Be Your Own Pet

I've been keeping a wary eye on the pet food recall situation; to date, Wreck's favorite food—well, okay, not his favorite food, which is tortilla chips: the little guy really loves his tortilla chips—hasn't made an appearance. Cold comfort, though, as I watched Wreck get sick over and over tonight. I don't think he's ever been so ill. Hours later, now, he seems okay, asleep on his ratty dog pillow and twitching and woofing in that muffled dog-dream pitch, actually, as I write. With the dog there's no holding the hair back or suggesting some Vitamin Water; he's certainly no good for help cleaning up, and the best I can hope for, as I'm following him all around with paper towels, is that I don't ruffle him too hard when he looks at me with that look of total incomprehension over what his body's doing to itself, and in so doing make him puke pathetic all over again.

He's not quite done, I think, but it's too late for me to be too productive or noisy. In the interest of passing the time:

• In a dream I had last night (sleep! seems so long ago), I was driving in traffic on a highway in L.A., a city I've never visited. Traffic was heavy and moving rather quickly given the congestion, and, sure enough, before I knew it, I was involved in a multi-car pile-up. The real shock was that every car on the road was an unmarked clown car—which I didn't realize until clowns started pouring out by the dozens from every car following the accident. The only thing to do in a massive car accident is attend to the wounded, and curse the rest, right? Fuck you, clowns! was my refrain, I can happily report.


• Friday Night Lights? All evening I'm reading about this transformative season finale episode from the likes of Catherine and Sarah B, but I give it a solid okay. The hook and lateral? Come on. The play that they run isn't in fact a hook and lateral, is it?, since Riggins and Smash both run the same slant play pattern, never crossing. In any case they're certainly not running that pattern 18 yards apart or whatever the hell Matt Saracen was saying during the timeout. And anyway, an offensive gimmick to win the game? What is this, Boise State? That's a problem: the show doesn't feature any characters who play defense, so you don't see a whole category of normal, dramatic turns, e.g., a game-winning interception return. Oh, and Coach Taylor's halftime rally speech? Not exactly St. Crispin's Day, was that? I'm super excited to see my favorite television show extended, even if for just six episodes, especially when the dynamic between the coach and his wife has been so incredibly productive (heh). But the offensive coordinator has got to go. Don't blame me when he calls for the Statue of Liberty.

  Oh, and have we ever talked about what an amazing literary convention the radio is for this show? All these folks associated with high-school football, tuning in as they drive to AM talk radio about the high-school football team.



• So, pretty recently, my mom Googled my name. She found something written about me that she didn't appreciate. So, in the obvious and to-do and corrective nature of mothers, she decided she would politely ask the author to remove this item from the world wide web. What could be simpler? Readers and friends, zomg, I have never been so horrified—personally or professionally—as I was when I read via CC'ed e-mail my mother's defense of her son against the perfidy of this writer's opinion. Of course, the writer, jerk that he is, was humble and kind in his response, that jerk-ass jerk. I think by the end of the exchange, dear mom was convinced that he was in the right.