a delible mind

Okay, I should be happy. I did the last edits on my novel a week ago. Handed it off. Signed the contract. Mailed it off, even. (Mike, Dan: I want the pony). I’m in the phase I always preconceive of as dizzyingly free, when I can do anything, write anything: it’s beautifully open. Instead, I’m feeling nauseated at not having some huge project already consuming me and I’m desperate to get into the next novel when I promised myself that for six months I’d write things that were short. Like haikus. Here’s one:

I finished my novel. Now
is the time to write
short things. Ah, fuck it.

While not writing my next epic project, I decided to update the website with a new picture of all the books I mean to read, the ones that have piled up beside the bed like shale. And within twenty minutes of taking the picture some force dragged me out to People’s Coop Bookstore to buy yet another book: Luanne Armstrong’s The Bone House. I’m feeling pretty apocalyptic these days.

Speaking of the end of days, I just finished reading Machinery of Nature by Paul R. Ehrlich, which got me thinking about GL and EW, who live with an African grey parrot and a dog that is one quarter wolf. So the Ehrlich is beautiful and after reading it I better appreciate the subtle interactions between species and environments and I also look again at our perilous social arrangements: Like the way humans make pets out of their natural enemies (I say “their” because, for the purposes of this sentence, I am inhuman). Why is that? Why do we like to have sometimes very damaging and dangerous creatures living with us. Why does Wayde, every time he sees a grizzly, have an overpowering urge to pet it? (though it would surely eat his face).

And it gets me thinking about the Stink Bugs, too. The former neighbours, lovely people who shall remain nameless, that for many many years allowed their two small dogs to use their apartment as a toilet. Yes, for years. At first, we thought they were serial killers with a keen social veneer (the stink that leaked into the hall as they slipped out the door and smiled so kindly is what did it). Later, one of the stink bugs asked me into the apartment to see his refrigerator (and only now does it occur to me that perhaps it was a bad idea to take him up on this odd offer). I took one step into their apartment in stockinged feet and immediately got a nasty soaker. Their entire carpet was drenched in old dog urine (though their apartment was otherwise quite lovely). After seeing the new fridge (it was a very nice fridge), I retreated and threw out my socks.

And GL & EW have a beautiful home — one that is slowly being eroded by their parrot, who has eaten cabinet doors and who chews through wires and who just generally drops loud and large glops over the furniture and floor and yes, the shower curtain, because who wouldn’t want to shower with a semi-feral creature, one who has yellow eyes that follow each of your movements with predatorial grace. Uh, not that I don’t like Rufus. But why is it that we enjoy living with animals, especially former predators — even when the adaptation is less than, say, functional? (Parrots, Wayde points out, don’t naturally prey on humans; but they are evolved from carnivorous dinosaurs and dinosaurs ate the myopic rodents that are our forebears, and when you look at a parrot, you can see it in their eyes).

Update: The West Coast Line issue is coming together. Amber and I are meeting next week to go over the last of the submissions and begin to put the issue together. So, if anyone is wondering, you’ll hear from us soon.