When Your Mom Thinks She Can Read the Dog's Mind...

...and it's a constant monologue of starvation and despair.

Imagine if your dog’s consciousness was channeled through the body and voice of your mother. Apparently our dog is living in the 3rd circle of Dante’s Inferno, but spends his weekends on the 9th circle. This is a snippet of our dog’s internal monologue as channeled by my mother:

“Oh god how awful, you’re starving? What hell, I know. You want meat? Meat? I know, I know, it’s a nightmare, oh you poor thing, yes? What? I know, I know, you’re dying to go out, no, they won’t let you, no, you are now allowed, I let you out last time like you asked and you got me in biiiig trouble. You like bacon? Yes, maaaaayyybe, just maybe your mother will make you bacon, Oh, god, there’s nothing here, you poor, poor thing, I know. What? It’s hell, I know, truly awful.”

Now imagine this happening 24/7 and IF you decide to address it, then it goes like this:

“Mom, all dogs beg for more if you give them food at the table… so that’s why he’s whining… he knows you’ll give him more food. Dogs will keep eating and eating. If you feed them every time they whine they’d die of obesity.”

“Ha! You act like I’ve never had dogs, hahahaha, I’ve had dogs my whole life, ha!”

“So go ahead give the dog that cheese and then you clean up the vomit.”

“Calm down!”

1 minute of silence. Then: “Oh you poor dog, I know you’re in hell…”

And it all begins again.

What else is new? Writing group is taking it’s holiday hiatus on Dec 23rd. We return on Jan 6th.

Maybe you want to gift someone a yearly subscription (only $290!). They will receive a monthly Zoom link. We meet Tuesday through Friday 11-2pm (EST). I start off each session with a little reading, a short meditation, and then we work on our own projects (together, but separate). Fridays, at the beginning of the session, we chat about our writing troubles and/or a member reads some pages of their work.

What kind of stuff do I read in Writing Group to start the sessions? My favorite quote over the last few months is from Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Carrier Bag Theory Of Fiction:

“Science fiction properly conceived, like all serious fiction, however funny, is a way of trying to describe what is in fact going on, what people actually do and feel, how people relate to everything else in this vast sack, this belly of the universe, this womb of things to be and tomb of things that were, this unending story. In it, as in all fiction, there is room enough to keep even Man where he belongs, in his place in the scheme of things; there is time enough to gather plenty of wild oats and sow them too, and sing to little Oom, and listen to Ool’s joke , and watch newts, and still the story isn’t over. Still there are seeds to be gathered, and room in the bag of stars.”

I’ve also read from Woolf, Oliver Sacks, Hardwick, Kiese Laymon, Iris Owens, Paul B. Preciado, Viola Spolin, Artaud, Sontage, Jenny Erpenbeck, to name a few.

What else? My mother just called up to me to ask if I can open the cat food bag. I refused. Now she is telling that cat that I’ll be down soon to feed it because she can’t open the bag. Also, I can hear her pouring kibble into the dog’s bowl for the third time today and it’s only 2:30 so I guess I’ll have to go hide the dog food.

Oh, I still have rooms in my Jan 15-19 retreat in Rensselaerville, NY (all the details in a previous substack post). If you’ve already been to this locations with me (Hilltown Commons) keep in mind it has been improved upon (good linens, a pool table in the pub [we have our own pub] and more surprises!), and their own, excellent chef is doing our meals.

“I know, I know, but I’ve got to pee, you poor pathetic thing, you’re being tortured, I know, no one will open your food bag and I’m crippled, what a hellhole,” she just said to the cat.

If I was less hardy I’d already be in the loony bin.

xo