15 April 2008

Enough of that, let's have some of this: the call of the tame, which, while more plaintive and passive-aggressive, is easier on the ear than coyotes hunting through the park, and all the rest of that great wild kingdom recently all around my house. I will write about the domesticated animals whose company I suffer. But first, a few final notes, on the fucking great outdoors of Dublin, Ohio. Which I will now deliver in a fittingly grandiose style, which I of course call "a la mode de la asshole pretentiousse":

I've come to accept these wild animals in a way, and shorten my walks, and avoid those rough undiscovered places in Dublin where screaming, monstrously huge birds of prey and shocking proportions lurk, and feast, on heartbreaking, fuzzy things. I steer clear of that darkling, untamed wilderness that's crept back into suburban Ohio, along tributaries of the Scioto River, those sprawling, tenuous, but as-we-speak consolidating stretches of woods, where, for instance, some sort of eagle ...no, more like some supereagle, because this thing fucking outclassed all eagles... where supereagles lurk, to strangle, slash, and tear things to bits, to feast, and not to flinch for man or beast,--only to wander off this way, irritated by the man and his dog who are ambling like retards through the park, while the fuzzy things escape into those woods over this other way, here.

The woods, all the woods around my house, are sprawling, razor-thin skeletons of a forest, tenuous, but slowly, insidiously growing, meeting up, and joining together, consolidating all around us... less like an assembly of lonely, straggling trees, more like something organic on a wider scale, gathering all around us, from patchy woods that meet up in points, and grow into the same thing. And less like a thing being born, more like a thing being healed.

It's scary: my best guess is that this is the very same forest earlier, more self-assured generations of Americans thought, arrogantly, they had beaten, had chopped down once and for all. Now it is growing back, all around us. Maybe it will grow and grow, and one day swallow us. I mean swallow Dublin, Ohio, of course--not humanity or anything so romantic. One day, perhaps, Dublin will be laid waste by the unchecked forests, recently so full of stupid-looking wild animals. (Who, of course, always seem to be doing, just for me, a caricature of wild animals doing stuff, like: shrieking while they feast, as a sated eagle is wont to do... Pardon me: supereagle.)

Hmm... I believe I will now see if there is any such thing as a supereagle on Wikipedia. If not, I am going to report that huge fucking bird I saw a while back. What's more, I will brazenly, stridently start a Wikipedia article on the supereagle, which I will give a Latin name when I know how to say "eagle" in Latin (I could be wrong, but "super" has got to be totally easy). Whenever you see the words "experts" and "scientists," that means me. For example:

"Scientists believe that the supereagle is more powerful than any other bird of prey, and may in fact also be faster, screamier, and much more closely related to dinosaurs. Like, a cousin or even closer to fucking Tyrannosaurus Rex. Only with wings! Picture that dinosaur; this is maybe its little cousin, scientists theorize, and experts agree. Few men can stare one down and rescue from its mighty clutches an adorable vague fuzzy thing that escaped right in front of the scientists and their dog (also a scientist) , escaped right into the woods over there. Truly, scientists have a cold, hardass, intimidating look in their eye, when the shit goes down, and it's like a do or die situation. That is surely why the supereagle backed down, even though he totally tried to play it cool, like "Whatever, I got to go, I was going to go over here anyway, not because of you..." But scientists know, they know now for sure, that scientists are big strong men who command respect when they walk, whether it be into a room, across the street, to work to save gas money, or, as we only just witnessed, through the woods, with their loyal dog, who maybe helped out, but just a little. That's certainly not why the supereagle backed down or anything.

Oh, yes: let's have no more talk of wild animals and all the hilarious and unfunny-because-it-happened-to-me theatrical shit they pull. Let's all try to be a little less Grizzly, a little more Urbane Adams. For today. So: The call of my cat, Sophie, always plaintive, always hungry. Cute to strangers, really very pretty, even--but like torture when you live in the same house as it, the meowing, meowing and meowing, meowing, meowing. If I could bring myself to swear at my cat, --which I can't, because I would feel fucking awful about it--I would so gladly tell her to shut the fuck up, because she knows it's not time for dinner yet.

I have a dog, too. I know that she, too, is also hungry. She doesn't want me to know that, though, because I might feel obliged to make her dinner earlier than usual, and then I would surely feel put out.

If you ask me, we use the word "bitch" for the wrong species of pet.