chapter 3- in which jake tests our patience and then yaks up his dinner

i've got the dog for an extended weekend visit and he is busying himself by pacing back and forth and whining continuously. there is nothing we can do to comfort him. we take him for a walk, give him food, water, treats, love, what have you, and two seconds later he is up and running, sides heaving like an accordion, producing a whining shriek that sounds like we are torturing him. i guess if "torturing" him means rubbing his belly and sharing a peanut butter sandwich with him, then yes, i am. so we go for a walk to poop him, which he does not. poop, that is. he merely sniffs every bush and tree, lifts his leg to some of them, and nearly takes this guys head off who waves his ice cream bar in jake's face. i hear his girlfriend say in a voice she thinks i can't hear, "rob, next time just KICK the dog." i attempt to suppress a murderous rage which will come out next week in a torrent of tears about something inconsequential and undeserving of a full fledged break-down. jake is clueless and back to sniffing. my feet start to hurt so i steer him back in the direction of our house. it is clear that jake will not be downloading anything for me to pick up and carry back with us. we get back and i notice his food bowl is empty. did i forget to feed him dinner? no wonder he won't take a crap. i pour him some food and go to watch chris play silent hill 3. a few minutes later jake comes by and stands in the doorway to the bedroom and looks at me. i look back. "are you going to throw up?" i ask him. he cocks his head and then leans over and regurgitates all the food he has just snarfed down. chris says "i think jake just threw up," and goes to the kitchen for paper towels. i take a look at what is soaking into the carpet and notice that it isn't even chewed. whole dog food pieces and some slobber. now i better understand why my father always made our dogs outside pets.

the next morning as the first tendrils of sunlight are filtering in through the venetian blinds, jake sticks his nose under the covers and puts his tongue up my nose. it is 5am, much too early for this shit. but this is his schedule at home with his dad, so i get up and walk him around the block in my bathrobe, bedheaded and scary of breath. he will not let me go back to sleep either, instead, he starts to play his infernal internal accordion again. not wanting chris to kill us both, we go out into the kitchen and eat peanut butter and talk about me taking a shower without being serenaded by the aforementioned instrument of his choosing. i wash my hair, take him out for a more brisk, lengthy walk, and leave to catch the bus, picking the innumerable jake hairs out of my hoodie as i walk. what a wonderful day!

guy came up to my desk at the library today, asked for a certain 306.766, which is, to those of you unlucky enough to work outside a building filled with books ruled by the dewey decimal system, the gay sex encounters section. that's right. smut masquerading as legitimate social science. i am not, in any way, freaking out about this. i happen to love gay sex porn in all its many many forms(with a sharp spiky interest in gay vampire porn, but for most of you reading this, it is a fact that you are well, well aware of. i digress.). but so anyway, the guy does not look like what you would call an upstanding citizen. he looks like an unemployed, unshaven, slobby addict of some kind, and he's asking me to find this book for him cause he can't find it over there on the shelf. i look it up and lo! it is a collection of gay travel "erotica" that i myself have checked out right now. without thinking about who i am talking to and where i am, i blurt out-"i have a copy of this at home!" so glad am i to have a kindred prurient spirit in front of me that i do not even hold social decorum to any height, nor my dignity, for that matter. as soon as the words have escaped my lips, i realize what i have done and clear my throat, hoping he will not have heard what i said, but he has indeed locked onto it like a stray dog with a shank of beef. he is now raising his eyebrows sort of rhythmically and making weird noises in his throat. he tells me he likes my hair color, that purple is his favorite. then he makes more weird noises that sound like bad pop music being played far away. i stand fully erect and inform him (very professionally) that he will need to leave and come back to check with me in 10 minutes and that i will hopefully be successful in locating his materials for him in that amount of time. he is easily run off, my authority is restored, and no one has to know. except you.

i set chris' pillow on fire last night. i had moved the lamp from the nightstand to the pile of magazines i was gutting and got up and left the room, knocking it over so its honed lazer-like light bulb was right in the middle of his pillow. a few moments later i ran in the bedroom to grab my glass and whoa! behold! there were torrents of smoke, chemical-scented tendrils from hell, or so i thought, as i grabbed the superheated appliance and threw it off the bed. a few brisk strokes of pounding and the damage was not as bad as the smoke led me to believe. thank god the pillowcases are black, you can't even tell...

full catholic mass wedding yesterday. i took communion with everyone else and was not rooted out by the priest, did not burst into flames when i took the wafer and let the wine wet my lips. i did break into a cold sweat waiting for the priest to look me in the eye and say, "this is the body of christ, given for you..." thinking that he would know that i was lying, not really believing that some crusty bread cake could 'become' the body of a man who lived 2000 years ago. ack! i hadn't been to confession...what would i say anyway? where would i begin? the only thing i haven't done is kill someone, and of course i have in my mind. "forgive me father for i have sinned. it has been 18 years since my last confession. i have fornicated, lied and cheated. i have stolen things i did not need from people who didn't need them either. i have rolled my eyes at my mother and wished that my father would just keel over and die already. i have divorced. i have smoked bushels of cigarettes to look cool and drank copious amounts of alcohol to get happy and have eaten more than my share of food that isn't good for me. i have looked at people less fortunate and then looked the other way. i have made fun of fat people. i have been selfish and rude and have kissed a girl. i have taken the lord's name in vain. i have envied my neighbor's possessions and relationships. i have peed in a public swimming pool. i have lived in sin with men i barely know. i have taken drugs to change my personality instead of trusting in god to know what's best for me. i have led people on to get attention and have slept away the most productive hours of the day. and that isn't even half of it! this represents only what i can remember in the last five minutes. and of course, i don't believe any of this crap, father. so tell me, is it hopeless? how many hail marys to atone for all this selfish shit? and i don't really want your forgiveness, i just want to stop feeling so guilty for doing what comes naturally. can you help me out with that?"

a quick rundown of the inanimate objects in my house that have become anthropomorphised because of my proclivity to form unhealthy attachments to things rather than normal, productive relationships with people:

fur pillow- he is a fur pillow, as you might have guessed by his name, made by my sister in her first attempt to sew fake fur(which is really really hard, btw). he is approximately 1.5' by 2' and lives on the futon in the living room. he is so soft that when i put him on my lap, i can't stop stroking his fur until he is forcibly removed from my grip. this is how he came to live with me. every time i went to my sister's house, i would pick him up and pet him until i left, ignoring betty(a real cat) the whole time. finally, my sister just told me to take him home with me. there may have been a degree of disgust in her voice, but that's okay. i love fur pillow.

tim- another "male" presence, tim is a body pillow that i bought at target. i figured that since i draped my leg over him every night that i should name him. 'tim' is one of the few male names that doesn't instantly bring up bad connotations for me. i like his corduroy side the best.

sleeping bag- again, not really original in the name department, but it's functional. sleeping bag is my boyfriend's sleeping bag, but i have sort of co-opted him for the time being. i like to get zipped up in sleeping bag at all times of the day and in all locations. i have camped out on the couch, in bed, and on the floor of chris' studio. that time i had fur pillow with me also. you can never have too many fuzzy friends around.

spooner and mr fuzzy- these are stuffed animals. i admit it. i have stuffed animals. i am a freak. and yet i love them. i am not ashamed of my love.

moping on a national holiday:
memorial day was spent zipped up in chris' sleeping bag(to which i have developed an unhealthy attachment) watching movies with the sound off so i could read my trashy novel. i ordered a pizza from pizza hut and as i waited anxiously for the delivery person i prayed hard that no one i knew would see them come up to my door. i felt like i had ordered out for some crack. embarrassment level 4. the guilt of spending almost $20 on something so disgusting also weighed heavily on my crack-addled mind. after i slunk back into my bedchamber with my junk food, i lit a bunch of vanilla candles to start the odor-masking process i knew would need to happen. after two hours of being locked in a room with those 2 smells, they sort of mixed and became each other...the original spicy meat scent had begun to tango with the soggy cardboard of the pizza box, and the candles lent everything a skanky, cloying edge. i hopped, still ensconced in the sleeping bag, to the door and flung it open. i spent maybe five minutes contemplating taking out my newly acquired violin or maybe getting started on a draft of a new story and quickly put both of those productive ideas down, as i wouldn't be able to continue to stew in the sleeping bag and do either of those things.

i hopped back into the bedroom and collapsed face down on the bed. i did not roll myself over, but fell asleep like that for over an hour. i woke up to the smell of vanilla marinated pepperoni emanating from the now almost liquefied pizza box about an inch from my head. i blew the candles out.