New Game.

A few weeks ago when I was trying to soothe an episode of crazy, I bought myself some alphabet magnets for the refrigerator. I spelled out our names, the dogs' names, the cats' names, and when Vowels came over, I put her name up, too. Sometimes, I could write things like, "lick" or "eat" or "pie" or "meal" to pass along subliminal messages for things I want. The letters are bright, and they make the fridge look exciting, and I like stuff, so they pleased me.

It didn't take long, however, before my very bad doggy started stealing them from the fridge and chewing them up. At first, I was heartbroken by her habit. I liked my letters, and she was messing them up, and that's bad. But I've started revering her alphabetic selections as a kind of prophecy. Whatever letter she brings to me, you see, bears a message that only I can interpret.

A few days ago, for instance, she brought me an "S" for serenity, and it meant it was time for us to go on our walk. She often brings a "W," and it means we need to wrestle. Two days ago, she came to me with a very seductive "Y" in her mouth, which meant that mommy and daddy needed some private time without the doggies. See how only I can make sense of her messages?

Sometimes, my husband thinks he can interpret the messages, but he's always wrong. When she brought me a G into the bed, he thought it meant that he should get a backrub. Clearly, the dog thought that he should be rubbing my back, and she wanted me to remember to ask him. It's so obvious.

It's meeting night.

I'm glad. I need it. I'm feeling a little like my batteries are run down...kind of tired and glum for no real reason. It's Thursday, but not the lovely pay-day-eve kind of Thursday. And, my nose is all icky and snotty. Gross. The change in seasons that I was just writing about as so invigorating yesterday has actually come back to kick me in my ass today.

I woke up this morning in such a wonderful pile of love. I had my dog on my head, his dog on our feet, and his arms around me. It makes it hard to get up and leave. I did lots of belly-scratching and head-nuzzling of all my best beloveds before really getting up and starting the day.

He was kind of out of sorts last night. It's his second day working, now. I've not even wanted to write about him working, as I'm trying not to have any expectations about it lasting or not lasting. It's just what it is. He's trying. He's doing his best. We'll see what happens.

But he was tired, and grumpy, and needy, and weird and quiet in that special addicty way:

Love me! Give me space! Help me! Stop trying to control me! Rub my back! Don't touch me! Tell me what I should do! Stop bossing me around! Take a shower with me! Now go away! Make me dinner! That dinner is wrong! Let me clean the house for you! Stop cleaning the house! I don't want to clean the house!

That shit is impossible, and I'm learning that the only way I can deal with it is to go in another room and do my own thing. When he's out of sorts, I have to stay away...

It's a good life-lesson for me. At our 12 step writing workshop this weekend, someone mentioned how she finds herself drawn to folks who are having a hard time. When an acquaintance gets sick, she finds herself reaching out to that acquaintance in a way she wouldn't otherwise. I do this, too. I am drawn to sick, broken, upset people...which isn't always bad. Compassion isn't bad. Continually devoting myself to helping people who don't want help, though, is unhealthy. Constantly biting off more than I can chew is unhealthy. Operating a one-woman soul-repair shop isn't good for my own soul.

Hah.

Walking My Doggy.

Walking the dog is making my life better. I am not sure why or how or what the connection is, but I've found that taking my stinky old doggy out on the leash for 20 quiet minutes is making me sane.

Thank dog, I'm finally fixed.

She's such fun to walk. She sniffs all around and barks. I talk to myself and to her. I laugh at her and she looks up at me as if I'm the greatest thing, ever.

I feel bad for his dog, though. He gets left at home, whining. I don't want to walk his dog, since his dog is his dog...but it's not fair for the poor animal to have to stay home when his sister is going out on adventures. Poor fellow.

There's all these dead animals. There's a dead squirrel, flattened and with one stiff arm. There's a dead bird, small and gray. There was a very distressing dead pit bull on the main street, but someone got it up. It was a beauty, brown and with a huge head. It must have been somebody's baby.

He wanted to come with me this morning when I walked her, and it made me panic. I told him I was going for a run with her, and he said ok. I like the idea of walking the dogs together, especially as it will alleviate my guilt for his dog not getting walked...but I need it privately, too. It's becoming sacred god-dog meditation and prayer and reflection on mortality by observing roadkill time for me, and I can't have him all up in my bidness like that.

He followed me all around the house last night, like a hunter, stalking my serenity. I was so sane, and it drove him nuts. He really, really seemed to NEED for me to scold him, bother him, nurse him, all together in that way I'm so good at doing. I know he felt awful, but I just can't spend any more of my life taking care of him because he put some godawful combination of substances in his body. I've done my time, and I'm done.

A wise woman at a meeting said recently that her husband's addiction had taken nearly a year of her life from her, and she wasn't going to let it have another day. I like that...not one more day.

Bears, Dogs, and Trust

"For humans and other animals, play is a universal training course and language of trust. The belief that one is safe with another being or in any situation is formed over time during regular play. Trust is the basis of intimacy, cooperation, creativity, successful work, and more."

I was reading this article about a polar bear and a husky playing, and it made me think about trust. Those of you who have lived with an addict know that the violations of your trust hurt like nothing else. That pain comes back, again and again and again. I'll think I'm done with a lie he's told, some money he's taken, some incident in the endless incidents where my trust in him was violated, and then, there is it is again, cutting me from the inside out.

The polar bear and the husky made me think, though, about how we build trust back, and the different kinds of trust that we can establish in a relationship. I do not trust that my husband won't lie to me, won't steal from me. He's an addict. Addicts lie and steal. He's in early recovery, and he's doing his best, and I trust that he's doing his best...but I don't trust HIM.

However, I like this idea of play as a way of developing trust, intimacy, creativity. It makes sense and feels true, and it's something that we're good at. No day passes without laughter, lots of laughter, in our home. We play together, a lot. We're sexually playful and playfully playful and giggly and silly and rambunctious and fun together. We're also good at being creative together, taking on fun projects together, making stuff, or sitting beside each other while we each make our own stuff. I'd always thought of this shared passion and the fun we have as a rich resource in our relationship, but I'd never thought of our fun as a way of building trust.

So thank you, dogs and bears, for that little lesson. Soon, it's time to go home, and I'm going to tackle Mr. Junky on the bed and tickle him until he cries.

My Beautiful, Bad Babies.

My man and my doggy are curled up together in the bed. I fed them both too much tonight, and they both have stomach aches, and they've gone to sleep now.

They are remarkably similar, these dearest brunettes to my heart. They both are very, very bright and yet very slow learners. They both look at me with these eyes full of utter affection and devotion, and yet they'll both act out in ways that destroy my spirit. They both want very much to please and also to do exactly what they want. They both want very much for me to be pleased with them when they do exactly what they want. They both please me, endlessly.

They both infuriate me, daily. They both have lovely eyes and lips and swoon-worthy noses. I like filling my hands up with both of them. They both smell perfect all over except when they fart. I like when they lick me. I like them best in bed.

I don't like it when they destroy my stuff, in their respective ways. I do like it when I get home and they're happy to see me, in their respective ways.

I like them both, as awfully bred things, and I like fixing them up with my excessive loving.

In conclusion, addicts and dogs are very similar things to love.

Fussy.

One day, I'll stop obsessing over my husband's moods. After this morning's bed-in-underwear scene, he's been somewhat fussy all day. He called me when I was on my way home from work to fight a bit more about how I didn't let him get enough sleep because I wanted to get to work on time, and now, he's lying next to me, pouting and pretending to sleep.

When he was using, I don't remember this stubbornness and whininess. He was able to act like a grown up, mostly, until the last few weeks before I found the needles and this whole recovery business started (for me, at least).

We went to see the Simpsons movie with friends tonight. It was funny. He kept his head on my shoulder to emphasize that he is SO TIRED because he had to get up 20 MINUTES earlier than he wanted to. Instead of getting upset with him for being batshit insane, I enjoyed his head on my shoulder. His hair smells nice, and it felt soft against my ear. He giggled at the movie, so no matter how much he wants to pretend that he was SO WAY TOO TIRED to enjoy it, I know he enjoyed it.

I want a new obsession. I'm going to clean my house tomorrow like someone important's coming over...because someone important IS coming over! I think she's even going to get a new tattoo! And we're going to have coffee and play with the dogs and ride in the car!

My pitbull is stealing. She's on some kind of kleptomaniac rampage. She just ran in the bedroom with a part of the blender, which I don't know how she acquired. I took it from her. She came back with a bottle of shampoo. I took it from her. Now she's got a shoe. Earlier, she had a box of tea. She's so wonderful and bad! Just like her daddy!

I Love My Pit Bull.

My god, what a beautiful big bad dog I have! Each morning, I get up to let her and her brother the German Shepherd out to pee, and after they come back, she races to the bed to steal the pillow from me. All night long, we battle for my husband's armpit and the pillow. Most mornings, I wake up with all 60 pounds of her wrapped around my head, her front paws curled coyly, with my face smooshed all the way off the pillow.

She's the best thing I've ever seen. She's black with a white stripe on her face, which makes her look like a Boston Cream donut, and her belly is white, and her feet like little socks. Also she smells the very best way, like wheat or Fritos or green, green grass. She sighs when she's bored, like when she wants to eat my panties and I stop her. Sigh. Mama's lame. It's a big, deep, almost human sigh, and she gets this exasperated look on her face.

Like all pit bulls, she understands the word "No!" but thinks it only applies for the 30 seconds after it has been screamed at her. She's eating donuts out of the dumpster bag on the table, and I yell, "NO!" She stops, but just for a second, and looks at me, sighs, as if to say, "Well why didn't you say that I can't eat donuts from the table at 10:59 a.m. EST?" And at 11:00 a.m. EST, she's back, eating donuts from the table.

If she hears the word "pretty," her tail wags and wags. If she hears the word "good," it doesn't wag so much. In her life, she's been told that she's "pretty" much more than "good." She's like her daddy that way.

I love her mightily. I love her little white feet with all white claws except one,black as if she's a goth doggy. And I love the spots on her nose, and the loving look in her eyes, and the way she is psychotically jealous of her brother the German Shepherd, and the way she looks when she's being bad, and her silly floppy ears. I love her stubbornness and her big clean teeth and her tongue in the morning and her soft, soft belly and her profound contentment with having it rubbed. I love how when I come home from work, she bites me to teach me that it's bad to go to work and leave her and also to demonstrate that she loves me so much she might eat me.

Nice doggy!