Yesterday was moving along, motoring forward. I was sorting through the box loads of my stuff that was stored in the attic over the garage. I found the picture of Stacie Sierra I thought I had saved. She was even prettier than I remembered. More important than what I found is what I threw away, which was 6 or 7 boxes of books and just general junk. That was a good thing.
But in the middle of all this came cries for help. Loki (I think that’s how it is spelled), the blind and deaf 17-year-old dog, fell into the swimming pool and drowned. George made the discovery and called out for my sister. It was horrifying to see and painful to watch as George urgently tried to give mouth-to-mouth to an animal that was clearly gone. George let loose a lot of anger, mostly at himself for letting the dog by the pool without him watching. We were inside bullshitting about high school shenanigans when it happened. That was sad, a little gruesome, and altogether hard to watch. I did not have the connection to this dog that the others did, but I cried anyway, less for the dog than in sympathy with the shocked sadness of everyone else. It is hard to know how to feel, since the dog was such a pitiful creature. It was pooping and vomiting everywhere. This passing seemed almost like an inevitable relief. But the circumstances could have been more dignified. Loki had been in the family for 17 years. George kept saying “I didn’t want it to end like this for you” and “Come back” and he pounded the shit out of the hood of an old Chevy Truck in the back yard. He spent much of the afternoon pounding on things, briefly talking about what an asshole God is. It reminded me, once again, how ugly and pointless anger really is. All that rage and for what? The image?
He slung the dead dog over his shoulder and told my nephew to get a garbage bag. Diane said “He’s not garbage.” Now Loki is in a freezer. Lucy, the other dog, is looking anxious and confused, wondering where Loki went.
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Other than that, not a lot to report. The journey through my old box loads of stuff was tedious but rewarding. A lot of good stuff, really, which I will have shipped to New York eventually. Just not now. I’m going to ship back a couple of small boxes of stuff, including a mysterious cassette tape labeled “August 9, 1981”. I wonder what is on that. But a primary mission of my sorting through this stuff was to free up space in the attic for Diane and George, and that was accomplished to everyone’s satisfaction.
I start to wonder if I am through with New York. I ask myself: Do I even need New York anymore? Did I ever? I guess I thought I did when I wanted to be a pianist. And I have no doubt in my mind that much of the media attention I’ve gotten over the years was due in no small part to me simply being in New York. Most recently I don’t think CBS would have bothered with me if I was in Tampa, or anywhere else but the NYC area.
But do I need media attention? I do not. Do I even want it? I don’t know. That CBS spot was profoundly gratifying to me, even if I never watched it. Well, I never watched it with sound. I showed it to some friends at Sunswick. That was the first time I actually saw the clip. But there was no sound.
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OK, then. It is morning and I need a breakfast sammich.
