I'll sleep on it.

When Boss starts preparing for a class he seems to be all over his work area, his room, even the kitchen, looking for things.

People things. Books. Pads of paper. Magazines. Journals. Not a damned piece of duck or chicken jerky in the lot.

When he scratches his ear, I get the sense he is starting to hone in on things. It would be so much easier for him if he had a better sense of smell. But he makes the best of it. The pile of materials grows at his feet. I think, he will tell me, we're closing in on it.

Then he says, okay, here it is, and be begins scribbling notes, going so fast he sometimes has difficulty deciphering them when he gets to the typing-on-the-computer stage. I can see the shift in energy as he settles in, sometimes smacking himself on the forehead, his way of remonstrating himself the way he sometimes remonstrates with me about barking at the Cudahy place, Why hadn't I seen that before? he will go. Then he seems to grow larger, swelling with the enthusiasm of it, and soon thereafter, he is singing in the shower, then rifling through closets to find something to wear, which is silly because, as I try to explain, if he had just one suit, he would have no problems. You don't see me looking for things to wear. My suit is perfect for any occasion.

By the time we get to class, I'm ready for a nap. It helps that I've already heard the material as he shuffles it around and plays with it. Some of my best naps are in the classrooms he takes me to. Graduate-level naps are far and away the best, but writers' conference naps are not to be dismissed lightly.

WTF

Spent most of the morning guarding the front porch.

As a consequence, Boss has been able to get some work in on what we have begun to think of as The Book.

Time for Bosses everywhere to be up.

Up, Boss, up.

Order

During this long, languorous Summer, I have caught up with the past episodes of House.

Pausing to reflect on the nature of all but a few human individuals, I focused on the Senate Hearings relative to confirmation of S. (not the S. ENK refers to!) and have in a brief moment or two my assessment of people confirmed. In particular, Senators S. and T. are roaring examples of self-serving idiocy.

Tried one episode of Bones, but that was a no go. Dumb de dumb dumb.

No more TV for a while.

I must restore order to the chaos.

The Tenth Cat

It is catching, is what it is.
Everyone around here all of a sudden is a writer. Not on my watch, kiddo. Up at 5:30 this morning to discover the interloper, thumbing through a pile of books. Writer your own damned books. Boss has a time of it as it is, looking for references without some cat having at it. And on top of that, the cat is--I don't know how to tell you this, but I think the cat is orthodox. Or is that Orthodox? Goddamned cat wears a black skull cap? WTF? With orthodox comes separate sets of dishes for meat and dairy meals. And that is only the beginning. Next thing you know the goddamned cat will be seeking nine others for a minyan. That's the thing with cats: takes ten of them to have a meeting. A dog can do it all on her own.

Juggling projects

I am trying to do for Boss what Boss sometimes does for C., which is to say initiating projects.

The downside of his having many projects is a shortening of time we could be out doing field work, sniffing, observing traits and tendencies of plants to express their growing and resting cycles, watching birds at work, pausing to watch the dyspeptic squirrel social interactions, flushing the occasional coyote. A dog has to work around these interruptions, constantly alert for ways to keep Boss up for his game.

P.S. Boss--we need a vacation.
Even a working vacation.

The Work Ethic

Boss is thinking, which is often a tricky business. He does better when he is working. I can, for instance, see the wisdom in Boss coming forth with book ideas for C. Such things keep C. working.

I'm working on a plan.
To get Boss working.

This is why it is a good paring, the relationship between dog and man.

They need us.

Projects

You can see Boss thinking things over, trying to put things together, diving into projects. I know what this means.

Projects can be dived into, of course. I speak from experience.

Projects dived into are not as good as projects that one is yanked into by curiosity or muscle memory.

Routine

Dogs do not approve of changes in routine.
Unless, of course, the change in routine accrues to a dog's benefit, which is to say more outings in the car with Boss, more walks with Boss, more visits to that place where Boss gets coffee and meets friends, more lamb shank bones, more things to herd, more projects taken on by Boss.
To change a routine merely for the sake of change is not negotiable.
This might give you the notion that dogs have self-interest on turbo drive. Not. Dogs are interested always in making the now as momentous as possible, as orderly as seemly, as alive with challenge and problem solving as possible. This allows the dog to step up to being a worthy companion.
Boss sometimes puts the tease on me by comparing me to Mr. S. in a book called The Remains of the Day. You want, he says, to be the best dog in the Tri-Counties area.
Why stop there, I think, but put the tease right back on him by feigning interest in something over toward the C. estate next door to where we live.
Companion, I say in between barks at the imaginary something,the best companion. Ever.

Sorting through our options

Allowing Boss to scratch my tummy, we sort through the final trickle of words he will seek to define for his book project. We are quietly rejecting things that sound too pretentious or academic or both. Boss has been unusually sad and reflective the past few days because, he explained, he had read a short, woeful novel about the last days of one of his favorite composers, MR. An amazing man, Sally, Boss tells me. Gifted beyond measure, cut down by a freak accident when barely in his 60s. I nod in recognition. Sometimes, when Boss plays his music, I can sense what Boss admires about him, the seeming simplicity set forth in an unconventional tonality that suggests MR may have had a dog or two in his life. Dogs do hear things differently. I also see Boss truly reaching out to make this project have much of himself in it, a gift as it were to persons he knew, knows now, and is yet to know. Nice, when you come to think of it.

Motel 6. Not.

It is often thought that urban living is dangerous. Certainly there are dangers and inconveniences for dogs who live in the city. Leash laws! Ugh! Persnickety individuals who mistake herding instincts for aggressive behavior. Ugh! Ask Radley if you don't believe me. But the real dangers are in the places where there is just enough urban to make for paved streets and just enough rural to allow coyotes to stray through. They were milling about from the early hours this morning. It was all I could do to drive them off. Boss thinks there is something noble and individualistic about them, although to his credit, he does think I am noble enough and individualistic enough for his taste and for our relationship. I do not think, he has told me recently, that I could forge a relationship with a coyote that comes close to what we have. I believe, he said, that we are a remarkably good fit. Well enough that he realizes. What coyote, for instance, would take such an interest in his work? What coyote would take pleasure in his company? What coyote would bestir himself or herself to travel with him to Woodside, when he hosts those writing persons every other month? What coyote would endure the rigors of a Motel 6 just to be with him? And now that I think about it, what dean would suggest that a coyote be the mascot of the department?

It is a no brainer. Coyotes should be seen from a distance--a great distance.

Work Ethic

Sitting on the front porch, trying to take my ease, but there are crows, squirrels, and banded pigeons as well as other would-be intruders. My work is never done.

Boss has dropped an agenda on me that includes a syllabus, three howling customers, and work on his book. He has also been discussing two short stories that claim his attention.

Okay. I'm up to it, but first a pass at those crows, then a touch of breakfast, then...all right; I'm up to it. You don't get your portrait on the mantle without there being a reason for it.

All in a Day's Work

Boss has given me one of my favorite snacks, a lamb shank bone. Dogs particularly and cats at times are not known for exchanging tangible things. Being pack animals, we exchange presence and status rather than artifacts. We express ourselves by giving presence, by basking in the sense of pack. Boss has told me on numerous occasions that one of his favorite visions of me is of me, at somewhat of a distance from him, running toward him. He first noticed and recorded this impression some time back, when he began taking me with him to teach down below at USC. We were separated and I was hanging out with ENK, who then pointed him out to me, approaching from a distant building. I ran to greet him. He stood, arms outstretched, awaiting me, somehow in that gesture even taller than he is now. Over the years, we have reenacted this ritual many times, celebrating the sense of joining that is pack. Often, at night, when I have settled in on or near my bed and he in his, he will tell me how comforting it is to see me where I am. Groggy with settled-in sleep, I am aware of his voice. I understand from his tone that he has learned a thing or two about being a pack. We are a relatively small pack, but we get the work done.

Burying Almond Croissants

Boss is trying to juggle too many things at once.
The immediate effect of this is a diminution of tummy rubs.
It is one thing for him to become fantastically involved in a project, such as the book he's been working on, where he goes all abstracted and lost in what he calls nuances, pausing from time to time to try out a line or paragraph on me. And pause, he does, asking me for my reaction. But this is different.
I am working to get at the heart of it.

It is not easy. Things with dogs and people tend toward greater fucking complexity as age visits them. Dogs are famously said to be living in the now and if not living in the now, napping contentedly until the next now arrives, say Boss wanting a walk or a coffee or one of those impulsive trips to Chaucer's Books in the Loreto Plaza (which also has a Gelson's Market, which often reminds Boss to go hunting therein for my favorite snacks of duck, beef, and chicken jerky). I'll give Boss this, when he is not in the now, he is in the What If, the place he projects himself to write things. The things we have in common start, of course, with our bond; we are a pack and there is that pack interconnectedness that transcends our individuality to the place where we each through our pack-ness understand the individuality of the other. With the visitations of age and experience, lines are often blurred. I, for instance, have a wired-in instinct to bury things. Boss frequently gives me pieces of almond croissant to bury. Sometimes, looking for a place to bury the piece of croissant, I think to eat it instead, which is a bafflement to me and to Boss. Sometimes, when hanging out and Boss is swirling the dregs of his coffee, we silently marvel together at the complexity of things.

I think Boss is working on some new complexity. I am working to get at the heart of it so that I can help him decide where to dig.

Spa Time

There is an atmosphere of galvanized energy here as Boss closes in on the completion of his long-time project, calling me over from time to time to read me a passage. I am thinking there might be a book tour of modest sorts, in which I will be asked questions. When did you first become aware that Boss's project was worthwhile? When did he seem most engaged? When did you first have to set him straight? Things they might normally ask me.

I will tell them the truth, about the times I kept coyotes, squirrels, and yes, even dragons away from the house so that Boss could work uninterrupted. I will tell them about the times I offered to let him rub my tummy, just to keep his mind free of clutter and foolish concerns. But for the moment, I fancy some spa time. The McDonald Clinic has what is called a relief bath. I'm up for that.

Associations

True enough. Associations do have an effect on dogs. I am affected and effected by Boss's habits and preoccupations, some of which--particularly teaching--require a bit of hanging out on my part; it is what I call a drowsy tolerance. Dogs know better howto teach, but I cannot imagine Boss biting any of his students, although he does claim to have learned some things about herding from me.

While Boss is at work compiling a huge compendium of concepts, terms, and applications, I have had pause to consider the effects on me. By association with him, things that are him rub off on me to the point where I sometimes wonder--not for too long--where the thing originated, with him or from me. Thus I will have things I do that remind me of him. He has assured me that there are associations with me he will carry forth, Sally things, Sally Times. This is by all accounts a good exchange.

Someone is menacing the walk way and I have to go bark.

Definitions

There are two kinds of smarts, street and cultural.

I have street smarts, which is to say wired in or, as Boss would put it, instinctive.

Boss has, as I would put it, cultural. He has some wired-in stuff, of course, but most of what he gets comes from reading, interacting with other humans, and experience. While I have on occasion seen him sniff when entering a place, I'm glad he has me to sniff for him and let him know something about the surrounding. People need dogs. Boss needs me. There are some people who need Boss, to balance out the equation. His students and clients. Of course his friends. Notably, among these is C. and W. and the Englishman, F., and that guy up at Westmont, C., whom the Boss first met at the Xanadu Coffee Shop.

Lately, Boss has been working furiously on a long, long project involving definitions. I was around when the idea for it began percolating. Students and clients began asking him questions about terms and ways that were appropriate for writing things, particularly for telling stories. He has been clarifying, providing definitions that a dog could follow as well as definitions a writer could understand (if the writer had a dog). I think this is all rather nice, particularly since somehow Boss managed to lose or otherwise let get away from him a sizable draft of the work. By my count, he has been carefully redoing the work since November of last year.

He has not, however, sought to define the word "change." You are surprised that a dog would know about quotation marks, I can see that, but from my years of listening to his classes and editorial discussions, I know a thing or two about quotation marks. I know that dogs do not need them, but humans do. If you're going to be around humans, you'd better get used to quotation marks.

Back to change.

We all do it. We all progress (I learned that word from Boss). Sometimes he says, "Sally, shall we progress to bed?" or "Sally, shall we progress to our walk?" Occasionally, when he is in a mood, he will say, "Sally, can we progress to the car and leave the sniffing for gophers to another time?") We move from place to place, we become more familiar with things, we adopt behaviors and their effects. Those of us who are dogs particularly enjoy a settled routine where we can spread out, become part of the surrounding and take in the joys of the surrounding. Some people--but never a dog--would call that approach taking things for granted. We do not take for granted. Our behavior is based on how much we have absorbed. This is our growth. We move into things and we become them.

This is largely what the Boss tries to get in his work and in his attempts at teaching others who want to do the kinds of work he does. This is what I do with Boss.

There is never enough time, and things have their own way of growing, sometimes away from us, sometimes even closer to us. Boss tries on occasion to tell me things about his regard for me, and they are good to hear. But my behavior is already based on my understanding of them, and I know of them as I know to herd animals and humans, and I know of them as I know I will sometimes find myself in the midst of some response, back into the present moment and doing.

We are all of us, humans too, growing toward places we have set our hearts upon. Being is a growing. We grow as long as there is being. Life without Boss is unthinkable and so I will stop thinking because that would get in the way of my being.

P.S. Epstein cannot be all that poorly off. He left some of his kibble uneaten, but to show him the order of things around here, I have eaten it.