Please Meet Cousin Baby Jamie

I'm a doggy and I have a name and that name for me is Jamie. I'm a visiting dog of MR's family. These other dogs here, they call me Baby Jamie, but I'm either their age or older, so it's not really fair that they call me that; like they think I'm a baby, but I'm not. Have you ever had someone say something to you which is a thing that you're not, but they say you are anyway? That's what it's like for me, Baby Jamie, I mean: Jamie.

I would like to change my name to The Stud Jamie, but when I suggested that, they all (everyone!) laughed and chortled and basically broke my heart with their derision and my own misery which erupted like a disgusting boil.

Which isn't to say I cried. As I said earlier, I am not baby. I mean, I'm not. Look at my adult face. Look at these grownup, dewy eyes. I'm cousin Jamie. I'm a force of nature.

This is me Slipper saying hellooo because here you are meeting Baby Jamie the babyiest of all babies in babyville who sleeps with a blankie and a teddy bear and who snuggles and cuddles and coos his baby baby good mornings every morning afternoon night and in between times when his face scrunches up into a baby smile and a baby scowl he loves all hugs! Because he's a baby!

And like a baby here he is letting me eat all the snacks because I'm bigger and faster and more grown up in the way an adult is grown and can get to more food maybe I should've given it to him so he can get bigger and stronger but I was hungry when I was here in this moment in time and I couldn't imagine not chomping down on those little bison bits the meat pellets of deliciousness that I chew.

I'll let you talk to Jamie for the rest of this Internet post but remember I said hello to you and that I love you!

He calls me a baby?

You read that paragraph, right? I mean, the whole thing?

Okay.

Back to what I was saying. I'm Jamie, the Stud, a Force of Nature (it looks better capitalized, doesn't it?). Maybe I need more titles too: Jamie the Beautiful, Jamie the Interesting, Jamie the Wise, Jamie the Adorable, Captain Jamie of the Shining Seas, Jamie the Strongest Tiny Dog of All Time.

But I'm not so tiny. I'm bigger than many of the things like flowers, grass, leaves, sticks, Slipper's eyeballs, a frisbee, butterflies, and other things like that that aren't so big you can't fit them in your mouth.

My mouth is a cave I put things inside for later when I want to look at them again.

Also: I like beautiful things. I think people say weeds are weeds and not flowers because they are close minded. I think people say many things like that when they aren't thinking well.

If everyone was as good a thinker as me they would look at plants like this and think: ah, the beauty! Or in Slip's case maybe: I want to eat that!

But I've worked on not being close minded. I am Jamie the Wise, you remember? And I'm five years old or so. Ages and eons older than Slippy and Lucy. But not the cats - we don't discuss them - they have foolish cat-tendencies like not eating their own vomit and pooping all in the same place. Weird.

Call me Jamie of the Flowers.

I want to be surrounded by beauty. There is already so much pain and suffering in this world. I chase prettiness like some dogs chase tennis balls.

And I like to help people. To look in their faces and say to them, "hey, it's okay. You'll be all right." Because when I was little there wasn't someone there to say that to me, and I really want to be the one to say that to someone else who is sad or bummed out or who just feels so lonely they slouch and slink and hide behind their hair.

Slippy is right. I do love hugs. I am Jamie the Hug Machine. Jamie the Kisses You Can't Get Enough Of. Jamie Sunshine. Jamie the Doggy. The Doggy, Jamie.

And I'm your cousin too.

The Dog Contemplates Luco's Snide Remark of Yesteryear

I'm trying to curl up into a small ball. I'm tall so it's hard because my legs are long sticks that poke out away from me when I'm trying desperately to be tiny.

And this blanket isn't helping me either because I want to curl up so I can hide and the couch is tan "cappuccino" says Lucy and the blanket you can see it it is green and white and a lighter green than the other green.

Why do I want to hide you ask me? I was just reading Luco's blog and I came upon this one which I understood some more of the words than when I read it last time and it made me a shaking dog that can't really stand up and a dog that doesn't really want to look into anyone else's faces a dog who wants to hide and to not be seen by anyone of all the others in the house where I live and where I sleep when I am tired.

He writes "Suicide is too easy. It is ignoble. It is an act the dog might consider if the dog could become aware of his own existence in any meaningful sort of  way."

Which is meaning what? I know the word ignoble because I looked it up it hurt my heart like an ice cube pressed into my muscle fiber which burns and stings and is somehow cold all at once a thing like that that doesn't make sense that is so cold it is somehow hot and my face is burning and I can't feel my tongue in my own mouth and what does he mean when he says I might consider it?

Does he think I should?

Am I such a bad dog such a terrible entity (which means like a thing that exists which I do I do I do) that I am so stupid I shouldn't be here in this house wandering around with my long bent over legs and my drooling mouth trying to lick Lucy or whatever and how does Luco know when to say I should kill myself?

When or why or how or where or who so what does that tell me about him who I thought was my friend who I stayed with him years who I held onto him sometimes when he let me and him who I looked and looked in his eyes and decided not to eat him who is warm when he's sleeping and sometimes soft who wants to be pet but can't let himself who wants to love but can't let himself and him him him who writes and thinks these terrible things which I respect so much but don't understand so much sometimes but when I do again it's like the ice cube but all over me and he's the one saying I'm ignoble? 


That I should kill myself?

Maybe he didn't mean it. Had a bad day and thought I was a dummy creature with no feelings just cloth inside me but that's not true I have this horrible heart.

It's horrible because it's so strong and you know the word intense? And it beats and it beats and it beats and when I think of cheese it beats faster and when I think of Lucy the Scarecrow and hey Luco I thought you were my family but now and now and now you don't know me at all want to say to me these things like I'm a black hole sucking in all everything that was good and just killing it so I should kill myself?

Don't you Luco remember any of the times I licked you?

But I am aware of myself anyway which is different from what you said which I don't get because you're supposed to be so smart and here you aren't being smart because I know of a thing you don't know and my body gets hot in the sun when I lie Outside and look in at you with your pointed feral face and you want what I have maybe but you can't admit it.

Or you admit it but not really with some words that hide what you really mean and so I hide here in this curled up sad ball that isn't small enough because here is MR anyway taking my pictures!

I want to love more and I want to feel more sunshine and so even though I'm aware of my own existence in something that could probably be called a meaningful way no I don't  Luco want to die and I don't want to be dead and away from my Lucy and my Mingus and the other ones also who skitter through the house and who never say to me they'd prefer I was dead.

Because I can quote Hamlet too Luco I can say words from it like the verse that is my favorite: "Let Hercules himself do what he may the cat will mew and dog will have his day."

So but I understand if a better word for how Luco feels is jealousy and jealously and jealous but he should be nice to me! He should try to be.

Remember when we were a family and you didn't love me maybe but you didn't act this way? Remember when I was as good a dog as I could be? Remember when everyone says stupid things sometimes but maybe not that someone should kill himself because really that's going past some kind of a line I think which I know I don't know as much as Luco does but am I crazy?

Tell me am I?


It's just that I think of the taste of sand the grit of it in my teeth Lucy's sharp bark in the morning the songs of cane toads and delirium a flash of Mingus' tail as he whips around the hall the steadying pressure of MR's hand the cool of water and clouds whorling a hundred millions of things I want to still tell you and tell to Lucy who is my shingingest the green of the morning when it's hazy too and the sound of traffic every yell from a happy kid and babies screaming their little cries so distinct the taste of meat and the softness of it between my teeth when I bite and I chew and saliva fills my mouth so delicious.

And when I think these things? No matter what you think I'm worth?

Then I don't ever want to not be alive.