I Don't Have 99 Problems But, In Fact, Two Are Bitches...

The past few months have been hard. Everybody has problems, I know. This isn’t a story about trying to one up or play down problems. I know that nothing about my struggles, as few as they really are, is overly interesting or complicated. If I have figured out anything at all, it’s that the problems themselves aren’t singular. Everyone experiences hurt, pain, or loss. It’s the reaction that is singular. The piece of the puzzle that we actually have the ability to control is where it gets personal and thankfully, I have been able to cling to my inner Anne Frank and hope that things will get better.

It was sort of a chain reaction of things, which started when I took the LSAT and screwed up my answer sheet when I was skipping around one of the sections. Sigh. School stuff was usually pretty predictable for me. I wouldn’t say I was completely prepared, but I had done some practice tests and stuck my head in a Kaplan book, so I knew what to expect.

I didn’t expect to feel like an animal in a cage, the cage being a tiny desk in which I couldn’t even cross my legs without turning to the side. The cage being in a room with no natural light. Blah, blah, blah. This could go on with excuses for why I fucked up, but in the end it was just my being sloppy. Most people can be sloppy for less than $139 and a Saturday. The weird part was that I felt like I had screwed up as I was leaving the testing room. I should have listened to my guts and just cancelled the score. But the little optimist in me thought I was just tired and brain fried.

So I held on to that hope in the three weeks waiting for the emailed result. Since the email was sent to the account linked to my James Bond phone, I knew the instant the unofficial result arrived. I was at work. You know, that place where I have to be nice to people and take care of their needs to get money. I should have waited till the end of my shift to look, but of course I took a quick peek and was certain that it was all a huge mistake. So I walked around in a daze until the end of the night, when I got home to Man Friend and had the standard “Maybe I am just a big fucking idiot” meltdown. Lots of stomping around the house, scaring the bitches, and such, basically acting the fool because I didn’t get what I wanted, when and how I wanted. Bathe in the self-pity, you silly girl.

Then we threw in the impending gray season. Oh gray season. October is when it usually starts for me for so many reasons, but the hot weather and sunshine that fueled my runs, rides, and happiness begins to fade away. Even though this winter has been quite warm, I find myself longing for a muggy morning run to push out the toxins and bond with the bitches.

Speaking of the bitches, these were two of my problems. I love them. You know this. It goes without saying, but I feel the need to repeat myself. I love them. They just weren’t getting along.

There had been little scraps over toys or food once Joey was taller than Alli. There could be five toys lying on the floor and they would scrap over one. Alli destroyed some of Man Friend’s stuff. She chewed up two of his phones, a stocking cap, a baseball cap, and a wallet. If Alli would take something of his and destroy it, there was never a fight. If Joey took something of mine, like a hair clip, Alli would go after her. This seemed to be the only pattern and it never made sense because an hour later, they would be sleeping in a pile on the pappasan chair.

They would go months without incident and then try to kill each other. There was bloodshed, both canine and human. I now have a lovely scar on my wrist from the straw that broke the camel’s back in November.

After several bites and several hundred tears, I decided that one of the bitches wasn’t going to live with us anymore. It was like Sophie’s Choice without Nazis. I knew who to ask to take one of my girls, I just didn’t know how to pick which one.

“How are you deciding which one to get rid of?” was the most commonly asked question. I wanted to rip people’s faces off when they asked that. You get rid of bad habits or trash. These were my beautiful babies that I had fed, run, and loved since they were puppies.

I thought about that day in the pre-Joey era when Alli and I were walking down 15th Street and I realized I didn’t own her, and more importantly, she taught me that I really didn’t own anything but my spirituality. The house, the books, the pots and pans, the people in my life could all be taken from me. I was just lucky enough that the furry little spirit named Alli had chosen to walk through my life.

And part of my heart wondered if she had chosen to walk out of it.

Arrangements were made, introductions happened, but in the end, I just couldn’t let one go. The lady just wasn’t dirty enough without two bitches. And hope took over.

Hope is that thing. It floats and rises to the top. It triumphs over experience. It’s a tricky one, hope. It will make the battered wife believe he won’t hit her again. It will make the parent believe his drug-addicted child only stole from him once.

Once when I worked at the Public Defender’s Office, I answered the phone and the caller asked for Hope. Those of you in the know are aware that at that time, Hope worked on the other side of Dakota Avenue, at the State’s Attorney. I couldn’t resist.

“There’s no Hope here.”

And god, at times it felt like there wasn’t. But sometimes it was the most hopeful place on earth, cause even with the weight of the world against you, sometimes things worked out all right.

This time hope came in the form of a co-worker. I hadn’t been eating and was so distracted I walked into traffic and was almost hit by a car. I couldn’t believe how painful the process of letting go was and apparently it was written all over my face. She suggested a dog behavioralist and I decided to go for it. I would be a pretty shitty person if I didn’t do everything I could to try and keep our little pack together.

So now I’m learning. The dog trainer’s whole concept is that he doesn’t fix dogs, he fixes people. I guess I made the connection that my dogs see me as a dog and I was doing all sorts of shit to confuse them, which led to the weird aggression issues. We’ve set up a new diet for them and I’m putting myself first. Yeah, put myself first. I’ve never had an issue being a leader among the human sect when it was needed, but for some reason, I think my intense love for animals set me up to put their needs first. Like humans eat first. It’s just my instinct to feed them first because I thought if they were fed and happy, then I could enjoy my meal. Nope, turns out they actually respect you when you eat first and then go to them, in their dominant order. And I am actually seeing the results. I used to think it was cute when they would stare me down and beg for a scrap while I was cooking or eating. Turns out I was letting them dominate me. Sigh. They’ve been kicked out of the human bed and have time outs, like little kids. All in the name of making me the alpha leader of the pack.

Granted, we are just getting going with all this, but Joey seems to be having an easier time than Alli. I’ve also had four more years to screw Alli up, so I guess that’s to be expected. So far, I am happy with the way things are going and looking forward to seeing what else we can do. I’m hopeful that my original vision of many more miles and years of wagging will come to fruition.