Except for a mother and her twin boys, I was alone on the platform at Kipling. The kids were probably about three or four and had curls like apricot foam haloing their baseball caps. At first, I thought the woman had a bad cold. Her face looked blotchy. She leaned against the wall, staring at her feet. She had one of those knotty bodies that put you in mind of trailer camps and empty Budweiser cans full of bullet holes.
I was coming from a session with my therapist in which I hadn't...
When I was a schoolgirl—approximately a millennium ago—hanging on the classroom wall was a diagram in the form of a triangle broken into horizontal sectors. Humans occupied the peak, while “lesser” beings were boxed up in order of their presumed intelligence, from supposedly higher level mammals down to reptiles. Since then, we’ve learned that crows plot vengeance over years, elephants mourn ritualistically, and ants can be trained. In other words, that chart was a bunch of hooey.
I’ve often...
MINOR CATASTROPHES
When Zack turned 70, his attention turned south, in the direction of his nether regions. Women—young, middle-aged, elderly, whatever—became irresistible, his body rounding toward them like a cypress bending over the road, although not as awe-inspiring.
Initially, I chalked up his conduct to the shock of arriving at an undeniably old age. He’d settle down in a few months, I told myself—at most a year. Seventy-one would be far less traumatic. From birth, ages ending in zero...
Max scrabbled to get behind the sofa but Anton was ruthless. He had to be, he told himself as he tugged on Max's collar. The dog skidded forward, his back legs twisting under him. Anton slipped a hand under Max's flanks and pulled him up. Max yelped but stayed on his feet.
Mrs. Bushnell, across the hall, opened her door a crack. Anton caught a glimpse of her hair, the color of Kraft macaroni and cheese. He pictured her hovering behind her carved mahogany barricade, ready to poke her head out...
What upsets me about the "all positive" dog training advocates is their rigidity and hostility to anyone who doesn't agree with everything they think, and that they seem not to have thought their ideas through very carefully. For example, they believe the notion that alpha dogs exist depends entirely on the studies of wolves in captivity, where apparently observers have seen alpha behavior. But dogs exist in captivity. Doesn't that give them even a moment of uncertainty? Absolutely not. Like...
What upsets me about the "all positive" dog training advocates is their rigidity and hostility to anyone who doesn't agree with everything they think, and that they seem not to have thought their ideas through very carefully. For example, they believe the notion that alpha dogs exist depends on the studies of wolves in captivity, where apparently observers have seen alpha behavior. But dogs exist in captivity. Doesn't that give them even a moment of uncertainty? Absolutely not. Like Trump...
While we love our dogs for living in the present, those of us inclined to fault ourselves for not being perfect will find plenty to fault ourselves for in our relationships to our dogs. Do we walk them enough? Play with them enough? Pay enough attention to the changes in their bodies? in their disposition? Have we been consistently positive in our training or did we lose it a time or two? Are we perfect? No, but do we forgive ourselves for not being perfect? Do we forgive anyone else for not...
The most difficult thing to do is to forgive yourself. Sadly, when we can't forgive ourselves, we can't forgive anyone else.
Have you ever listened to a recording of an actual conversation between two people? If so, you’re probably aware that “real” dialogue doesn’t sound authentic. If you pasted the words of that recording into your novel, you would risk losing observant readers. In fiction, credibility isn’t boosted by fact. Fiction should be an artful interpretation of reality.
But how can a writer make dialogue sound credible if real conversation doesn’t? Unless your work is primarily narrative, you need the...
The Bear’s Lair was deserted. Josh opened ten packets of sugar, splitting them between two cups of coffee. After that, he added several packets of Pream to each one. “This,” he said, handing her a stirring stick, “is how to drink bad coffee. Think of it as dessert. Or, if you’re me, lunch.”
She took a swallow. “Ugh.”
“I didn’t claim it made coffee taste good. Just sweet.”
“No, it was false advertising. You said it would be drinkable.”
Rubbing his mouth, he flashed his hazel green eyes at her, and...
On YouTube, I watched a video that must’ve been filmed on the grounds of a doggy day care facility, possibly somewhere in Latin America. Two dark-skinned, dark-haired men stand watching the dogs, who, except for one hyperactive husky, are all playing nicely. The husky, however, won’t get control of himself. The men watch without intervening as the husky rampages, bumping into dogs, mounting, and otherwise challenging them. The well-socialized dogs ignore him and move away.
The husky zeroes in...