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.

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.