Silent Listener

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 15, Verse 3

"The Lord is watching everywhere and keeps His eye on both the evil and the good."

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CHIPPED WISDOM:

Our house used to be owned by a Catholic family.  They were hardcore, at least in the sense that there were crucifixes (cheap, chintzy ones, mind) everywhere, and they buried a mini statuette of Saint Whatever under the dirt in the flower bed to help their house sell quicker.  When we came to see the house for the first time, we noticed a plaque hung over the dining room doorway that read, "Jesus is the silent listener at every conversation".  And I thought,

"Pervert."

As funny as it is, at least, in my mind, to imagine a holographic Jesus silently castigating a faithful family of seven as they slander and defame their way through a Thursday night dinner, this is, of course, why man created religion in the first place, right?  Look, you can believe it was the other way around if you want, and I respect that, but this is my blog and, as we know, my wisdom is chipped, so: deal.  I believe we created religion because we got a little scared of each other, and of ourselves-- we got scared of our impulses and our predilections and our predatory instincts and our propensities and our obscenities and we said, "Whoa.  We've got to find some way to put the brakes on this.  We need to find something to motivate us to behave."

Stick.  Carrot.  Whatever.

So, we created the silent listener at every conversation.  Because we know ourselves, we know our truest, darkest nature, and we knew we had to do something about it.

Because we're bad.

Because I'm bad.

And, if I'm bad-- you're probably bad, too.

But let's be bad together.  I love being bad with you.

I love being bad.  

I was bad at the inservice I went to today.  I was bad mostly in thought, but I was bad in word-- in malicious, nasty side conversations with my seat mate.  I was bad with my eyes, hungrily taking in the pleasant physical attributes of some of the younger female attendees' bodies, seated vulnerably in the row in front of me.  There were other sinners among us, I won't pretend I was the only one-- the rampant texters, the narcissists who just HAD to assault us with their profound revelations constantly, those who nodded off periodically.  The ones who were late coming back from lunch, and the ones who pretended to give a damn.  So we were a roomful of louts and ne'er-do-well's, fakers and phonies, this's and that's, so on's and so forth's, but I want to be the worst one.  

Because I love being bad.  Mean.  Cruel.  Spiteful.  Cutting.  

Some people don't know this about me.  They just don't know.  They think I'm a nice boy, smart, clean and gentle.  But I am precisely the kind of person for whom God was invented: someone who needs a little help walking the straight and narrow, because straying is just too delicious.  To see the terrible glint in the eye of someone I've just made laugh with some awful remark is intoxicating.  I see it in my mother's eyes-- she was my first addiction, my friends, my coworkers.  I need a policeman.  I need a lawyer.  I need a P.R. rep.  I need Jesus, sitting right behind me, breathing softly down my neck.  I need to be accountable.

Because, generally speaking, I'm not.  

I get away with things, and part of this blog is to let you know all the things that I get away with.  To shake you.  To make you understand.  So that you'll confront me.  Call me out on it.  Expose me.  Accuse me.  Turn on me.

Maybe that's what I want.  

I don't know that I could recover from it, though, if you did.

I was listening on the radio today to some sound bytes of people talking about the Defense of Marriage Act and how marriage is a sacred institution between a man and a woman and how "I'm against gay marriage because I'm against gay couples" and all of this vile, ugly, nasty prejudice and hate is, of course, heavily cloaked in this self-righteous, base religious dogma and I was thinking to myself, "Wow-- is Jesus the silent listener at this dumb fuck's conversation, too?"  And, if he is, I wish to hell he'd speak up and slap these people in the head.  I just can't fathom how these people don't see their bigotry for what it is: just plain old bad behavior.  They're behaving badly.  It's wrong to oppress people.  It's bad.

And, I guess they like being bad.    

It's funny-- I don't believe in God or Jesus or hocus pocus anymore than I believe that the sun'll come out tomorrow, but I do believe in scaring yourself into behaving.  I believe there is value in that.  I think that, whatever you have to do to make that happen, whether it's force yourself to believe in the improbability of God or the hereafter, or recognize the importance of social conformity and behavioral norms, or whether it's to get laid or get a little bit up the ladder or to get a seat next to the red head on the train-- whatever: do it.  Scare yourself.  Because when we lose that, when we go through life believing that there is no silent listener at the table, I shake to think what we would say and do.  

And by "we" I, of course, mean "me".  

You I trust.  

It's not you, honey.  It's me.  

The Doggy Paddle Back to Land

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 26, Verse 11

"As a dog returns to its vomit, so does a fool return to its folly."

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CHIPPED WISDOM:

So, by now you know about my thing about airplane disasters.  Today, a passenger jet en route to Bali, where my wife and I honeymooned lo those many several years ago landed just shy of the runway.  About a hundred feet shy.  In the Indian Ocean.  Hey, these passengers were most likely water lovers anyway, right?  It's a good thing, too, as lots of them, apparently, swam back to land.  The plane split.  Everybody lived.

I wonder, though, how many of these fuckers who lived through that harrowing and horrible experience, are going to be excited about getting on a plane anytime soon.  If it were me on that flight, faced with the prospect of essentially 24 hours flying time just to get back, I might just be calling Bali my new forever home, and there are worse places to call home.  Like, for instance, all of them.

From 1980-2003, I was not a dog person.  My family didn't have dogs since my eldest sister was a young child.  They had Basset Hounds, from when my mom was a girl until she was a young mom herself.  As one Basset died, it was replaced with one of a similar vintage, and each one was called "Gypsy".  No one ever accused my family of being imaginative.  By the time I rolled out on the assembly line (that's what my grandfather called, um, I guess, my mom's uterus), my family was dogless.  My mother had gotten fussy in her late twenties and educated about the perils of childhood allergies (which, in retrospect, was good as I turned out to be allergic to everything, from grass to dust to cornmeal and chocolate to ragweed and my own elbows) and so no dog would grace our threshold for many many years.  

When my middle sister became independent, the first thing she did was get pets.  Those turned out to be mice living in the stuffing of her first sofa.  After that, she got a dog.  Then she met an idiot who moved in with her, and this idiot had a dog.  When she and the idiot broke up, she had two dogs.  Right around this time, I finished college and moved out on my own.  My girlfriend at the time had just broken up with me, after inviting me to her parents' house near Boston for a long weekend (I got right back in the car and drove six hours home, thankful I wasn't relying on an Indonesian jet to get me there) and I was very lonely.  So, I adopted one of my sister's dogs, Finley.  I was hooked.  They really get their claws in you, those bastards.

In 2009, my wife and I miscarried.  We were devastated by the loss and we responded to that grief by adopting a second dog.  Where Finley was a saint, Molly was a succubus.  A terror.  A nightmare.  She peed and pooped everywhere.  She was skittish, manic, wild and she was not to be tamed.  In 2011, we gained two babies, and lost two dogs.  Finley's health deteriorated to an appalling level.  He could no longer hold in his previous iron-clad bowels, he couldn't stand, he cried all day from arthritis pain, he couldn't eat.  It was horrible.  It ended the way so many of these things do-- on the floor, on a blanket, with me, a doctor, and a needle.  I cried so hard I couldn't see, and I don't know how I made it home without crashing the car.  You'd think it would have been easier to get rid of Molly, but there were disgusting tears there too on the day when I re-surrendered her to the shelter we had adopted her from two years earlier.  Two absolutely terrible years.  We couldn't do it.  She was ripping our house and our sanity apart.

I couldn't have it.

Now, the crazy rides again.  Tennessee, a four-year-old Basset rescue, waddles through our house with all the absurdity and charm she can muster.  And she does it effortlessly.  I tell people that making mistakes doesn't make you bad or evil-- I tell people that for a living-- and I wonder if getting another dog is a mistake to begin with.  Maybe it's just impulsive, or foolish, or asking for it.  I guess, if it turns out okay then it wasn't a mistake.  If it blows up in my face, it was.  What can I say?  I'm a sucker for a sob story with nine teats.

Seriously-- nine.  I counted.  I don't know what you do on your Saturday nights.

I love the way the center of the top of her head smells-- right where the thin white stripe of fur traces between her obscenely long ears-- like... dog.  Like magic.  It's the perfect spot to kiss.  I bury my nose and my face in those endless wrinkles and I think that this can't possibly be a mistake.  Yeah, the nanny's terrified of her (even sent my wife a crying face emoji text today) and I don't think she's a complete win with my children yet, but I suppose they (the kids, not the nanny) will grow to love her the way I do.  The way I loved Finley.  The way I wanted and tried to love Molly.  

Tenny had a hard life, and, for these first few weeks, I know she's going to make our lives hard.  But we'll all get used to each other and it'll all get better.  It's funny.  I never wanted to be a dog person.  I didn't understand it growing up.  My friends had dogs and they were okay, but I was never dying to have one.  But after Finley died and we gave Molly back, I was completely lost, adrift out in the ocean, clutching to my seat cushion, waiting.  Waiting for my short, long, slobbering savior. 

Some people just never fucking learn; and I'm glad I'm one of them.