Practice

Her name is Zoey. She is a blue pit bull. She is amazing.

Originally, my new roommate Farming Punk inquired if we were interested. Me and Mocha pretty much balked. We were still settling into the place. But then one night he brought her over and we were enamored suckers. She's been with us for about 5 weeks. And now she's getting big and feisty and chewing on everything. But she's still so adorable. You just have to love her.

This morning, as I hazily watched her find a suitable spot in the grass, my mind drifted to the parallels between taking care of her and being a parent to a human being. I was awakened only moments before by her hysterical yelps. And the helpless little thing did her business. I was proud of her. I was proud of an animal for performing its bodily functions in a suitable manner outside my living space. Where does this love come from?

I could draw a spiritual link here, but I feel I'd be undercutting it. Now coming upon her 12th week of life, she is approaching the dog equivalent of the terrible two's. Lately she's clawing and chewing up everything. I've paused from writing this post eight times just to grab some random item out of her mouth. She's a treasure though. Growing up in an apartment, I was deprived of this pleasure. But so far so good. I'm still learning. But then I remember that she is too.

The Vivid 10

Since the screen on my Blackberry broke, I have been forced to use an old standby of a phone. It's still a neat phone that still amazes in a world where technology and gimmicks have exponentially advanced since its birth about 2 years ago. Mostly the changeover has been seamless. The biggest change has been increasing my vigilance about which text messages get deleted since the memory is that much smaller.

One other side effect has been the way I wake up. The Blackberry has a shrill tone that really only accomodated me hitting snooze once or twice. Hitting a button just made it come back five minutes later with even more fo\rce. Often I just turned it off for fear of waking up Mocha. The cool thing about the little Nokia is that the tone is still alarming, yet soothing. Also, I just hit a simple snooze button and it repeats its wakeup call 10 minutes later.

Now i feel like that my body is starting to adjust to these 10 minute intervals. Often I set my alarm for some ideal time, but end up sleeping another hour or so, but in 10 minute intervals. And often these 10 minute intervals seem very much like a normal sleep cycle. As soon as I hit that button and return to my pillow, I am asleep. And when I hit that buton again, I am amazed that it has only been 10 minutes. All of a sudden, I am recalling dreams, or maybe just the manifestations of my brain at that moment. Just today in slumberland, I spoke to my mom about my health and answered philosophical questions about my psyche. I also saw my cousins move out of their home and cried horribly when my cousin hugged his mother as he left. 

I think I stayed in bed the extra three hours just to see how far I could take it. I'm not sure what this all means, but it fascinating. Maybe I am just a geek. Maybe I just want to understand my brain.