Sinko de Luco

Perhaps you remember my ill-advised post-Valentine's Day Blog wherein I declared my abiding love for Mingus. I am sorry to admit embarrassment has kept me from posting here since that day. I felt a sentimental fool, love-sick and stupid.

Although I have since attempted to squelch these feelings, I have learned I cannot, and have learned that once one becomes aware of an emotion such as this, there is no wishing or worrying it away. It simply is.

And so my love for Mingus is. I seek to soothe this cavernous desire with simple pleasures. A sink. Cascading water. My traitorous tongue.

Ah, and of course, the prison guard. Life has gifted me intellect, but not the opposable thumb of the primate. No means by which to wrest my own succor, only the dumb wait for my tormentor. Silent, I eye her. Beg her.

Turn on the sink. Let me lick. And in these moments all else has the kindness to fade into sensation - the water is cool and it is sweet. It is a million caressing droplets.

If only it could be unendingly so. I am stymied by inability - imagine those worldwide stymied by sheer lack of supply or of poison due to industry, farming, humanity's infinite chipping away natural resources.

Imagine those for whom water is a gleaming promise, a back-breaking hours-long affair. And imagine, if you will, the amount of waste produced by bottled water - something like nearly three million tons of plastic is involved - for me bottled water is even less possible than a sink. If I could somehow wrangle it apart, how then to tip, to lick, and to swallow?

Today is Cinco de Mayo. Pardon my pun, because I pledge to you in ordinary circumstances I am no fan, but for me it is Sinko de Luco de la Cabeza Grande.

De la Cabeza Grande, and me, really, of the rather small-headed. I have always hated my nickname, but I have grown accustomed to it. It is meant, I have come to believe, to be affectionate.

I will let it go. I will not be perturbed.

I do find myself, however, becoming perturbed in other ways, when I had meant to find solace, a respite from the neutron-core-of-a-supernova-star that is my detestable heart.

Ever 21 seconds or so, a child worldwide dies from water-related illness.

345 million people are without access to water. This does not include all the many millions of animals also affected by both the misery of the humans and their own inability to drink.

780 million people lack access to to clean water. I have seen the dog drinking from puddles, but you humans are, I believe, of a more vulnerable disposition.

More people have a cellphone than have a toilet. And one of the most common ways water is polluted is through fecal matter.

My facts are from this Web site: water.org.

I am a housecat. A prisoncat.

And yes, I have to wait, and do so silently, but once the prison guard becomes aware of my aim, she makes water available to me. How many millions do not have this kind of opportunity? Today is a holiday, I am sure you are not surprised to hear, more celebrated in the USA than in Mexico, and more so as an excuse to drink margaritas and eat guacamole than as a celebration of a battle won 151 years or so ago.

Which is not to diminish the holiday. Any excuse we have to eat and drink together is, I believe, a good thing - it will be through communication and this kind of communion that we will (if we ever do) become a more peaceful world. 

But it is worthwhile to remember that because we can celebrate, others must suffer, at least in this current delineation of our planet. Because they suffer, we are afforded convenience, sustenance.

Because we are we and they are they, this configuration persists. This thought is not unlike Alfie's reflections on the Boston Marathon bombings (I will be honest; I rather hate to admit that I agree with him, but in these musings we are perfectly aligned).

So, therefore, it is worthwhile to remember that fact that we, all of us, are connected - together we make the face of our planet. We must all thrive if we are to survive. We cannot exploit some to send some further in their acquisition of wealth or standing or power, because when we do so, binaries are reified and strengthened; binaries which, if they are not understood to be pure illusion, will pull us all to pieces.

The one who falls clings to the coattails of the ascending, and so both are frozen, balanced precariously in an unending struggle for power. Is is this struggling that will undo us.

Most of the water-related deaths listed above occur in the developing world, and perhaps it is this distance, this invisibility that allows those of us in developed countries to ignore the problem. If a child came to your house in the night, dehydrated and ill, you would give her water. You would turn on the sink for her. It reminds me again of how numbers dehumanize - depersonalize - reality (another Alfie-point, blast).

But all 780 million people without access to clean water - each have a face, a name, have fallen in love, rebelled against their parents, have betrayed someone they love; each has fallen and each has daily experienced joy - each is an immensity.

Each is us.

Slippy is a Murderer!!!!!

Hello you know me my name is Slippy Slipper my full name is actually really long if you want me to I'll tell you it it has all my titles that I earned from schooling and such it is: Jefferson Cornelius "Slippy"Pawsley AA PA BA PhD Esq.

My PhD is what I'm most proud of and it's what helped me think of my very sneaky thoughts which I'll tell you in just a minute hold on and let me establish some context!

This is MR the prison guard the one who keeps us here and who sometimes sometimes sometimes gives me things like chicken meatballs and other stuff like rice and cheese and things which I eat when I put them into my mouth and chomp down on them slowly and quickly the both because then I can slowly taste them quickly all over my tastebuds!

But lately she's been getting on my nerves because she says no no no to chicken meatball and she won't ask her sister Anna to come over and make me a Slippy Cake which is a thing only her sister Anna knows how to make and but she won't do it because she got meaner and more mean and meaner more than that.

Sometimes I look at her and I'm angry and I'm hungry too. And it's her fault for all these feelings I have inside me like the buzz buzzing of flies around a rotten fruit in the backyard. I could've eaten that fruit if my legs took me faster where my nose wants to go! Stupid MR. Stupid flies. Stupid legs.

But then I had my sneaky idea which shows you how smart I am and you'll see when you look at all my diplomas which prove it! 

Dr. Slippy!

Dr. Pawsley! No one calls me that but they do sometimes. My smart idea here it comes.

Maybe MR. Maybe she's tasting good too?

So being my smartest meant knowing to approach her carefully. I licked her wrist to see how she tasted and to calm her down gently with my soft doggy demeanor.

It worked.

Once she was calm I worked on hypnotizing her which is a thing I learned when I was getting my PA which is a good thing to have if you're a dog who wants to make that money!

Then she got thoroughly hypnotized and I knew my trap was foolproof and it was set and soon it would be like MR was Alice tumbling down a rabbit hole except that rabbit hole would really be down my throat into my belly when I munched on her as a snack that would probably be tasting a lot like a chicken pot pie I think.

That's what I thought to myself anyway as I readied the attack.

She couldn't really fight back because of my good hypnosis work and so I got her on her face thinking yes yes this is it Slippy and it was it when it was it which was great for me because that's what I wanted anyway a nice evening snack!

Then I pelted her with dog pain raining from the dog sky of dog justice and prowess and she cowered and cried but I showed no mercy because I hadn't had anything to eat since dinner which was at least seventeen thousand years ago!

Really. My stomach was taking on its own personality making my paws slam down again and again it was like I had become a monster I had no control and my stomach it just growled and growled I was fierce.

I was a force of nature.

I was getting hungrier and hungrier.

Then it was all over and she was dead. Time for my feast! I thought to myself. I also thought to myself this: mwah ha ha which is I think how you make a villain laughing sound and if it's not please imagine however it's supposed to be spelled like that's how I spelled it because that is what my laughter sounded like it was full of malice and really evil and mean because that's just how I roll.

I'm a hardcore dog. From the streets of Miami. Survived a hit and run and so you think I'm going to let a tummy rumble bring me down? No. Dr. Pawsley plays for keeps, okay? And so be frightened of me!!

Although I do wonder if my propensity for violence speaks any of the love I lost as a puppy the years I spent trailing humans hoping one would pull me up into her arms and cradle me home.

Maybe it speaks of a heart too ravenous to accept any but the most intense of love - that which is all consuming - literally - and so I have to use hyphens to show you how very very very serious I am and now I am now now now feeling contrite and everything for really truly eating MR to death because my social commentary can be as deep as Luco's.

But I have to tell you one more thing of importance that I think you'll like hearing if maybe right now I've brought you to tears with this missive of emotionality and pizza yearning.

April Fools'.