an enabling technology.

My new-found ability to accumulate–"hoard" wouldn't be too far wrong–library e-books, in a private collection free of return dates, has fed my lifelong habit of reading a dozen books at once. I've only met a handful of other people who do this, and I appreciate why it's not common. For those of us who do it, it is our mood and setting that dictate what books we want to dip into, and in what order. There are occasional books (and series!) that I will chew through without a break, but those are less common.

To look at the books I've finished so far this year (ending with The Fast and the Furriest), it's mostly fiction, because non-fiction just takes longer. (And some of them, like Unnatural Selection, are not exactly sparkling.)

These lists don't count various books I've given up on because they sucked.

Books For Falling Asleep

• Dog Sense
• Cat Sense - John Bradshaw
• Anti-Intellectualism In American Life - Richard Hofstadter
• Quiet - Susan Cain
• Moby Dick: or, the White Whale - Herman Melville
• Cubed - Nikil Saval
• NeutroTribes - Steve Silberman
• The Worst Journey in the World - Apsley Cherry-Garrard
• The Horse, the Wheel, and Language - David W. Anthony
• A People's History of the United States - Howard Zinn

Fiction

• The Fall of Hyperion - Dan Simmons
• The Neutronium Alchemist
• The Confederation Handbook - Peter F. Hamilton

Books Not For Falling Asleep

• Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men - Lundy Bancroft
• Self-Compassion - Kristin Neff
• Children of the Self-Absorbed - Nina W. Brown
• The Highly Sensitive Person - Elaine N. Aron
• 10 Minute Obedience - Amy Dahl
• The Gifts of Imperfection - Brené Brown
• Drive - Daniel H. Pink
• Peopleware - Tom DeMarco

20 books! All of which I carry around in my phone everywhere I go. And this isn't the full full list. I don't really miss the physical paper. Is that a good thing? My best guess is that it's good because I'm reading more.

dog, dog, more dog, and also dog

I'm still on leave from work, so life is still mostly Dog and Emotional Processing. The dog helps, in unexpected--to me, because I've never had my own dog--ways.

I've been bad about taking her for morning walks, but then in the afternoon (not very smart, because it's hot) I've been motivating to take her on excursions. Saturday and Sunday we went to the two closest off-leash areas, and she did great! She was tired.

(On the right there is a standard Jack Russell Terrier sleeping position.)

I'm not sure how her obedience is with other people: she's very focused on me, very much My Dog™. She's excited to see me, and when she's most excited, she doesn't actually want anything except my company and attention. Faced with that daily onslaught of unconditional love and patience, I could possibly start believing I deserve it as much as I think everyone else does.

It's hard to know what her story is. Clearly she started out well-socialized and cared for, and then later encountered abusive people, and spent time as a stray. People with lots of rescue-dog experience say she's settling in really, really fast, relatively--I guess rescues often try running away, so it's a while before you can have them off-leash. On the first day, she did check the yard perimeter and had a short go at digging under the fence--good luck digging there without a pickaxe--but we started obedience class the day after we got her, and we're kind and gentle and take good care of her, and she's super smart, so trust and communication have been happening quickly. When I took her off-leash on Saturday, I started training her to come immediately to a dog-whistle, and she got it super fast. ("Ooh, the whistle means food and scritches! Lemme check that out!") It's a tool for rare use, just for interrupting squirrel chases or if she's stalking someone's picnic.

I tried her out with doggie daycare a couple times last week, and while she made it through without incident, she was clearly unhappy overall. After some discussion, we realized that she and I would both be happier if we bring her along to the East Coast next month, instead of boarding her. That's its own little project, though luckily she can ride in the cabin. She will hate it, since it's 6 hours of not being able to stand up, but (although she lacks the temporal consciousness to make the connection) she will hate it less than not being with us.

(Someone is ready to come back inside. Or wondering if I'm coming out.)

She's good company.

when eugenics succeeds.

Dog breeds are weird.

Humans have had a fair bit of trouble trying to classify our differences. At its most benign, doing so cloaks bigotry in the language of science, giving a false veneer of impartiality to our natural tendency to dehumanize others based on cultural differences. And, of course, once you've convinced yourself--using only the finest scientific analysis, obviously--that you know what "superior" and "inferior" look like, the logical next step is to start selectively breeding for human traits. As you do this, you can, naturally, assume that God is on your side.

This is eugenics, which has caused suffering ranging from forced sterilization, to genocide, to the various Khan Noonien Singh crises. It's bad stuff.

All this stuff that we correctly abhor with humans, though, we very successfully do with domesticated animals. For the fully-urbanized 90% of us who didn't grow up around farms, dogs are the best example of this. (Cats aren't quite domesticated, nor are most of them carefully bred.) And the breed of dog matters, even more than I thought.

I first encountered this when I lived with a girlfriend and her family and their two Old English Sheepdogs. The younger one was dumb as a post, but at one point my girlfriend referred to the older one's "herding certification." I asked if they'd taught him herding, and she said no, that's what they're bred for, and by and large you can just turn them loose on a bunch of sheep or flightless ducks or whatever, and they'll do their herding thing.

My parents' dog could only be described as "deep yellow, even the eyes," and while he was friendly and patient like a Lab, his temperament was really sui generis, since you could not get him to chase or play, for love or money. He was easy to narrate, and any attempt at playing Fetch always had him looking at you with a distinct "Why are you throwing that ball? Are you going to get the ball? I'm not getting the ball. I'm going to sit here, where I'm comfortable and not moving" kind of gaze.

My brother had a pair of Springer Spaniels, because Reasons™ (I was not a fan), and true to breed, they grew out of their Puppy Phase after a decade or so.

Then, in our dog search, we met Luca, a curious small dog reported as half Italian Greyhound (never heard of it) and half Tibetan Spaniel (never heard of it). Greyhounds are "sight-hounds," which means they basically can't smell all that well and they were bred to track things visually. I'd never spent time with such a thing, but we went on a walk with Luca, and sure enough, he was all eyes, constantly looking around, only rarely stopping for a sniff.

So Leela, as best anyone can tell, is some majority of Jack Russell Terrier, then some Beagle, and then some Chihuahua. She has a Beagle's tail, ears, and articulated wailing that can sound like human syllables, but most conspicuous is the Jack Russell, because when she plays with something floppy, like her stuffed gorilla, she looks just like this:



And she runs around like this, on the rare occasions she plays:



And she sleeps exactly like this:



On the Beagle end of things, besides the tail and the face, she gets her piteous wailing:



To say nothing of keeping the head down and following a scent, conceivably into the road or running off somewhere they can't find their way back from.

My friend Jess told me a little bit about prey drive a while back, but mostly in the context of how her dog is a bit of a challenge to work with. I didn't know that the energy of working dogs--and their need to work somehow, or else destroy your house out of boredom--actually comes from breeding to emphasize different aspects of prey drive. Herding dogs have a genetic drive to herd things. Leela has a genetic drive to grab something rodent-sized and shake it to break its neck.

Think about how remarkable this is. All our experience with humans tells us that every population of Homo sapiens has more or less the same distribution of innate abilities, and while there are still plenty of people who will say "Oh, you adopted your daughter from China! I bet she'll be good at math," the number keeps shrinking.

With dogs, though, this is an actual thing. The most freakish of greyhounds won't out-smell a normal beagle, and you cannot reasonably expect a purebred Labrador Retriever not to be eager to please, kinda dopey in their enthusiasm (hiding other kinds of intelligence), and really excited to chase things.

all dog, all the time.

For various reasons, just as Anna is the primary parent for J, I'm the primary parent for Leela, which mostly means I'm the Feeder, the Trainer, and the Scary Gender. All at once! She tracks my movements a lot, partly because we're pals, but--and this is inseparable where training is concerned--I give her food. I'm not sure if she's always hungry, but the shelter says she spent time as a stray, so it may just be a survival-mode "eat everything you can while it's available" thing. She tracks my movements pretty carefully, when not doing her Beagleshark patrols, back and forth across the house looking for food dropped on the floor.

J is adapting to her, and she to him. She licked his hand this morning, and he was so grossed out he had to leave the morning snuggle to wash it; on the other hand, this morning I coined the name "Beagleshark," which made him laugh, and then he was singing "Beagle, Beagle, Beagle, Beagle" in the bathroom, an honor reserved for things he likes. And he started out the day saying "Hi" when she was 10 feet away from him, and now says "Hi, Leela" when she's more like 5 feet. And, while it's difficult to gauge these things in doggy brains, she seems to have stopped sniffing at his feet, which he doesn't like.

I'm getting the hang of dog training, at least for a relatively uncomplicated case like Leela: she's pretty bright, and if she's not exactly eager to please, her apprehension makes her attentive, which is useful enough. She knows her name well enough that today I actually interrupted her progress toward exploring a new room. We've been doing some "Sit," and experimenting with "Up" and "Down": I used "Down" to get her off a bench at the dog park, and realized that if she can learn those as "move up/down one level from where you are" that they then have applications beyond getting her on or off the furniture.

It's a good time to be on leave from work.

I'm still worried about her getting bored and seeming to be unable to really have fun: as much for her happiness as the fact she can't be left unsupervised, lest she destroy things. A friend pointed out it will take some weeks for her to really settle in to this being home, and that seems very wise.

She is very much like everyone else in the household: traumatized, dealing with it as best she can, and healing. Last night we watched the first-ever episode of Doctor Who, and when men (not women) started talking on-screen, she got all rigid and started growling and barking. (She has the cutest growl, which you might expect from a dog with a head the size of a Little League baseball.) I took her to the back of the room and soothed her as best I could, and she never really relaxed, but she did stop shaking and barking.

Tonight, we watched the second episode, and voilá! Not only no growling, but the TV barely got her attention.

It's nice to provide a safe space.

so this happened.

This is Leela. We adopted her from Pets In Need on Monday night. She's supposedly 2 years old, she's definitely 13 pounds, and she looks like either a Beagle or a Jack Russell Terrier, depending on the angle. (If you get to hear her mournful wailing of sadness, it is clear she is part Beagle.)

We've been talking about this for months, and I've met some dogs, but finding Leela herself was rather sudden, so we're a bit overwhelmed today. While she is not not-mellow, exactly, she does turn out to have more energy than she displayed in the shelter, and no well-established toy or chewing habits, which wasn't one thing or another until she chewed through the cable (luckily not the 120VAC side) of Anna's MacBook Pro power supply. So she can't be unsupervised even in the dining room/living room area that we've gated off from the bathrooms: she clearly gets bored, but she also doesn't like to play, and there's no great signal that she's bored. Maybe we get a Pack 'n Play for dogs and confine her to a smaller area when we need to. It's a little stressful right now.

She was clearly abused at some point: she often shrinks from me putting her harness on or picking her up (which has to happen all the time because she won't jump in or out of the car right now), and she'll shrink from anyone who looms over her too closely. Last night she was growling whenever the stereo played something too much like talking; tonight we were watching the first-ever episode of Doctor Who, and she got rock-stiff and growled and barked, and could barely be induced not to. The 3 of us here know something about being wounded and being triggered, so we have a lot of empathy for her. We trust she will have empathy for us, once we're all less focused on freaking out.

This is all new to me. I knew my parents' dog, but really I got to know him after Mom had socialized him properly, got him to stop jumping on people, got him to respond to his name if he felt like it. Before I can train Leela in basic-sounding things like "sit," I have to teach her her name, because a dog can't listen to you if you don't get her attention first. Luckily we started obedience classes last night, and the instructor covered it (besides Leela, a couple of the 5-month olds were none too responsive to their names either). Leela is beyond food-motivated, so we worked on it at the park today, and eventually she got it pretty well. At home I built on that and mostly taught her "down" as applied to putting her front legs on the couch. She wasn't even crabby that I don't give her a treat when I call her name. (She may not remember, exactly? Doggy brains are not like our brains.)

Anyway. Lots of stuff like that. It's a shock to the system.

Though it is certainly the fuzziest, snuggliest shock to the system I've ever had.

drama!

Our epic Family Court filing, years in the making, finally happened! Effects have been immediate and dramatic, both in the boy's experience at the other house--better, though the bar is low--and in the quantity and toxicity of emails to Anna. We've had one close call, which made my pre-filing purchase of pepper spray look wise, but since no one actually used the pepper spray (or dialed 911, though both were minutes away), we'll chalk that up as a win.

J's third parent has dragged him into the middle of the thing, showing him the court filing (WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT) and ranting about Mama's sneaky lies and dishonest tricks employed in bringing things to this sorry pass.

And I've learned things about myself!

I have always encouraged your husband Chris to be a partner in J's Parenting,

Wait...that's not true at all...

and I am hurt and a bit frightened by Chris, "grunting" at me and semi lunging across the table at me at J's IEP Meeting at School today, 4/20/16..

I did whutnow? Since when do I have the energy to lunge across a table?

This was unacceptable aggression in an IEP meeting or any other meeting involving J's Education or parenting. This issue really MUST be addressed, or I will feel uncomfortable having Chris attend our IEP, Parenting Planning Meetings or any other meeting or mediation where Chris and I have to sit down face to  face.

Those don't happen too often, but you're welcome to bring bodyguards if the fact that you're bigger than me and surrounded by credible witnesses isn't reassuring enough.

Your husband Chris makes no secret of his years of martial arts training; so I DEMAND THAT HE ACKNOWLEDGE his understanding of the basic rules of conduct in regards to what might be interpreted as physically aggressive behavior.  His has a particularly strict duty in this regard.

Yeaaaaah so it wasn't me they were about to call 911 on...

Also he hasn't bothered to learn what it is I have a black belt in. Aikido isn't that thing where you suddenly go all Bruce Lee on somebody. Chuck Norris? Jet Li? Tony Jaa? Not aikido.

Good thing he wrote in ALL CAPS, though. The Internet assures me that imbues your words with legal force.

At this point I trust you both acknowledge that his recent aggressive behavior was inappropriate.  He is, after all, a guest at these conferences. No loud aggressive growling and aggressive lunging across tables allowed!

Isn't it great that we can all laugh about it? Especially with the passive-aggressive swipe that I'm just "a guest." 

I don't want to suggest anger management because I am loathe to interfere in your domestic relationship with Chris, but You can forward this email along to Chris if you'd like.

Thank god, I just got done being sent to anger-management classes by the last cowardly douchenozzle who couldn't handle it when I stood up to his violence.

There was a follow-up, of course.

As your Petition to Modify Custody is pending, I have to take a formal legal approach to this issue.  Chris has no legal right to confidential meetings involving J, that includes Mediation, IEP, parent-teacher conferences or any other school meeting not open to the public.  I am not comfortable with Chris attending any such meeting.

I hate be the bearer of bad news, but "formal legal approach" does not mean "declaring your unsupported interpretation of the law in email as though it were fact." You know how on Law & Order the attorneys are always communicating using carefully-typeset pieces of paper stapled to blue backing? You might start by Googling that. Also search for terms like "why won't the police just do whatever I tell them" and "why can't you practice law without going to law school."

(I get to come to any meeting Anna invites me to or delegates to me, subject to rules not listed in mean-spirited emails by random guys with no legal training.)

And just in case Chris was planning on attending any such meetings, you should know that the police and the courts would not look favorably on his trying to force entry into any such meetings.

This sounds like a really bad TV show. S.W.A.T.: Parent-Teacher Meeting.

Unless your last name is "Obama," no one is standing guard outside school meetings. Because they're boring. I will simply walk in and sit down, and everyone except the author will be happy to see me.

Because I am not a "guest." I am a parent.

pens pens pens

I'm processing some very deep emotional crap these days, and need a way to express what's going on with me. Visual art is sort of an alien language that doesn't viscerally satisfy, but writing does: just journaling, writing to write and form my thoughts, without much point.

I had a very large Leuchtturm 1917 notebook I'd accidentally bought when I thought A4 paper was close to 8.5"x11" (it's not), and it wasn't worth sending back. So I write in this enormous tome.

Then there's a question of the pen. My 25-year favorite, the Pilot Precise V5, worked okay, but there's a whole world of other pens out there. My friend Frank runs the Tokyo Pen Shop, so I trawled the Internet and found some likely candidates, and briefly switched to the Uniball Vision Elite. (Japan, besides just being Japan, has those highly-detailed writing systems that benefit from better-quality pens with finer tips).

But, I also ordered a Platinum Preppy fountain pen. I'd tried disposable fountain pens in high school, the Pilot Varsity, and I like the way they wrote, but the ink "feathered," meaning it soaked into the paper and made the written line all fat and fuzzy. I realize I was only using shit paper at the time, but right now the Internet said try the Preppy. It was really nice! There's a scratching physicality to writing with a fountain pen, and Leuchtturm uses excellent paper that just holds the ink rather than sponging it.

The Internet's next-step recommendations were the Lamy Safari and the Pilot Metropolitan, and hey, sure, might as well get both. They both feel so much better than the Preppy; the Safari is pure joy, if a bit light in the hand (I've since ordered the metal version, the Al-Star), and the Metropolitan is amazing to write with, but the line is puts down is crappy and feathered, so I've cleaned it out, to try with some sample inks I've ordered from Goulet.

I had always thought of fountain pens as being what are actually dip pens, but it turns out people had been annoyed with dip pens for a long time, and a couple centuries of science and engineering went into the comparatively painless modern fountain pen. Even with a low-end cartridge pen like the Platinum Preppy, there this nice connection with our quill-dipping past.

There is a whole universe of fountain pen nerdery out there, especially for people with disposable income. It's hard to imagine spending $200 on a pen, but that may just be because I haven't tried one yet.