Further Meditations on Dogs (and humans)

In literature, movies, pop culture as a whole, there is a tradition I like to call the Anachronistic Man, or the man out of time. By out I don't mean "time's up!" rather the figure has existed outside the boundaries of time. Sometimes he ages; sometimes he doesn't. They are hapless time travellers.
Odysseus is the earliest example I can think of. Dragged into battle against his will, he spent ten years fighting the Trojan War and another Ten trying to get back home. In fact, at one point in the Odyssey, the isle of Ithaca is in sight when Poseidon blows him away, adding years to the trip. Rip Van Winkle goes to sleep a youngin' only to wake up an old man. Even though Philip J. Fry doesn't age, he wakes up a thousand years into the future. The hero of I Am Legend (the novella), stands at the very end of human civilization, hopelessly alone. They are living a kind of trauma, not like mine, but a trauma none the less: violent seperation from all they know, disorientation, culture shock.
In most cases the figures share a common episode. They are accompanied by or have an encounter with a dog. When Odysseus finally lands on the shores of his home, the first creature he meets is his dog, who has waited twenty years on a pile of shit and flies just to see his master one more time before he dies. It is heartbreaking, very rarely have I felt palpable anguish from any art form, and this is one of them. Reading the Odyssey for the first time, the scene brought me to tears. Desperate and lonely, the hero of I am Legend, tries and fails to save a dog. In the 20th century, a dog waits, and is still waiting, for a Philip J Fry who will never return (and this from a geeky screwball sci-fi comedy!).

Why does this pattern exist? Well, I'm glad I asked that rhetorical question!

I don't wish to lionize humanity's relationship with dogs, and I admit that the dog could be a symbol for ANY pet, could symbolize our relationships with the animal world as a whole not just canines. Still, I think the dog works in these stories because of something specific about our relationship to them. They wear their hearts on their sleeves, even stubborn rascals like my Scottish Terrier, who wears his postured indifference on his sleeve. A dog is lonely with his whole self, he does nothing half-way. When he suffers, he suffers completely. Maybe it is because we tamed them early in our history, but we see something of ourselves in dogs. They were with us before time mattered, so perhaps they are a reference point, a marker. Regardless, when they suffer, we see our own suffering. Their pain is our pain. We are spiritually linked.


(If there is an alternative symbol, it would be the horse. They are the only animal I can think of who shares a history analagous to that of the dog)

Meditation on my dog

I look at my dog and see the person that I am and the person I want to be. Radar is, in his quietest moments, looking at the world, looking through the world, above it, below it, yeah, he transcends it. He is alert, living not as a dog, but a frozen beam of light. He is magnetic, not merely larger than life, but larger than himself. Any martial artist worth his salt would envy this clarity. The Shaolin developed the five animal style of Kung Fu, incorporating the natural motions and rhythms of the animal kingdom into the postures, strikes, and blocks of the human world. When Radar stands on my brown aztec porch, the wind blowing in his brindle fur, I’m convinced within him lies the secret of a Terrier Kung Fu, the ability to harness charisma, presence, majesty, into its own martial style. The style itself, its practice, its execution, imbues the monk with an expanding sense of courage.
He survived that awful night just as we did. He barked before I opened the door. I brushed it off as his usual theatrics, and there was a moment I thought, inexplicably, about not opening that door. He should be dead. Men that vicious should have shot him or beaten him to death, but despite the noise he made Radar lives. In his canine memory is he haunted by that night? Does he ever feel an instinctual irrational pang for a thing greater than his IQ or is it gone, cleaned from his fur by a soft breeze? Does he know that his father sees him as a totem, a myth, an irascible die-hard?

The future

Is uncertain. Very. Not had much luck with grad school. Not exactly enthused about my current financial state. And my girlfriend and I aren't together, literally separated by distance.

I am dissatisfied. Hmph.

Next week is the last recovery week. I'm gonna go coo-coo for cocoa puffs pretty soon.

Life just seems to be in a general state of impotence. I exert effort, but nothing moves.

The Grand Tour 2

I cheated. I used my visit as an opportunity to train at another dojo.
This place was small, real small. Imagine your typical half-strip strip mall, three unrelated offices: a comic book store, a tiny furniture outlet, and an a law office.

We'd turned into this building on the advice of the cluttered signage fifteen yards away, a series of squares, rectangles, and other forgotten four sided shapes. Each promised something: a service, a store, an idea, and three more offices than were visible. With its clashing fonts and competing reds, blacks, and greens, the uniform white background fused into one off kilter asymmetrical meme "Jujitsu-Comics-Furniture-Insurnace!-Attorney-Space for Lease" Somewhere in a tiny cubicle cluttered with Go-bots and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a graphic artist, a twenty something named Bob with a tiny pot belly and a odd devotion to Plan 9 from Outer Space, imagined a world where Jenga was the ultimate form of advertisement, but something went wrong. He fused Jenga, played right to the point of inevitable folly, with a Totem pole. At least, he did so half heartedly. Only he knows why he gave up. Only he knows why someone was nuts enough to purchase his work.

"I don't see it--well, now, check this out"
The blacktop curved down and around the back.. The building had another side, an underneath. There were three more offices in the building, jujitsu among them.

It seemed appropriate that a dojo would be wedged into the lower left hand corner of the building, a violent id for an inanimate object-space. It was the suppressed desire of fanboys dipped in toilets, the sinister urge of lawyers beaten by the excrutiating non- precision of legalese, a sweaty dungeon hidden away from those blinded by the anti-razzle and the anti-dazzle of the signs.

"Bow before you enter."
Girlfriend and I went inside.

The mat was a light brown, a thin tan. I reached down to touch the floor. Hard mats, not a lot of give. It was the first time I'd seen mats with a bamboo pattern. Waves shaped into tiny sticks, criss-crossing the floor. I was amused and disappointed. "I was hoping for something a little softer." I'd driven over 300 miles, and god damnit, I walk into another dojo with hard grooved mats. My toes wiggled and grumbled, one of them ached stupidly. "I must have tortured a burn victim in a former life."

And yet....

I look at that sketch and I wonder.

Accidental Discovery

Sifting through the sands of the net I found this:
Rape Victim Says Attackers Forced Her Husband To Watch - News Story - WFTV Orlando

Very similar to what happened to me and girlfriend, except for the hispanic accomplice and the batshit crazy cousin angle (which I'm not sold on) and the kids! Jesus Christ.

The Grand Tour 1

Visited Girlfriend this weekend. Had to attend to visit. Had to see an IME.

Independent Medical Examiner.

Do you know why you see one of those?

I can't answer that question directly...yet.