PUPPY DOG TAILS

Rupert is very sad today because he had an operation on his tail. The vet anesthetized him and shaved off his fur and removed a growth. It's very icky to have your tail operated on because there's not much tissue or skin there, just a lot of bone and nerves, and the healing can take awhile.

He looked very demoralized when I left him at the hospital. He did not want to stay. When I came to pick him up, he was so happy to see me. He shoved his snout between my knees and wagged his tail, even though it obviously caused him pain to move it. On the ride home he stuck his big lion's head out the window and closed his eyes and let the cold wind blow through his mane. Every minute or so he'd look at me and smile, like "I'm so glad you remembered to come get me. Who knows what those sadists would have done to me next!"

The vet — a teenaged boy who works there now — just called and said it wasn't a cyst, as he initially thought, or cancerous, as he slightly feared, but was a follicular tumor, which is benign.

Mabel was nervous all day, wondering where he was — worried that he was doing something fun without her, and acting accordingly petty.

The vet sent him home with a ton of antibiotics and a giant funnel collar, which I guess is for me to wear so I won't bother him with too many kisses.

Last night he lay down on the pillows by my head and didn't budge all night. Usually he sleeps at the end of the bed to watch over me, or by the door. But last night it was my turn to watch over him.

BEST PARK IN TOWN

I haven't been to the dog park since Tuesday, when Rupert knocked me on my ass in front of half a dozen gay guys. My elbows are still smarting from the fall. So is my pride.

Gay men are some of the most compassionate people on earth, so I'm not sure why I felt so embarrassed. Maybe because I buy into a few stereotypes and couldn't shake the feeling that their empathy for my pain was commingled with criticism of my outfit.

For those of you who don't know, the off-leash dog park is also the gay cruising park. It was the gay cruising park first, then the city decided to sic the dogs on the queers. That's one theory. Another theory — mine — is that it's a fucking beautiful park, as well as a beautiful fucking park, and the city recognized that it was perfect for dog lovers, as well as man lovers.

Problem is, I'm the only dog lover who goes here. Everyone else is afraid of the pervs. Everyone else takes their dogs to the park way out west, which is nice and all, but not gorgeous like this; not lush with river-bank growth and ancient cottonwoods and giant vines; not alive with the sounds of lapping water and buzzing insects and singing birds and twigs that snap underfoot; not full of sandy paths that meander through dense shade into little sunny clearings.

One lady I recently ran into here — she had two beautiful German shepherds — told me she came here only rarely and only at certain times of day because of the "unsavory characters" who frequent the park. I wanted to say, "Hey, I'm an unsavory character," but I didn't think I could really pull off "unsavory" — and besides, I knew what she meant and sort of agreed — so I just nodded and admired her dogs.

But back to my shame. I had just let Mabel and Rupert out of the car, and Mabel immediately starts terrorizing Rupert by dragging him around by his ear and barking in his face and chest-butting him, until he gives chase. Then they're off at 90 mph, like one beast with two heads, nipping at each other, running circles within circles, tripping each other up. I'm just peacefully walking toward the river, knowing they'll catch up with me when they tire of their folie a deux. I stroll by several cars that are backed into the spaces for a better view of newcomers and, presumably, the police. Each car contains one man (that I can see). Some are holding newspapers. Some are smoking. They are the picture of WAITING. I almost feel guilty that I'm not some hot young stud, but a mere frumpy woman with two literal dogs on a literal walk through the literal park. I am the picture of LITERAL, I think, when — WHAP! — out of the blue, my legs are knocked out from behind me and I am in midair, then — PLUNK! — on my ass, with my arms locked up behind me to unsuccessfully break the fall. What the heck?! The thought crosses my mind that I have been attacked, that I'm going to be asked for my money next, but then, in a blur, I see this big black ball of fur rolling out of a tumble and racing toward the water: Rupert with a Mabel chaser. Those assholes! They picked me off like a bowling pin. "Rupert!" I yell, in a menacing, punishing tone, but he blissfully ignores me. I hear him splash off the boat ramp into the river. I pick myself up and wonder who saw. My conservative estimate, based on my location: everyone. No one, though, gets out of his car to ask me whether I'm OK. It's like we all reached an unspoken agreement as soon as my ass touched earth that an offer of help would only add to the embarrassment. Better to pretend it didn't happen. Later I can nurse my wounds at home, and they can chuckle over the dumb broad who thought this was literally a dog park. OK. Fine. Except I can't find my car keys. They were in my hand but apparently went flying as I instinctively tried to brace myself. I brush off my pants and "nonchalantly" peer through the weeds. They can't have flown far. But they're not here. Or over here. Or here. I start to panic a little. Then aha! Here they are. I stuff them in my pocket and slink away toward the water, where I find two dogs frolicking in the muddy porridge that's the Kansas River.

The park's trails begin near the boat ramp. The one to the east is where most of the "unsavory" activity seems to take place. The one to the west is where I usually go. But I prefer the other one — it's more romantic somehow, the path is more like a labyrinth, with little passageways shooting off over hillocks into little green groves with benchlike tree stumps. I knew this was the preferred destination of Unsavory Characters (UCs) because (1) I am a UC and know how they think; (2) I have seen the UCs entering and exiting the woods from that trailhead; and (3) I have ventured on recent trips over the hillocks, off the beaten path, and found plenty of evidence of unsavory activity. I showed George some pictures I took: condom wrappers, men's underwear, reading material. When he and I went to the park last weekend we saw a container of gel lubricant and what looked like used bedsheets. I won't post those pictures here, except for this one, which I took on my first adventure into the backwoods. Emboldened by the absence of cars in the parking lot, I climbed off the beaten path into this little cove and spied what I thought were some red wildflowers, but when I got closer I saw that they were an assortment of condoms. Someone, after a tryst, had arranged them like little flowers — or little flags. Part of me was repulsed, and part of me was fascinated.

I don't know why people like to meet strangers in a park for anonymous sex. The thought of it really sickened me at one time— when Beth first told me about the cruising park — all I could imagine were truly Unsavory Characters in emotionally brutal situations; no affection, no joy, no names, no reciprocity, no SNUGGLING, for crap's sake, no nothing, except sheer animal satisfaction in the "closet" of the park. I had the notion that cruising parks originated because homosexuality was illegal and shameful and such places, along with public toilets and porn houses and seedy bars, were historically the only venues for gay men to meet. But those days are over, mostly. It would still take some cajones to walk downtown arm in arm with your gay lover, to be sure, but you don't have to resort to public parks, do you? You don't have to give gays a bad name, do you?

Then I realized I was being a huge, judgmental ass. If this park were a hangout for straight people, it would have some enticing sobriquet like Lover's Lane or Makeout Point. And the more I think about it the less I find it repulsive. I personally have zero desire to have sex with a stranger in the great outdoors (barring a chance meeting with my fantasy park ranger at my favorite national park who saves me from a mean bear and then ... oh wait), but who cares what other consenting adults do? Do your thing. Have fun. Life is short.

But pick up your damn condoms! And your underwear and your lube containers! Please. This is a public park.

And another thing, don't look disappointed when I get out of my car and you realize I'm just a girl and not the afternoon delight you had planned for your lunch hour. I have every right to be here, as do my dogs, so don't pass me on the trail like I'm some alien intruder.

And finally, to the Republican A-holes with the Bush/Cheney stickers on your cars with Johnson County plates, use your own fucking park. This fucking park is for gay fuckers who pay taxes here and agree with MY politics — not married assholes who vote against gay marriage while traveling here twice a week for a gay romp in the woods.

MORE BANG

Sweet! My current shotgun has seen better days. And my birthday's coming up. Hint hint.

PLAYING TAG

Aaaggghhh!!! George and I — and a bunch of cute kids like this one — spent the morning tagging butterflies for Monarch Watch. It was amazingly cool (even though most of the kids weren't coordinated enough to catch anything but dead leaves). The butterflies, making their annual migration to Mexico, stop over at the awesome wetlands here to eat and rest. And volunteers like us catch them and mark them to help scientists monitor population and habitat trends.

Monarch Watch's Web site has a lot of info about the uniqueness of monarchs, such as: "In all the world, no butterflies migrate like the Monarchs of North America. They travel much farther than all other tropical butterflies, up to three thousand miles. They are the only butterflies to make such a long, two way migration ... Amazingly, they fly in masses to the same winter roosts, often to the exact same trees."



So George and I trudged through chest-high wildflowers in the wetlands looking for the little critters. George, who has an amazingly good eye and kung fu net maneuvers, made our first catch, above. When you net one, you record its sex and put a tiny numbered sticker on the "mitten" cell of its wing. At first we caught nothing but boys. Strange. I naturally theorized that the girl butterflies were just smarter and hence didn't get caught as much, but then we discovered that George was slightly confused about the difference between men and women (they evidently haven't gotten to that part in nursing school yet). When we figured out that the boys had two dark spots on the interior of their wings, our scientific data vastly improved.

We ended up catching like 40 butterflies. Some escaped our grasp and some had been tagged already. But we used all 24 of our stickers. We got really lucky when we ran into a guy who told us to get out of the open wetlands and go into a little wooded area where it was shadier. It was amazing. Butterflies were everywhere, flitting all around us like little sun-dappled Tinkerbells. We spotted some sort of monarch orgy on a low branch, and with one swipe I netted 10 butterflies:

A FAIR ASSESSMENT

Isn't it always the case that the best thing you do on your vacation is the thing you don't have a picture of? You get home and, in lieu of a photo, you have to come up with a thousand frickin' words. And even then, people aren't convinced that the thing was as fun as you've made out; their paltry imaginations need visuals.

I had to resort to said tactic this week. I had to come up with a thousand-word description of the deep-fat-fried cheese curds at the Kansas State Fair, because I walked away from that cultural mecca without a photo of said delicacy.

My description fell flat. It elicited stares, to be sure, but not like the stares that followed me at the fair as I walked down the midway with a heaping basket of hot, greasy, golden curds with a side of ranch and molten bubbles of stringy cheddar oozing out the pockets of fried batter. "What is that?!" people would exclaim, and "Where did you get that? It looks so good." I felt like Marco Polo parading through the canals of Venice with an exotic Oriental spice. "Over there," I said, "where they sell the Dutch Fatballs, but watch out for the six-legged monsters and the army of Kublai Khan."

Anyway, here's the abridged version of my curd description: Oh God, oh God.

And if that's not enough, I have witnesses. George and Erin were there and partook.

Here are some other things we ate: deep-fried alligator on a stick, monkey shines (blocks of hard ice cream rolled in chocolate and crushed nuts), ice cream cone, funnel cake with powdered sugar, peanut butter and chocolate fudge (Erin's mom got into a heated exchange with the fudge chef over whether his fudge was superior to Erin's grandma's fudge; the chef lost), deep-fried gator taters with extra salt, fresh-squeezed lemonade, a turkey leg and roasted corn with lime pepper and melted butter. I did not partake of the turkey leg because I'm a vegetarian. I did try the alligator on a stick because cold-blooded prehistoric carnivores I don't feel too bad about eating. It was supposed to taste like a chicken, but it was more like a chicken that had been marinating in a muddy bayou. And I skipped the butter on the corn because I'm watching my fat intake. The food item at the fair not to be missed — which, alas, we missed — was the famous Pronto Pup, which is a large, magically flavored corn dog. I missed it because I don't eat whatever animal it's made from, and George missed it for the same reason. Erin missed it because she had one last year and had bad memories of puking it up.

So the food was yummy.

The reason we went to the fair, though — and this was my first trip ever to our lovely state fair — was to see Ben sing with his new barbershop quartet, Wu. That's their name: Wu. As in big wu, or wu-hoo, depending on how you liked the show. In my opinion, Wu was the best thing about the fair, after the cheese curds. All the guys in Wu wore these really cute blue tops. In showbiz, you have to wear matching tops; otherwise, people won't know you're together. George and I wanted to get some barbershopper autographs after the show, but they all hurried off the stage. Later we would see random guys in bright polo shirts eating Pronto Pups and whatnot and looking lost without their threesome.

We saw a lot of animals. Remarkably, this sheep, when they sheared its wool off, had all these markings on it. It was born that way. Apparently some enterprising 4-H youth had put his seventh-grade biology class to use and genetically engineered a butcher-friendly line of sheep. He will probably get the blue ribbon for that. I say "he"; it could have been a girl 4-Her, I guess, but it just doesn't seem like something a girl would think up, don't you agree?



Every building had some particular kind of animal in it. Like there was a rabbit building and a pig building and a cow building, etc. In the poultry building, we saw this. (George said I should post this picture and write: "Look at this gorgeous cock.")



We also saw this Phyllis Diller-type bird. There's the hair similarity, of course, but doesn't it also look like she should be carrying an ivory cigarette holder and telling ribald jokes about how her husband doesn't find her sexy anymore? George called the birds with the fancy hair-dos the "socialites."





And when we came to the baby animal building, we saw this: (George said I should post this picture and write: "Look at this little ass.")



Good thing there wasn't a cat building. George might have been stumped for something clever to tell me to write.

That little donkey's name was Topper and his mom's name was Taffy. They are dwarf donkeys, and she was pregnant with him for like 13 months. He is about the size of my boy dog, but he has an extra huge penis. Huge. Although you can't see it in this picture. We thus speculated that the oft-heard phrase "donkey dick" is based on something more than charming alliteration.

Also in the baby building we saw some pregnant cows and newborn piglets. But I did not get pictures of these as I was too busy oohing and ahing. I did photograph some adult pigs in the swine building. This head and butt do not belong to the same pig, though.






And those are the highlights of my first visit to the Kansas State Fair.

CHARM'D MAGIC CASEMENTS

This is a red-letter day! My living room windows have been restored to their former mullioned glory, and now instead of looking into a blur of plastic sheeting, I can sit in my parlor, as I'm going to start calling it, and see the world — to wit, the gnarly branches of my old oak trees and my neighbors' lovely dwellings — through 24 panes of antique glass.

I know, I know. This won't excite those of you who take little things like windows for granted, but I haven't seen out of my living room for years. And the last time was through two filthy, cracked panes held together with packing tape. (Some poophead had torn the lovely, delicate mullions out of the sashes and replaced all the little panes with giant modern ones.)

Anyway, hooray. And if you think I'm excited now, wait until I get the rockin' green shutters for the outside.

BEN'S DAWGS

Bless his heart. Benjie wrote his own shoe commentary. I would preface his analysis with the observation, for those who don't know, that Benjie has Fred Flintstone feet — completely flat and blocky like a blue-collar Bedrock man; however, to my knowledge, he cannot propel a car with them:



Starting at Maggie's tail and going counterclockwise, we have:

Brown French Walking Shoes

Black Work Boots (they are made to be casual boots, but they are the toughest shoes I have, so I use them for heavy-duty booting)

Lawn-Mowin' New Balance Running Shoes

Big Lesbian Shoes

Shiny Black Dress Shoes

White New Balance Walking Shoes (I don't wear them because they peench my feet)

Tuxedo Shoes (black plastic shoes)

Hush Puppies Brand Cordovan Cap-Toe Dress Shoes (my favorite shoes)

White New Balance Walking Shoes (the ones I wear every day -- note laces)

Weird Black Dress Shoes (Don Suffron gave them to me)

K-Swiss Sandals (I can't wear them because I can't put my special insoles on them)

Good Black Dress Shoes (the ones I wore to work, alternating with the cordovan dress shoes)

New Balance Running Shoes (the latest ones I tried a couple of years ago — I can't run because of the flat feet, but these are specially made for flat feet, so I tried until my shins fell apart as usual; note that they have no laces — when the laces broke in my everyday shoes, I took the ones from these shoes until they broke also, then I bought the ones with the red stripe)

Also note that I have three pairs of special insoles, and they are in the big lesbian shoes, the tux shoes, and the everyday sneakers. The lesbian shoes have them because they are my second most used shoes and the tux shoes have them because I don't like to have to switch out my insoles right before a performance. And I have three pairs of shoe trees, in the boots, the tux shoes, and the cordovans. I have them in the cordovans because, when I was an attorney, I would always put a pair in the dress shoes I was wearing right after work (I would wear the cordovans and the black dress shoes on alternating days). I have a pair in the tux shoes because they are a little small, and I keep those in there so they don't shrink, and I have a pair in the boots because the last time I wore them I sweated a lot, and those cedar trees are good for keeping moisture from ruining leather.

So that's the story on my shoes.

HEART AND SOLE

Here's a photo of Erin's fabulous array of shoes.



Twenty-five pairs represented, you'll notice, by the right shoe only (Erin always puts her best foot forward). It's a much more extensive and colorful collection than mine. I wish I had some red shoes. I must say, though, that I have known Erin for five or so years and I can't recall seeing her in many of these. The riding boots I believe she accessorized with a skirt rather than a horse. I'm guessing it was the blistering black shoes in the middle row on the far right that pissed her off. I trust others will notice the big brown lesbian boots in the back row (hehe — classic case of the pot calling the kettle butch).

And here is a picture I drew of one of my favorite shoes. I am trying to teach myself to draw, and I find that I am best at shoes and chairs, although I cannot draw them with people wearing or sitting in them. If anyone else wants to submit shoe art of any kind, please do. Rick, I'd like to see your rock-climbing shoes. Sharon, don't you have some shit-kickers? Christy, the slut pumps? Ben, the pancake holders? Amy, I know you have an enviable collection. Let's see 'em.

"AN OUTER COVERING FOR THE HUMAN FOOT"

OK, here are some shoes of some people I like. (I like more people than this, but I don't have pictures of their shoes).

Sara's first, because we haven't seen them yet. She divides her collection into comfy and uncomfy. In the first kind, you can perambulate all over town, all on your own. In the second kind, you have to be driven to your destination because these shoes are not meant to be walked in so much as looked at. I am guessing these two pictures represent only a fraction of Sara's shoes. (I remember from working with her that she always had very nifty sneakers).

Here are her comfies:



Here are her uncomfies:



George's prized collection includes a pair of snow booties, some sneakers and some going-to-church shoes. (George attends a megachurch with a Christian rock band and laser light show, so he has to look his best). The size of his collection recently increased by 33 percent when he added the white, easy-to-clean nursing shoes below. (Is my math right, G?)





Erin went with a day-in-the-life perspective and submitted a picture of what she happened to be wearing. I'm glad to see these shoes resurface, because I really like them but haven't seen them in ages. I'm assuming this is Casual Friday footwear — and the trendiest to be found in her workplace. Sometime when I'm at her house I'll sneak some photos of her two dozen other shoes. (By the way, Erin has a birthday tomorrow. She'll be seven-and-twenty ... I've been reading Jane Austen).



Billy has some cool shoes, I can attest, but she doesn't have a working camera. These boots she's in love with, and I'm sure we'll see them on her feet this winter when she gets a few pesos from her new job.



If anyone else wants to share images of their shoes, send them along!

BACHELORING IT

Someone came into my backyard tonight while I was at work and left the gate open, a gate I never use. So when I let the dogs out at 1:45 a.m. they ran away. I did not discover this for a few minutes, until I went to let them in and they weren't there. Usually they are eager to come back in at night. They haven't seen me in six or seven hours. They want to come in and knock me down. I thought maybe they found something interesting in the yard — a dead bird or a snake — so I went out to see if they were conferring in a dark corner of the yard. Nothing. As I turned back toward the house I saw the south gate was wide open. My heart hit the ground.

They had never run away at night. The neighborhood was asleep. I couldn't call for them. George was asleep. I couldn't call him. It was too dark to walk around looking. The bars were closing. I sat on my front porch and softly whistled for them.

Then it dawned on me again: Someone opened the gate. I walked around to the backyard to see if anyone had broken into the basement or stolen the bikes chained to the fence. It didn't look like it. Was someone watching me?

I sat on the front porch some more. They'll come back. I'll sit here all night. Finally, I can't take the waiting. I get in my car, even though I know it's futile, and even though I know they might come back when I'm gone — and find me gone and leave again. I drive around the neighborhood in ever-widening squares. I can't see anything. My dogs are black. I make passes by the house, in case they returned. I drive and drive.

This is a shitty time to live alone. Earlier in the day a colleague was complaining to me that his wife was out of town caring for her sick mother and that he was "bacheloring it," i.e., that he did not have a woman around to care for him. I just nodded and tried to fake a smile. He’s my superior; he doesn’t have a sense of humor. He must have seen my "sympathy" as sincere, because he went on about the hardships he had been enduring the past three or four days. "I've been too busy to get anything done (including the professional thing we were working on together). I've found that now I have to take care of the lawn — and the lawndry," he says, proud of his pun. Poor guy, I thought, how will you survive? I bet you're wishing your mother-in-law will hurry up and kick the bucket so your wife can come back and start caring for you again and you won't have to live alone. He starts to tell me what he's been eating without a woman to cook for him. I start talking to someone else.

No dogs. No dogs. No dogs. Then suddenly, in a big parking lot under a street lamp, there are my dogs. My heart swells. I pull up and call to them. They come running, like "Where have you been? We’re having so much fun!" They jump in the car and lick my face. They've been swimming in the river. They are sopping wet and reek of dead fish and river mud.

We drive home. They drink from their bowl and frolic wildly with each other, energized by their late-night outing. I sit down and write this in lieu of smoking a cigarette, in the time it would take to smoke a cigarette. Then I collapse on my bed at 4:30 a.m., on my sheets that need lawndering, between my two best friends, who are sopping wet and reek of dead fish and river mud.