dog would have to be Rainbow, and he’s not on the market. So, as with most relationships from which we want more, we take what we can get. I call Rainbow my half-dog.

This summer, however, Chloe and I went on an extended book tour, which meant that for seven weeks we had to leave Rainbow behind. That’s seven weeks without anyone biting your ankles, or pinning you to the ground so that he can bite your neck, or trying to take away your saliva-soaked stuffed bunny rabbit, or cuddling with you on a big stinky dog bed. By “you” I mean Chloe of course. Every night, before we went to sleep, I promised Chloe that soon we’d see Rainbow again–September 15^th to be exact. She always smiled at me and thumped her tail.

Then, in August, I heard the news: “Rainbow has a new girlfriend,” my friend Greg told me. Greg, of course, is Chloe’s godfather.

“Who is she?” I said, in the same exact voice I used, oh, twenty years ago when my shit-ass boyfriend, who was also the Love of My Life, told me he was in love with someone else.

“Her name is _____,” Greg said. “She lives next door.”

“What kind of dog is she?” I said, again in that voice. If I had had long red fingernails, i would have been clicking them menacingly on the counter.

“A black lab.”

My heart stopped. You see, Chloe hates black labs. I can’t explain this hatred; it seemed to come out of nowhere twelve months prior. One day Chloe was a friendly, open, I’ll-play-with-anyone kind of dog; the next day I had to pull her off a female black lab who had had the audacity to come say hello to Chloe at the dog park. Since then, any time we see a black lab, Chloe makes a strange rumbling noise—not quite a growl, more like the revving of an engine—and strains determinedly on her leash. It’s the sound of hatred, I guess, of exacting some sort of revenge. But for what? I thought dogs were color-blind…..Maybe Chloe, all this time, had been psychic. She knew the love of her life was going to cheat on her with a female black lab.

“Rainbow really loves her,” Greg was saying on the phone. “They play all day long. She’s a really fast dog.”

Chloe, being on the verge of being fat, was not as fast a runner as Rainbow. But that was part of her charm.

“But what about Chloe?” I said to Greg in a whiny voice.

“Chloe’s in Massachusetts. So are you. He has to play with someone.”

So basically it was out of sight, out of mind. Spoken like a true man.

After Greg and I got off the phone, I sat down on the floor next to Chloe. I smoothed out the sun-bleached fur on her ear flaps, I stroked her heart-shaped little brown nose, I told her she was a pretty, pretty girl. I can’t explain how heartbroken I was at even the thought Rainbow loved another dog more than he loved Chloe. That Chloe had been replaced. Just like that. We turn our backs for ten minutes and look what happens! I actually started to cry.

And maybe I was reading too much into this. Now is probably the time to admit that I myself do not have a boyfriend. I am not the love of anyone’s life. No one nips at my neck or my earlobes. So of course it would give me pleasure that at least my dog was getting love! Someone in this equation has to get the guy! I mean, in order to believe in love you have to see it, every day, in action. That’s why so many women read romance novels and see sappy movies. You have to keep that hope alive. Otherwise you become the pathetic single woman who lives alone in Woodstock and apparently lives vicariously through her dog! Geesh!

I did not tell Chloe about Rainbow and his black lab mistress. I simply told her another truth: that we would see Rainbow on September 15^th.

Meanwhile, there we were on Cape Cod. Which is not a bad place to be Without Love. We spent our mornings at the shore of a tiny freshwater pond in Brewster, watching the mist rise off the water in the post-dawn light, and revealing the lily pads underneath. Chloe swam around hunting for fish while I meditated and read Harry Potter. In the afternoons we went to the beach, where Chloe hunted for more fish—a smorgasbord at low tide—and I just watched the horizon, never growing tired at how vast and mysterious and promising the world could seem, if you just kept your eyes there rather than on your computer screen. By “you” I mean me. I never leave this computer. Which is probably why I have no love.

But Chloe! She found love.

It happened at the Brewster Book Store, in Brewster Massachusetts. I had gone in to sign some copies of my paperback, and to introduce Chloe to the store owner (Nancy, a real dog lover who has rescued several dogs herself).Nancy had set up a wonderful display of dog-themed books on a small antique table, and had placed, at the table’s base, a large stuffed animal—a black and white husky, with one of those benign Husky smiles on its face. He (I assumed it was a he) was about the size of a Springer spaniel, which is perhaps why Chloe fell so hopelessly in love with him.

You should have seen it! First she stood in front of him and touched her nose to his. (This is what she does to me when she wants my attention—she pokes me with her snout.) Then she went down into a play bow, with her tail swishing madly. Then, because the Husky still had not responded, she barked at him—just a playful, flirtatious little yip. Still, the Husky remained mute, stiff, and guarded. By this time I had 1) decided that the dog’s name was Skipper, because he looked like a Skipper (all he needed was a red and blue nautical print bandana and he’d be all set): 2) decided that maybe Chloe wasn’t as smart as I’d always made her out to be.

Chloe poked Skipper with her snout again, and then threw herself at his feet, rolling onto her back and displaying her pink spotted belly. Nothing. She shimmed a little and barked and flailed her legs in the air dramatically. Nothing. Still Skipper remained impassive. Then she finally nipped him on the ankles—a sweet, playful gesture that always worked with Rainbow.

Meanwhile, Nancy and I watched, along with a number of very amused customers. We laughed. We made comments about “men.” How aloof they can be, how non-responsive, how no female can resist the strong and silent type.

I’ve always loved to witness cross-species friendships: the tiny kitten that snuggles with a Pit Bull, the horse who nuzzles a pig, that famous Ridgeback in South Africa who foster-mothered a baby lion. This says to me that love knows no boundaries; that love is simply Love. So even though—standing there watching my dog Chloe flirt with an inanimate object—I worried that she was less intelligent than her other Border Collie brethren, I also told myself that didn’t matter. Who ever said love had anything to do with intelligence anyway?

Finally, fed up with all that ankle-biting, Skipper finally toppled on top of Chloe and then just lay there, on his side. Chloe in response sprung onto all fours–in that remarkably quick ways dogs have—and proceeded to bite Skipper on the throat – another one of her favorite moves with Rainbow. But Skipper just lay there. “I used to date a man just like that,” one of the store customers said. And we nearly died laughing.

About a year ago, I developed a disturbing and all-consuming celebrity crush. I’m really not the celebrity type—I don’t watch TV or read magazines or even see all that many movies. And I certainly have never followed celebrity gossip. But in this case, I happened to meet the man in person, locked eyes with him (eyes as blue as the sea!) and experienced, well, a form of zap that stayed in my system for months. I won’t bore you with the web-trolling, image down-loading, fan-site drooling details….but I will share with you the conversation I had with one of my friends, a lesbian who’d had a similar obsession with Stevie Nicks. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” I remember her telling me. “This crush has awakened something in you. Since your divorce you’ve been kind of shut down toward men. You should be thankful that this person has brought back in you your capacity to love.”

“And lust,” I said.

“Oh yes, that too.”

Anyway, seeing Chloe flirt happily and unabashedly with her fake-dog boyfriend made me think fondly of that long-gone celebrity, and of all the happy times we had together (in my head). It made me realize that it can just be so much fun to love someone. It doesn’t matter if he/she does not love you back.

And what does this have to do with Rainbow? Nothing really. This is a blog, not an essay.

When we got back to Woodstock, the first thing Chloe and I did was visit Rainbow. Their reunion was riotous. Leaping, chasing, biting, throwing themselves at one another. Rainbow brought Chloe one of his latest toys—a little rubber Giuliani—and Chloe immediately stole it from him and then flaunted her triumph, tossing the toy in the air, and refusing to let Rainbow have it. They chased each other around the pool, across the tennis court, in and around a grove of pine trees that bordered the land. They took turns tearing mock-savagely at one another’s scruffs; they bit each others’ rumps and ankles. They played until they were exhausted, and too weak to stand up anymore. And even then, lying together on the rug at the hearth, they played, mouthing each other silently, and clacking teeth.

As I watched them, I found myself filling with happiness again. And relief. It was clear that Chloe was still Rainbow’s favorite girlfriend. She had not been replaced. At least not at this instant. Plus, the thing about Dog Love is, there’s always plenty to go around.

I never told Greg or Rainbow about the stuffed dog. Primarily because they would have made fun of me, and I didn’t want anyone to think of my dog as unintelligent. Plus, I figured what rainbow didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. Chloe’s brief affair was like any summer fling….fleeting, insignificant, all style no substance. Rainbow was both Chloe’s Mr. Right and her Mr. Right Now.

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Lee Harrington’s best-selling memoir REX AND THE CITY: A WOMAN, A MAN, AND A DYSFUNCTIONAL DOG, came out in paperback this year (Villard 2007). Her award-winning series “Rex and the City” has been appearing in The Bark magazine since 2000.

Below is an essay I wrote in the winter of 2002, when I was still numb from all the 911 horror. You can tell by the prose alone just how numb I was. I was so numb I didn’t realize I was numb, know what I mean? Another thing I didn’t realize at the time of this essay was that, deep down, I had decided to leave my husband. There’s an apathy in this essay that is VERY clear to me now, as I reread it. But back then, than January, it was hard to have clarity about anything.