Versus the Dog

I turn 30 in a week. Out at a bar recently an acquaintance asked me if I could believe it. She said, "Doesn't it feel like we're still 25?" In my head I thought, "What's the difference?" But I played along because I was in a casual mood, the mood to talk about dogs and ham and the word "horny" as a jokey synonym for "thirsty" or "excited." My acquaintance claimed to be horny for real estate. I, myself, have never been horny for real estate. I don't need to be happy or sad. High or low. Most times you see me, I'm content. That's all. Simple. But it's also everything. If I'm horny, I'm horny for comfort.

Ha ha.

The truth is I can believe it. I've said before how I wanted to be an adult even as a child. If you were a lumberjack, and I was a tree, you could have cut me down any time in the last decade and counted more rings than should have been there. I have the bark is what I'm saying. Is what I'm thinking. Is what I believe about myself even if it isn't really true. Enough school teachers called me an old soul in elementary school, and I bought it. Even this past weekend, in the one place that might have the power to reduce me to childhood by overwhelming me, my best writer friend told me what I've always told myself: I was born old.

Well. There's me. There's my friend. And then there's the actual truth. I'm a man, and I'm a child. The bark grew over time, and it still grows. It wasn't always there like I wish it was. Nothing arrives fully formed. I can believe I'm almost 30 because I can trace the line of it, and I can examine the dots on that line, the years and the events and the love and the work. At a writing conference this past weekend I wore the same backpack I wore in middle school. The threads have loosened so the bag is transparent in places. I have stitched and restitched the seams many times. It's too small for an adult, and yet...

What else is too small for me?

Maybe I've grown out of this dream I've had once a year every year for so long. The dream where I'm walking down the street and a wild dog attacks me and I kill it to stop it. The jaws are strong, but somehow I'm stronger. The dog bites me, and I pull apart the machine of its mouth. I overcome the teeth. My hands bleed but don't hurt. I have not had this dream this year, but there is now an actual wild dog haunting my neighborhood. Blackened fur wets its belly. The rest of the dog is as gold as dry dirt. It's running to something or away from something. I've seen it once out the kitchen window while cooking. I thought it was a fox, but then I looked closer and saw it was my nightmare. Other people have posted pictures of the dog to our neighborhood's Facebook watch group. I haven't encountered the dog in the street. Give it time. Maybe when I'm 30. Which is next week. Maybe next week. Or maybe never. Worry over something enough and it takes a form. I'm not worried.

My new book, The Three Woes, has been announced by Spork Press. I worried over it, and here it is, about to exist. I'll tell you about it later, OK?

Look out.

Snakes Alive

Walking all over Kansas City is one of the new things I do. Last weekend, I walked all over Kansas City with my friend. We got lost. We got found. We looked at houses and drank bourbon and ginger beer. We saw a bunch of cats. My friend said the best thing to come out of the economic downturn is all the outdoor cats. Any of them will come up to you and act like a pet because they all used to live indoors. My friend and I sat on my porch and a stray cat jumped in my lap and my friend said, "See. That's totally your cat."

Everywhere I go, someone is telling me a snake story. Everyone has a snake story. I tried to feed a snake out of my hands once and the snake bit me, of course. I'm not Snow White, though one of my friends has a bird who will fly across the room and land on her finger. My only fairy tale quality is that I have a really good sense of direction. Oh, and I'm the first son, which means I'm destined to make a fatal mistake involving my pride.

I made a molasses pie yesterday and it was nasty, but then I put it in the fridge overnight and today it has promise. I can see how I'll do it next time. Josh politely ate his slice and then said, "This is acrid." Yes, I used a strong molasses. I'll use sorghum when I try again. We can beat this thing together.

The weather was so good for a while. It got chilly this week, though, so the men of the neighborhood kept their shirts on while they mowed. One of them even wore jeans, which was sexy in its own way.

I'll tell you about a dream I have every year. I'm walking down the street and a dog runs at me. As it jumps for my throat, I pull its jaws apart with my bare hands. You may know my hands are strange and I probably couldn't kill a dog like that. My fingers have weird bends to them. I used to try to force them straight, but that doesn't work. Will never work. Has never worked.

I have things to brag about, but the only one of those things I'm comfortable bragging about is that I have a story up at Spork Press. Read it, I beg you, because I'm so proud of that story.

My birthday is soon. Get cracking.