2000-08-07 - 01:46:39

This diary entry goes out to David Grainger. Can you feel the love!

Today I took micah's dog for a walk. He doesn't get out much when micah's talking care of him, so I thought I'd give him an extra long walk. It's not actually Micah's dog. It's his grandmother's. And while he's out performing at the renaissance fair (where he performs as a craaazy gravedigger and does an act with a shovel with a hole in it for all the suburban wisconsin folk) he needs one of us to take care of it. And since Nate considers it a major ordeal to leave the house, i decided to take the initiative.

I wanted to give him a real good walk. The rest of the day, he's stuck in a little cage, and i'm not sure how much exercise he gets with Nate or Micah taking care of him, so I thought I'd be Mr. nice guy. I let him go at his own pace, sniff away at the trees, sit and scratch himself, as we wandered through the streets of Uptown, over to Clarendon Park, which was covered with people on blankets. I wasn't sure if the people were visitors out to sun themselves, or if they lived in the park, since I don't get to that part of the park much. I was mildly curious.

One other lady was out walking her dog, an old lady with an old dog. She told me how she once had a dog like Angel (that's the name of Micah's dog), and one day, out of the blue, it gave birth to six little puppies. Apparently, neither she nor the vet even knew she was pregnant, though I imagine the dog did. They kept one puppy and gave the rest away, but the point is, boy, were they surprised. I told her to have a nice day.

As we would down Sheridan road, me listening to Tom Waits on my walkman, Angel sniffing at all the doorways, a lady said to me that the dog seemed to be looking for something. Then she added that I would get lots of girls from walking dogs. Then another lady came up, a black lady in her 20s, and stopped to pet Angel. She asked what its name was, and whether it was a girl or a guy (her exact words). I told her it wa a boy. She told me that I would meet lots of girls by walking Angel. I guess she had heard what the other lady had said.

I went a winding way back to Micah's apartment, passing the street once and looping around the block. I wanted to make sure Angel got his workout before I put him back in the little cage. He was puffing away, sniffing for the other dogs, having a good time, I imagined.

Then I brought him back inside Micah's place. I decided to let him hang around the apartment for a while, kind of ease him into it, so I read from his Nietzsche book and listened to the radio while Angel milled about. Then I put him in his cage, and he gave me this sad face, but I just pick him up and pushed him into his cage. It felt like a betrayal, so i guess the sad dog face was doing its trick.

Thinking about what the girl said, I thought I should take Angel out for walks more often. But Micah's taking him back to his grandmother's on Tuesday, Nate says, so I guess I'll have to fnd some other way to meet girls.

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It started raining really hard as I was finishing my dinner. Nate was in the other room playing computer, but he came out to me in the living room, wondering where would be a good place to see the rain. It was really coming down. Nate looked out the back door, where you could see the rain pouring down a gutter and one the way down, spraying up like there was something wrong with the gutter. The rain was creating a mist like you were in a cloud.

I said he should just go out in the rain, and maybe I would join him. He put on this crazy plastic Fourth of July hat to keep the rain out of his eyes, and i took his umbrella. We went out to the courtyard to watch the rain.

We sat there watching it for a bit, then Nate went back in to shut off his window fan, which he thought might be letting the rain in. i went out to my car to get my Umbrella, but foulnd that the car was locked and i had forgotten my keys. And because i had forgotten my keys, I couldn't get back into the courtyard. So I waited til Nate showed up and motioned for him to come get me. It was still coming down, bt he was happy to get wet.

As I opened the door, he gave me a mug. Apparently, the thing to do was to sip whiskey in the rain. So we walked back to the stoop and sipped our whiskey. I closed up the umbrella, just let myself get wet. Then Nate, who never likes to go outside, went running down the path in his bare feet, rounded the shrub in the middle of the path, and ran back again. He was still wearing his crazy Fourth of July hat. He slapped me five as he passed like he was passing a baton, and then I ran out and did the same thing. If Nate's not afraid to do something crazy, then you'd better not be afraid to do soething crazy, either. You have to encourage these things in him.

I reflected on childhood because it seemed to be the thing to do. I realized that this was the longest time I'd been out in the couryard in the entire 11 months I'd been here. It was a nice, symmetrical courtyard with bushes on either side and one in the middle. But the rain quieted down and, after Nate had splashed in the puddles a bit more, we went back inside.

We got all cozied up inside. I changed into a nice warm, dry shirt and put on some slippers, and we played a game of Magic like we always used to.

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