Original Dog

Last week, I presented a paper at a conference on TV and Feminism called Console-ing Passions. Let me say first that this was an awesome conference that was also sort of insane simply because of the level of obsession with television and the sheer magnitude of the words (many of them arguably made-up words, like "informationalize") collectively used to justify that obsession. There were at least six papers presented just on Mad Men. I attended one presentation on the TV show Hoarders called "Between Clutter and Catastrophe: Traumatic Economies of Dirt and Disorder on Hoarders." I was convinced by another paper that I need to start watching Kimora: Life in the Fab Lane as soon as possible.

Anyway. The point of mentioning this conference is that the person who introduced me for some reason read my entire biography from the Bitch website, a bio that includes a statement about embroidering in my free time. What the bio says is that I embroider portraits of dogs, but the moderator announced, "In her free time, she embroiders portraits of her dog." Now, there's a difference between embroidering portraits of dogs and embroidering only portraits of my dog, and I believe it is a profound one. I got a mental picture of myself sitting on a series of doilies in a small room, the walls behind me completely obscured by embroidered portraits of my dog. My dog eating. My dog frolicking with a small red ball. My dog wearing a bonnet. My dog playing poker. You get the picture.

I guess the lesson here is that I need to get a little more professional with my professional bio, and leave embroidery out of it entirely. That said, at the conference reception, the woman who presented the Hoarders paper approached me over the cheese tray and was like, "I have a German Shepard! Do you embroider other dogs?" So the upside here is that I might get a commission out of this embarrassment.

The day after I came home from the conference, I had to say goodbye to my dog, Oscar. I'm not going to say much more about it, but it was sad and awful and totally necessary. His was the first portrait I ever did, and probably still my favorite.

I'm the one who took your rug

Another entry in the ongoing "Women in movies who say awesome things" series, which, really, could have a whole subseries dedicated just to the genius of Maude Lebowski. "Don't be fatuous, Jeffrey." "My father's weakness is vanity, hence the slut." And, of course, "My art has been commended as being strongly vaginal."

Anyway. Speaking of really tying a room together, I am disturbingly excited about the premiere of Bravo's new reality show 9 By Design, about the gigantic Novogratz family, these stylish New York house-flippers with seven kids who are already being vilified as the Hipster Gosselins. Do you think that's going to make me not watch, Curbed? Think again. I have been fascinated by these people since reading a profile of them in the recently departed Cookie magazine, it of the $300 fur-lined toddler moccasin  photos.

First of all: As already noted, they have seven kids, a concept which I find compelling on regular mega-family shows, but even more so on shows that are aimed at a demographic less overtly prone to talking about how every little life is a miracle fart straight from the backside of Baby Jesus. Oh, and also, those seven kids are named things like Holleder and Five and Major. I mean, it's no Pilot Inspektor, but it's admirably weird (and, in the case of Five, somewhat underachieving).

Second: They regularly build basketball courts into their five-story gut-renovated Meatpacking district houses. Third: They appear to be desperate to leverage their story into some kind of brand, and you know that's a recipe for amazing drama and possible douchebaggery, particularly when Bravo is involved.

And finally? (Small voice) I think their houses are really beautiful, secretly covet them, and hope to pick up some tips on keeping one's house looking sharp despite the presence of tiny, clumsy people wielding crayons and sippy cups. (/small voice.)

Hank

Every year around this time, Jeff and I look at each other and are like, “I wonder what Hank’s doing?”

Back when we lived in Oakland, it was in a neighborhood that our realtor gently referred to as “transitional.” (Should you ever be faced with this bit of real-estate lingo, know that it is code for “semi-regular drive-by shootings.”) Anyway, we loved our house and lived there for a few years before coming to realize that falling asleep to the sound of muffler whistles and waking up to the neighbor’s rooster was losing some of its charm. It was around the time we began discussing moving to Portland that Hank came into our lives.

I was sitting at our dining-room table on a rainy April afternoon after work when I heard a car pull up, a couple of doors slam, and, just as quickly, the same car peel out. And all of a sudden, tied to the utility pole at the side of the house was a very large, extremely skinny, epically sad-looking dog.

I like dogs. I go to dog shows, I accost strangers on the street to pet their dogs; I have a kind of dog-specific Tourette syndrome that involves yelling “Cuuuute!” in the general direction of dogs I drive past. It’s a problem. I once spent five minutes cooing over a grumpy-looking English bulldog in Greenwich Village before even noticing that Adriana from The Sopranos was holding its leash. So, naturally, my first instinct with this dog was to run up and hug it. My second was to call Animal Care and Control and report an extremely big pit bull on my property. I mean, cute, yeah. But what was stopping this adorable creature from biting my face off with one snap of its giant, James Caan-esque jaws?

So I spent the next several hours on the phone. Animal Care and Control was closed for the weekend and the department's outgoing message instructed me to call 911 for any stray animals who could be considered dangerous or potentially dangerous. Speaking of potentially dangerous, you know who’s got much bigger fish to fry in Oakland on a Friday afternoon? 911. They told me to call the SPCA. Who told me to call private rescue agencies. And so on. The rescue places told me they were at capacity with pit bulls and pit mixes; the SPCA told me that the pit bull situation was so out of control in the city that if this dog didn’t pass Animal Care’s screening he would be destroyed immediately. And 911 more or less told me to jump up my own ass.

Meanwhile, people passing by my house yelled at me about how wrong it was that I had my dog leashed to a pole in the rain. And this dog was looking both sadder and sweeter by the minute. Jeff and I finally decided that we could move him into our basement for the night, give him some food, and see if he got along with Oscar. And that’s how Hank came to be our dog for a whole, semi-blissful week.

He was, indeed, a really sweet dog who, I like to think, was abandoned because of a Ferdinand the Bull–type refusal to fight. Or maybe his family just couldn’t afford to feed him. That wouldn’t surprise me, because frankly neither could we. This dog was never, ever full. Jeff once came into the basement to say hi, and found Hank kicking back, calmly eating a mirror, like, “Oh, hey. Mmm. Tasty. Got any more of these, perhaps in a Cool Ranch flavor?”

We named Hank and fattened him up and took him to get neutered so he’d be more adoptable, but we couldn’t keep him. Our own dog was not down with the interloper and had begun stonewalling us. Plus, he was too expensive. Plus, we were now definitely considering moving to a place where people would be less likely to abandon dogs on our lawn. So our adoption search began. We made him a MySpace page and listed his interests as “Getting adopted” and his turnoffs as “Not getting adopted.” Anyone who remembers how freaking insane MySpace was in 2006 won’t be surprised to hear that we were contacted almost immediately by two Mills college students. They showed up to meet him with a collar that I actually think was already personalized with his name, and all 110 pounds of him waggled and yipped and was like, Yes, hi, hey, I like you, do you have mirrors at your place?

So he left with them, and we haven’t seen him since. It’s actually a little weird that I spent more time embroidering his portrait than I actually spent with him. Hank’s two moms, if by some crazy chance you’re out there, let me know how my old pal is doing.