One of my recurring anxiety dreams involves needing to pack up an entire apartment, but I’m running out of time and space in my luggage.
Last night, I was in dream Chicago and was going to miss my flight, and the person traveling with me with hadn’t even started packing!
Then the dream took a twist. I called the airline and changed my ticket for the next day. And I realized I could fly home to Los Angeles with all the luggage I could carry, then DRIVE back to Chicago to get the rest of the stuff.
This has never happened. I solved my anxiety dream. Guess I have nothing left to worry about in real life.
I’m experiencing some travel paralysis. After we got back from Hawaii, I fantasized about visiting beachy places in Mexico, but that didn’t speak to Rob. Last week, he ruled out the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica. Apparently, all Spanish-speaking places are out. Brazil, on the other hand, is OK, because they speak Portuguese there.
Rob’s actually thinking more along the lines of Russia.
Russia! Totally up my alley. I should be booking hotels and checking train schedules right about now. But I can’t get past the $3,000+ airfare to get us both there. Or anywhere in Europe.
I’d rather just drive someplace with the dogs and go camping. Since I’m so outdoorsy and all.
Meanwhile, I’m having an off-day writing the ol’ Memoir. This morning, I had to fill out a form about Leo’s behavior for a special class to nip his leash reactivity in the bud. If we can even call it that. I’m not 100 percent convinced, but the class will be good for him either way. What wasn’t so good for me was having to describe how he’s been acting out. And oh yeah, he bit Mia that one time.
All too reminiscent of all the rehashing I’ve been doing about everything Isis ever did wrong. I’ve reached the point in her life where I spent a year clicking and treating her for not barking at things. And trying to remain calm when she did bark at things. My days were filled with small victories and lots of disappointments. Every second that I wasn’t training her, I felt guilty that I wasn’t training her. I can’t drive by the university park-and-ride without thinking, “I should take Isis there later to work on her training.”
So I don’t feel like writing. And I don’t feel like planning a trip.
Tonight I will be reading an excerpt from Smiley Bird: A memoir of Isis, which begins with “Isis was like those children who misbehave in school because they’re TOO smart.”
What’s Leo’s excuse?
A month ago, I was so proud of my boy for how well he was doing in daycare and school. He was still a little unfocused, but I thought that would improve with the new class.
Not so much. He’s been suspended from daycare until he matures a little and gains impulse control.
He hasn’t been listening to his teachers and he bugs other dogs who don’t want to play with him, even grabbing their collars, which is a serious no-no.
I thought Leo was behaving very gentlemanly in this photo from daycare.
Two weeks ago, I would have been surprised to learn that he was behaving badly at daycare (again), except during our past two Fun and Focus classes, he became very overstimulated and lashed out at the other dogs. I hoped it was just an on-leash problem (he’s on-leash in class, off-leash at daycare), but after receiving this latest information, it’s clear he can’t go back to daycare for a while.
I’m disappointed and discouraged. I feel like a failure. It stings all the more because I’ve been writing this memoir about Isis. I thought we were past this. How did I miss the signs?
Maybe I just overlooked them. For one, I noted in my post a month ago that he countersurfs and pulls stuff off the counter. That’s a lack of impulse control, and a sign he doesn’t listen to me when I tell him to leave it.
Last week, before all this came to light, Leo did a fantastic impersonation of Isis outside Village Books. We had taken Leo and Mia to the park, then ordered food from the cafe downstairs, planning to lay out a towel and eat on the grass. Rob strode off to pick up the food. I stood beside the car, holding both dogs’ leashes and was rummaging around for the water dish when Leo trotted away onto the lawn. His leash had detached from his harness!
Leaving the car door open, I took Mia up to the lawn and called Leo’s name. He ignored me, running up to two tiny children, not even as tall as Leo’s front legs. The children’s eyes and mouths widened, and I called out the phrase that all stupid dog owners say when they’ve lost control of their dogs, “He’s friendly!”
Leo trotted around for a few more minutes, getting close enough to frolic with Mia, but not close enough for me to grab him. Finally, he wandered over to the patio dining area and said hello to a dog that was sitting with his people. I asked the woman with the dog to grab Leo’s collar for me, which she did. No harm done. He didn’t snarl or bark at anyone, or run into traffic, or make anyone cry.
But he blatantly disregarded me. Totally consistent with a dog lacking impulse control who doesn’t listen. So I was humiliated just the same. The familiar shame reading like a page from my memoir about Isis.
Leo on his first day of daycare a year ago, wearing a leash because he wouldn’t come when called. Sigh. Guess I can’t pretend I didn’t see the signs.
Last night, he was more destructive than usual, but for once, I understood why. Whenever we give him a bone, he races around the house looking for a place to bury it. Hilarious, but totally logical, because when he tries to eat something in plain sight, he winds up dropping it at Mia’s feet and she won’t give it back. He’s been known to tuck a bone underneath my pillow. Thoughtful guy.
So yesterday, he discovered the knotted end of an old rawhide and began his prepare-to-bury frenzy. I turned my attention to dishwashing for five minutes, then found him on the bed, surrounded by chunks of foam.
What the hell? Had he torn apart a couch cushion and brought it in here?
Nope, he had been so overzealous in his burying efforts that he dug a hole in our memory foam mattress cover! Fortunately, the part he destroyed is above where our heads go, so we can sleep around the damage.
Oh, my sweet Leo, what are we going to do with you?
Work on your impulse control, that I know for sure.
One of the assignments in my memoir class was to write a eulogy for someone in our story. The person didn’t have to be dead, but my main character happens to be, so it made sense to eulogize Isis. A classmate said he found my Eulogy for Isis very touching and he hoped I would use it somehow in my book. Originally, I thought my book would start with the day Isis died, but after my classmate’s comment, I decided the actual eulogy would make a nice prologue. And since the whole book really is a tribute to her life, Eulogy for Isis seemed a fitting title.
My teacher thought Elegy for Isis was better, which sounds fine, but I don’t like the way the word Elegy looks as much as I like Eulogy. Also, there exists a book called Elegy for Iris (about Iris Murdoch). I thought Eulogy for Isis was a clever play on Elegy for Iris, if anyone gets the reference. But Elegy for Isis may be to on-the-nose.
My mother thinks either choice would be too much of a spoiler, but as I’ve said, I want my readers to be prepared for the inevitable. Which is why I’d open the book with a eulogy. But she has a point. Eulogy is kind of downer. My mom thinks I should call it something that invokes the sweetness and joy of Isis’ life.
Smiley Bird.
That would be a good title. That was our favorite nickname for her. Except then people would think it’s about a bird. My mom said, “Well, there would be a dog on the cover.”
True. I imagine this being the cover shot:
See how she looks like a bird? And she’s smiling?
I had wanted her name to be in the title, but I didn’t want it to be possessive, because Isis’ leads to all sorts of apostrophic confusion and pronunciation challenges.
Fortunately, I don’t have to decide right now. I have to finish the book first.
Leo turns two years old tomorrow. I still call him “The Puppy.” He weighs about 100 pounds.
When we pick him up from daycare, they call for “Big Leo” to be brought up front. This amuses us much more than hearing him referred to as “Leo N.” Probably because we remember him as the roly poly baby we nicknamed Puerto Screechin because he cried his head off from his little laundry room prison. And we’d scream “Leo! Shut your piehole!” across the house.
A baby gate keeps Leo contained to the laundry room. Temporarily.
Before his body grew to its full proportion, Leo’s bark deepened to what we call his Big Boy Voice. I’d say his bark was worse than his bite, because he’s the sweetest, most gentlest boy ever, without a single aggressive tendency, except he once was a ferocious teether and nipper, so Rob and I sacrificed many a pair of pants to Leo’s attention-seeking moves. At any given time during Leo’s first year, Rob and I sported huge purple bruises on our calves from Leo’s antics. Rob’s mom once mortified me by showed off an enormous bruise on her arm to one of Leo’s teachers!
Mind you, none of these were actual bites. Just battle wounds from raising a German shepherd puppy.
I have teeth like daggers.When I grow up, I’m going to be taller than Grandma.
Leo is a counter surfer extraordinaire. He’s tall enough to lick the dishes in the kitchen sink. He cruises the house like a land shark up to no good. Whereas Isis used to chirp at the back door, I’ve accidentally taught Leo to pull stuff off a table when he wants out. It goes like this: I’m watching TV, Leo grabs a bottle of lotion, or prescription pill bottle, or Rob’s watch, or Rob’s iPod (I TOLD Rob that table is not a good place to leave things) and runs with it to the back door. I pause the TiVo, get up, pick up the contraband that he has dropped in the kitchen and let him out the back door. Last night he quietly wandered into the kitchen and I thought, “I wonder if he needs to go out.” Then he came back in the TV room and knocked a bunch of papers off the table. Yep, clearly he wanted to go out.
And let us not forget his fantastic skills of destruction. My parking brake. Both seats in my car. The Internet cable in the kitchen. Every corner of every piece of furniture in the house. We’re still afraid to leave him alone in the house without crating him, although we’ve experimented with short stints.
Unsure about our adopting a new big sister, Leo destroys my car seat.
Based on the past two years, I’m very curious what the Terrible Twos have in store.
On Saturday, we started a new class at Tails-a-Wagging and here’s a twist: I am not remotely concerned with how “well” Leo does in school. In writing a memoir about Isis’ life, I have been examining the first two years of her life, and all the conflicting and cockamamie training advice we were given. Isis developed serious behavioral problems, which I believe were a combination of her biological makeup, lack of proper socialization and some wrongheaded training techniques. The last two years of her life, I was consumed with modifying Isis’ behavior. Training sessions were stressful, often discouraging, and sometimes extremely rewarding. But I never could let my guard down for a second, so worried was I that something would Go Wrong. That Isis would Do Badly.
Leo has been properly socialized from the beginning, thanks to Puppy Preschool. During his early training, I fretted over whether he would develop some of the problems that Isis had. He seems to be wired differently, though. I marveled in Doggie Socials when other dogs would resource guard the water dish, while Leo simply stepped back and said, “Hey man, go ahead, have some water, I’m cool.”
Leo’s been going to daycare at Tails at least once a week for a year now. He’s not a model student. He gets bad report cards sometimes for failing to pay attention to his teachers, or pestering the other doggies. Which is one of the reasons we enrolled him in the Fun and Focus class. Also, maybe it will help us curb his attention seeking and counter surfing.
When we arrived Saturday, I thought Leo would be one cool cucumber, since the class is in the same building where he goes to daycare. But no, he started barking as soon as he heard the other dogs. He pulled and barked, so eager to meet his new classmates. Our teacher set up little barriers to give the dogs privacy while they calmed down. Trust me when I say I know the difference between a dog who barks at another with Intent, and a dog who is simply rowdy. Leo is neither reactive nor aggressive. He’s a German shepherd.
Big Leo
A year ago, I might have tugged on Leo’s leash and been humiliated. Why isn’t my dog sitting quietly like he’s supposed to? But the other dogs were excited and noisy too. I clicked and treated Leo when he looked at me, or when he looked at another dog calmly, and within a few minutes, he settled down at our feet, ready to learn. Quite frankly, I think he was the best student in the class. Certainly the most handsome, and no one will dispute that he was the BIGGEST. But I don’t care (about being the best student. Being the handsomest is extremely important.). I already know Leo is a Great Dog. Maybe not the brightest bulb in the box, but so sweet and earnest and loyal. We’ll all get something out of this class, merely by showing up. Just think of what we can achieve if we practice our new skills at home!
In my earlier post, Girls who kick ass, I disclosed my attempts to impersonate female superheroes.
Last year, Rob and I listened to the audio book for The Supergirls: Fashion, Feminism, Fantasy, and the History of Comic Book Heroines, and actually, that’s when I decided to dress up as Wonder Woman for Halloween. But it depressed me, this continued sexism in the world of Superheroes. I rewatched the entire series of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and concluded that she’s the greatest girl superhero of all time. As much as I love Wonder Woman, her origin comic has her more concerned with winning Steve Trevor’s heart than saving the world. Buffy had boy problems, but she saved the world a lot.
In recent pop culture, there’s no feminine superhero franchise equivalent to Spider-Man. The Elektra and Catwoman films were considered failures. Most of the boy Avengers got their own movies prior to the upcoming release of The Avengers. Iron Man got two. Where’s Black Widow’s? Guess there’s no hope Scarlett Johansson could open an action flick, since Jennifer Garner and Halle Berry couldn’t.
Angeline Jolie, she can open an action flick, if Salt and Tomb Raider are the best we can hope for… but wait a minute…
A few months ago, Steven Soderbergh released the movie Haywire, written for and starring a beautiful athlete named Gina Carano. I’ve been fixated on Gina Carano for years; she’s the mixed martial artist who inspired the protagonist in my novel in progress. And did I mention she’s gorgeous? I didn’t love Haywire, but I loved Gina in it. The fact that Haywire exists fills me with such excitement about the future of female action heroes. I want Gina to be the female version of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, crossing over into films. She’s not the best actress in the world, but she can do something Angelina Jolie can’t do. Legitimately kick your ass.
Which brings me to the woman of the hour, Katniss Everdeen, in book form and as portrayed by the luminous Jennifer Lawrence. While Twilight sent all the wrong message to the young women of today, The Hunger Games gets it right. Katniss may not have superpowers, but she’s a skilled huntswoman. (archery chick, archeress, is there a word for that?) She’s morally grounded and compassionate, and outcompetes adversaries who are stronger and more ruthless. She’s feminine, and yes, there is a love triangle in the series, but Katniss does not sacrifice anything of herself to win the hearts of her admirers. She earns their love without realizing she’s done it. She doesn’t even want a boyfriend.
So go ahead and buy into all that Hunger Games hype. I am fully on board.
Rob and I like to dress up as superheroes for Halloween. In 2004, we were Rogue and Wolverine. From the X-Men movie, not the comic, because Rogue’s comic book hairstyle doesn’t translate so well to real life.
I include this picture, not because my Thai kick is executed particularly well, but check out those pleather pants. How flattering are they? Value Village, baby.
The next time we dressed up was in 2008, and I was Elektra.
In 2009, Rob wanted to reprise Wolverine and I went as Dark Phoenix, but of course, no one on the street recognized me as Dark Phoenix. That’s when I realized that there really aren’t any good girl superheroes anymore. And wondered if there ever were. So last year, I dressed up as the original Super Heroine, one everybody knows.
While Wonder Woman is the best, most recognizable superheroine costume, she has yet to have her own live-action movie. And the recent attempt to reimagine her TV series failed.
So, in these past 7 years of superheroine soul searching, I’ve come to the conclusion that my all-time favorite female superhero is Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I don’t think I’ll ever dress up as her, because I’m not blonde enough. My Rogue white streak was as far as I’m willing to go in that direction.
The original Star Wars movies are so firmly enmeshed in my childhood that I cannot write about them objectively. Generations of film geeks already have analyzed the series on so deep a level that nothing I can say could possibly be original. As Luke Skywalker says at the end of Empire, “It’s ImPOSSible!”
Rob and I watched the films in order on Blu-ray, so I’ve been forced to revisit some of my thoughts and memories. I have a different understanding of the politics of the galaxy this time around, which also seems imPOSSible, because I’ve seen them all multiple times. Of course, the first time I saw them in the order they were produced: 4-5-6-1-2-3. I watched Attack of the Clones the most consecutive times in the shortest period of time, because I saw it about three times in the theater when I lived in Prague. And had no idea what the aliens speaking in alien languages were saying, because those subtitles were in Czech.
I bought the whole series on DVD in Thailand (ahem! bootlegs) in 2005, and watched them in order at that point, but over a longer period of time than we watched them this week.
Rob gave up on the franchise after Phantom Menace, so he refused to see Revenge of the Sith with me when it came out. I saw a matinee on opening day in Olympia. After I got the bootlegs, I made him watch Clones and Sith, but he wasn’t into it.
So I was pretty surprised the last time I was in LA without him and he told me he was watching the Empire Strikes Back and explaining it to Leo. (I’m sorry, but every time I think about him explaining the movie to our dog, I just melt inside. I love Rob.) This viewing inspired him to get the Blu-ray set and watch them in order, our first time experiencing the franchise together. We’re separated by 5 years in age, and yet our early Star Wars experiences align. We both had the action figures in the Darth Vader carrying case. Didn’t everyone?
We diverged around the time Lucas rereleased the films in the 1990s with digital alterations. I was in film school at the time and I was, and am, a purist. You don’t get to go back and change your movie 20 years later! If I published a book with a typo, sure I’d want to go back and fix the misspelled word, but I wouldn’t get to go back and use new words that didn’t exist when I originally wrote it. J.D. Salinger didn’t go back and give Holden Caulfield a cell phone so he could text his sister. He didn’t say, “No, you see I wanted to have him text-message her originally, but the technology didn’t exist.” No. You published the book. It’s done. If you want to write about a character text-messaging his sister while having a manic episode in the big city, write another book.
Rob says, “I don’t mind the changes. They’re cool.”
When I say that it’s imPOSSible to write objectively about the films, I mean that I can’t tell you whether or not they’re good. I can’t imagine seeing Star Wars in 1977 as a standalone film. (I didn’t. I’m pretty sure the first time I saw it was upon its rerelease.) I think the films all hold up better as a collective whole.
Watching A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back, I was struck by the changes in Yoda and Obi-Wan’s personalities from the prequels. Yoda was a little more wacko than Ben Kenobi, but even so, Ben was known as that crazy old hermit on Tattooine. Clearly, both had gone a little crazy, living in isolation for twenty years. Yoda more than Ben, probably because he had NO contact with other living things except the reptiles on Dagobah.
Obi-Wan is my favorite character in the prequels. My affection for Han, Luke and Leia carries my childish crush and admiration. I can’t “like” Han Solo the way I appreciate Obi-Wan. It’s like I’m not the same girl. I can only look back and remember dreaming about Han.
We watched Return of the Jedi last night, and I did not have the sense of resolution that I hoped I’d feel. Yes, it perfectly ties up the original movies. But it is not a satisfying conclusion for Anakin Skywalker, and he’s the one we’ve been following from the beginning.
Here’s where I say something really outrageous. This time around, Revenge of the Sith was kind of my favorite. Of all six. I found it now, as I found it way back in 2005 when it was in the theatre, to be extremely heart-wrenching and in that way, emotionally satisfying. Anakin’s relationship with Padme, his relationship with Obi-Wan. Destroyed. Everything destroyed. I was affected by it, man. In a way that I was not affected when I watched Return of the Jedi last night. I did like watching Princess Leia choke Jabba, though. And yes, members of Team Luke, now I remember his appeal.
While I was having my twice-weekly massage (I know, you feel really sorry for me after my accident, don’t you? But honestly, the aches and pains in my head and neck have been so bad the massage is necessary medicine.), the therapist asked if I’d like to try some aromatherapy.
She said she had a lavender scent that was good for headaches. When she placed the scented pillow over my eyes, something felt amiss. I didn’t smell lavender, but something more medicinal, something not soothing.
I was reminded of travel, but not my trips to Europe or Hawaii, no. The smell made me think of Thailand, India, Vietnam.
Inhaling, I let the household cleanser scent wash through me and then I realized what it smelled like.
Lemon Eucalyptus bug spray. I wore the stuff like perfume last time I was in Southeast Asia, and it worked amazingly well. I sprayed it on every inch of exposed skin every morning and after every shower. I didn’t get a single bite until I ran out of it on my last day.
No wonder the scented pillow over my eyes had the opposite effect of calm. Bug spray doesn’t go there. But once I recognized the scent and assured myself it was not in fact bug spray, I took a deep breath and relaxed.
Incidentally, I looked at the vial afterward and it was verbena, not lemon eucalyptus, but I can’t argue with my nostrils’ associations.
Our latest assignment in memoir class is to take a well-worn family story, told so often it has a punchline and fits neatly into a little box, and upend it by asking questions, giving more context and unraveling all the threads that made it fit so nicely into that little box.
The challenge is that until now, we have been working to take the messiness of real life and make it nice and cohesive. That little box gives our life stories shape and meaning. Now I’m supposed to tell you a story that already was tied up with a neat little bow and make it messy?
Challenge accepted. I have two such stories in mind:
Watching on the petcam as Isis pulls the stuffing out of the couch.
Isis bolting from our off-leash training session to steal a ball from a Mexican soccer game while the players shouted, “Perro! Perro!”
Not sure how I’m going to unravel those threads. Tying stuff up with a bow is a hard habit to break.
March 8 update: I’ve already had one revelation. These were the funniest of such events, but they weren’t isolated. Isis had torn that couch months before. She’d broken away from me before, two or three seriously embarrassing times. Putting all the context behind it takes away the surprise factor, the punchline, if you will, and reveals a pattern of behavior.
Kari Neumeyer 