Snow Boy

Mark is in surgery as I type, and I appear to be incapable of forming an extended thought--at least of the bloggish sort. I've had any number of blog ideas coming to me in the last days--the last poems of Reginald Shepherd, a rare video of Laura Nyro--and while some of them might indeed become posts in the days to come, they don't want to be posts right now. Instead, a picture of Ned taken by our dogwalkers, Rob and Geary, at Union Square. I've been thinking about the challenge of keeping the dog posts in check when Ned is the life in the house right now. Maybe it is a fear of indulgence, a fear of subjecting readers to the canine version of the Facebook vacation picture. Or, maybe more accurately, the worry that the complicated psyche of Ned be reduced to an "aw." Not that an "aw" is anything to be ashamed of, but it doesn't quite take in the side of the creature who would dash down three flights of co-op steps after Mark's departure, to jump up and nose the front door's glass. The top of his head was unusually creased; he practically pulled me down the block to leap after a man he suspected was Mark, though Mark was already gone, heading across town in a cab to the hospital. I thought of a line from J.R. Ackerley's wonderfully pungent My Dog Tulip, though you'll have to substitute a "he" for a "she" here. These words are spoken by Tulip's best vet, after the speaker is chased out of surgery: "She's in love with you, that's obvious. And so life's full of worries for her."

I'm sure I'll have some news later today. Heading over to the hospital when I get the call.