It’s 3:09am, last day of March. Not quite a fool, just almost. I’m here grieving the loss of my dog. No, he didn’t die. A maintenance guy who missed his window by 90 minutes, opened the door — WHEN WE WEREN’T HOME (!) — and Pip bolted out. Fuck that dog. I hate that dog. I can’t stand him and the way he just wanted to sit near me and go bike riding in the backpack with his stupid paws crossed like a little old British man. He was a waste of my time anyways. Always making me stop my mad work on COVID data maps for pee breaks, play breaks, silly jumping around to “I’m a Boss Ass Bitch” kind of songs that help me get my head outta my ass and down into the ground cuz adults need money to L-I-V-E on this gentrifying planet.
PAUSE
BREATHE
Close eyes. Blind typing. Listen. Windchimes. They’ve not stopped. I have this idea Pip will hear them…and know them. And come home.
Open eyes.
This is free writing. Letting the fingers go where they wanna go. Not worrying about the architecture. Where will it all go eventually? Perhaps the best place is in people’s hearts. I could fit it all into printed pages bound inside a hardcover. But how many hearts would I reach compared to the newer, faster distribution platforms? BookGram, BookTok…
PAUSE
Close eyes. I’m focusing on trends instead of content right now. Bring it back. How? Listen to the wind chimes. They are telling you there is movement outside in the natural environment. The cool thing about Pippy is that he is a little scrappy animal. He knows his way around the blocks. College Park, Lake Eola Heights and now Baldwin Park. BP. Open eyes. Ha that looks like British Petroleum. Something I feel like I don’t use and access more is all my stored knowledge from the cities I called HOME over a span of 25 years. London in 1994 was vastly different from London 2022. There were 4 channels in 1994. BBC1, BBC2…OK, I’m mansplaining. Everyone knows that already. We are currently living in the future we envisioned back then, but we’re all still trying to catch up.
PAUSE
Close eyes. Am I writing anything of substance right now? I went to London because I wanted to be a “Latina in London.” It seemed like a weird mash-up. Like Morrissey meets Lisa Lisa and the Cult Jam. I’ll have to find a good excerpt from that journal. I remember what it looks like — blue cover. I wrote my assignments for my study abroad program in that one. I also have clippings from the British newspapers at that time.
PAUSE
Close eyes. Something is happening now every time I pause to reflect on what I just wrote, I am thinking in Lego pieces. Each Graf builds on the next.
Sassy Magazines from the early 1990s. I have a bunch, and I’m sure Jane the editor, forgot her name, will look it up later, has uploaded all of them to Instagram. Even so, they’re going up on The Femmebots as #TBT.
PAUSE
Close eyes. Thoughts are always going toward work. I’ve been thinking a lot lately how much of a workaholic I am. I love to work. I love to write. Writing is great work. Would love to get to the point that I’m writing what I wanna write and someone decides to pay me for it after the fact.
FUCK. Where is Pip? His absence is obviously “triggering” me. He’s been my little emo support dog through whole pandemic. Sigh. Holy shit. Rub eyes. I totally got adopted by this dog. When I met Tic, the dog was like the bane of my existence. I was all, “Ug, the dog that hides under the house all day?” One time, as I was speed biking to Tic’s house to help lure Pip out from under the house, I fell. I think I was tired after swimming with my team at the Y, so that’s why I fell. But it was also clear I was “moving too fast.” SLOW DOWN, the universe was saying. Arrived at Tic’s with a bleeding elbow and torn jeans and instead of acknowledging the wise mind telling me to SLOW DOWN, I said, “It’s all Pip’s fault!” Such a little baby I was about it. But then…Tic didn’t judge me for it. He let me be an asshole and suddenly I was like, “Fuck. I’m a selfish asshole.” And suddenly I started falling in love with the dog, too. Jesus, could you gift any harder? Man of My Dreams + Stepdaughter of My Dreams + Co-Mama of My Dreams + Little Dog? Ay. My heart. I can’t take it.
PLASTIC BAG FLIES.
In 1999 we all wanted to “drop out” of American Beauty and the Matrix like Berger wanted to “drop out” with the Hippies in the 60s. I dropped out HARDCORE and now I’m stepping back in with hightened awareness and L-O-V-E…but ONLY if I write. Like my writing classmate Pam Wiedenbeck writes:
I write.
I write.
I write.
IF I keep writing, will Pip find his way HOME?
4/1/22 at 10:42am: YES!!!! We found Pippy sitting, shaking, wet under some trees near a pond off Fox Street in Baldwin Park. OMG, it’s like a miracle. I feel like these have been the longest 2 days ever. Losing Pip brought us all together as a family. Tristen, Tic, Belle, my parents, Tic’s parents, Tristen’s parents, our friends…like the wedding before the wedding, happening in one month exactly. To have a family that really looks out for each other…this is the best feeling in the world.
