on holding court, Q&As with the animal kingdom, and The Questions That Are Keeping Me Awake At Night

This morning I met Zachary at his office hours. He holds court at this particular cafe in our neighborhood at the same time on weekend mornings, reading Sherlock Holmes or whatever it is he does there. Speaking to dogs and misusing the word "meshugenah." People can come by to see him. True, I've never seen anyone else come to his office hours while I've been there, but admittedly, I haven't gone very much. I feel a little weird going to see him there -- almost like I'm paying some kind of visit to my feudal lord and should be toting my tithe with me -- and so, on weekend mornings, I generally take the long way around the cafe street in an attempt to avoid Zachary and maybe keep my tithe to myself.

Today Zachary wanted to see Frannie, Michelle & Nate's dog. I said I would see if she was available, and being a dog, she was. We decided we would take her to places she had never been before, and then give her exhaustive Q&As to gauge her reactions. (This was based on Zach's brilliant remark that if he had a cat, he would like to be able to take it on walks and, moreover, to have it be able to speak to him. Since cats are by nature cynical and self-involved, and rarely go to new places, their commentary would undoubtedly be extraordinary, he reasoned. I nodded seriously and then mocked him for this observation, which as you know usually denotes my strenuous effort not to fall madly in love.)

We took Frannie down Balmy Alley, and then to Precita Park, where, in error, thinking ourselves liberal and friendly, we let her off her leash and watched in horror as an enthusiastic bound across the grass ended in her nearly speeding over a cement wall and bodyslamming a gray Toyota Cressida, broadside. The leash went back on with extensive petting, convinced as we were that she had been terrified by this experience. (It turns out that dogs are pretty much unfazed by all near-death experiences.) There was a brief Q&A. We proceeded up to Bernal Park, where neither Frannie nor I had ever been. Frannie seemed tired, so we sat down. She was not, however, as tired as I was.

Hours later, after letting many children pet Frannie, engaging in a sing-off to win her love, and manually lifting her paw in and out of the way of her decorative purple leash, I was just about ready to collapse. Maybe it's because I'm in really terrible shape, or because I hadn't yet eaten and it was coming up on 3 p.m., or because it takes a lot of energy to sing Justin Timberlake in falsetto while walking up a big hill. On the other hand, maybe it was because I could practically feel the neurons firing in my head thinking about every number of unrelated things: trips on the BART where the cars stop underground, good titles and bad titles, gin in a glass with ice and why it turns viscous, MLA and the good it can do us (not much), how long elastic waistbands can last, trees that make people want to dance, the shakes, shinguards, aloe, to-do lists, dust bins and racing cars, and then, inevitably, how much we consistently confuse ourselves, and others, by our actions. When was the last time you asked yourself what you truly wanted, were able to answer clearly, and weren't ordering at a tacqueria?

They, whoever They are, say that you should be able to sum up your writing projects in a single sentence. If someone asks you what your story is about, you should be able to offer a compact reply. But what if someone were to ask you what your plan is, the connection between what you do every day and what you wish you were doing? And what if someone were to ask you what your feelings are -- about your relationships and your actions, the way you communicate with people, the amount of real communication you have? Could you answer them in a phrase? Could you tell them how you feel in one sentence? How do we really feel about each other? And is it even important to know?

You can see why I was tired when I got home. Instead of grading essays and writing a quiz on MLA guidelines, which is was what I was supposed to be doing, I ate some beans out of a can and slept for half an hour. This is what some in my acquaintance call the "disco nap" or the "power nap," though I have never been able to discern anything particularly disco or power about it. I was certain that when I woke up, this uncharacteristic sensation of having my mind populated with things other than 80s one-hit wonders, etymology, and tortillas would be gone. On the contrary, though, it seems all the more urgent to formulate these single sentences -- explanations or clarifications of sorts -- and increasingly hard to do so. Is this why we interact in such confusing ways: because it's easier than formulating a compact explanation of why we do what we do, and by extension, what we really want from each other?