the pain never stops…
and thank god, otherwise i might never know i am alive
promotion
received a promotion at work and sizeable raise — it seems i pass from strength to strength in the working world, even though I am basically sleepwalking through my life (see any novel by hermann broch for more on this theme — better yet, his journals).
and it seems pointless… i don’t care about the money. my foremost thought is that i’m running out of time.
however, my boss did make an effort to burn my nose hairs with a lighter after i deliberately — and perhaps too obviously — feigned ignorance of basic company policy, so any further accolades may now be delayed.
every once in a while sarcasm exacts its price.
friendship
the other day I saw someone who i once considered a very BFF… quickly averted my eyes and changed course lest angry fireworks be directed my way.
anyway, one day a year or so ago my former friend simply ended our friendship (begging the question of whether it was in fact a friendship or just a way to kill time.
very weird and sad to suddenly feel once again the… the what? the sting? the sorrow?… the sense of loss, i suppose, occasioned by this highly intelligent and artistic person simply ceasing contact with me for reasons i could never discover.
now i wonder if my interpretation of this person’s actions as deliberate cruelty was a misinterpretation; maybe it was something else, a need to be left alone for a while. conversely maybe former BFF thought the same of my actions, when i was in actuality only trying to find out why the friendship seemed to be on hold, if not over.
but in trying to force the issue i wound up forcing the person, as it were.
it was certainly a very bad time for me and my ill feelings may have been directed outward (one shouldn’t drink to excess when ones doctor is changing one’s medications).
weird, too, that something like this only happened to me once before, and since I was a young child i probably forgot all about it in a few weeks. sadly, given my obsession-compulsive tendencies, i will probably ruminate on these issues for years to come, until:
time’s arrow one day hits me dead on the heart, as every wasted chance and lost opportunity come back upon me and i’m too busy looking backwards.
at least i won’t see it coming.
never far from my mind: time and time’s very own BFF, loss, (in the form of lost opportunities & missed chances accumulating behind me, and an ever-narrowing set of options in front of me). would need the pen used by proust on his deathbed to write this down properly — or maybe it’s not proust’s pen but faulkner’s whiskey bottle.
and yet as an adult married male the idea of friendship is typically not something that occupies my mind very often. i have my wife, and I always make friends in the work place with like-minded individuals, but i hadn’t met anyone like this person in years, a genuinely independent-minded person with very real artistic talents — and also capable of sophisticated abstract thought: a combination not found very often in north america.
after this near-encounter i am left with the unpleasant residue of something worthwhile having ended badly and wrongly, through a series of misunderstandings and miscommunications… left with a vast oceanic feeling of deep regret and an even deeper wish that the friendship hadn’t ended.
on black dogs (mine, not churchill’s)
it must now be said: Addie (full name Adele Pray Webb-McLachlin , from the book Addie Pray and film Paper Moon) may be the worst dog ever allowed to live.
now ANYONE in my neighbourhood walking a dog will cross the street or run back to their house if they see me and addie coming towards them. 11-pounds of miniature schnauzer!
the local pitbull who runs around off-leash with total impunity refuses to go within 15 feet of her.
the 80-pound chocolate lab reverses direction and drags his owner back home if he sees or scents her from 50 yards.
the recently-immigrated chinese lady living down the street runs along the edge of the park in her heels until she safely is out of Addie’s sight — a good 300 metre sprint in her stilletos!
all of this simply fuels addie’s already rapidly metastizing ego. she knows exactly what effect she has on dogs and people and she relishes every second of it.
she is possibly the smartest dog i have ever seen. she is totally without fear, but never lacking in a kind of low animal cunning (like george w.?).
undiluted, uncontainable purity of canine spirit.
re spirit: paraphrase hegel on napoleon? — "i have seen the world-historical prancing on four paws with maimed squirrel dying in its mouth."
it is quite possible this wholly amoral and self-serving creature represents the way of the future (thomas homer-dixon and robert kaplan)
or maybe she is a doggy myra breckinridge… she does try to hump her brother dexter from time to time.
dexter seems resigned to the fact that she is here to stay and apparently has forgiven me for ruining his life by adding her to the family.
addie pray, fictional character, and the inspiration for addie pray webb-mclachlin, black schnauzer and obstinate little girl:
the critter herself, incognito:
the evening redness in the west 