overheardinmyhead

Similarities of Man & Beast

A boyfriend and a pet dog are pretty similar, right? I mean they're both more responsibility than I've wanted for quite some time. According to my best estimate it’s been 31 months since I last steadily dated one person. Come to think of it, the same amount of time has passed since I had full time pet responsibilities—that’s when I shipped Macy off to die at my parents (sorry about that mom, dad & sis). Sure I’ve pet sat since Macy, just like I’ve been out on a handful of dates, but nothings stuck mostly because I haven’t wanted it to.

Thinking of dating again long term brings up many of the same issues I have with getting a dog: do I really want to deal with the shedding? Do I really want to deal with the passing of gas in my bed? Do I really want to take him out for walks every day?

Maybe I do. I should warn my family, if things don’t work out, to expect a much larger visitor to euthanize.

Vampire Dog

You know, come to think of it, I've had quite a few Non-Pretty-Princess-Days lately. Stewie is terribly cute, but he's always got an ulterior motive...

Belly Gravy

I used to never need an alarm clock to wake up. However in the last month my reliance on an annoying noise to stir me from my slumber has increased ten fold. It could be due to sleeping with Cassie and Stewie, which means occupying the same space while starring at the starless ceiling until a moment of complete exhaustion takes over and I'm knocked out. Because if I move I'm met with a growl from the little one and there's just no way of making a Great Dane budge so I can spread out my legs.

If we're supposed to let sleeping dogs lie, it's probably best not to lie with them.

I've been using my cell phone as my alarm clock. I set it to the klaxon warning sound which makes me wake up thinking I'm in a submarine that's been hit by torpedoes. More than once I've thought I felt the rushing water of a hull breech engulfing my body. But that might just be due to the drugs I take.

Today was the first day I've woken up without the clock. As I was dead asleep I heard what best can be described as a hurking sound. Huuuuuuurk. Huuuuuurk. My eyelids split apart and there was Cassie standing over me, choking. Before I could even think to react a torrent of hot humid partially digested doggie chow mixed with Great Dane gastric juices was unleashed on my face and torso. I muffled my scream so none of her puke would get into my mouth but taking in an exasperated breath through my nostrils caused her puke he find it's way into my sinuses. It burned! It burned worse than gonorrhea* or a Flaming Amazon. It burned worse than that first shot of Everclear I ever had when the priest at Our Lady of Pederasty tried to get me drunk so he could get into my Oshkosh-B'gosh overalls.

Now I'm sure most of the readers of this gross anecdote have never experienced the shear volume of puke that comes out of a dog that weighs over 150 pounds and whose height, while standing on hind legs, comes in at 78 inches. My conservative estimate is that it's around a gallon, which if you remember from grade school math, comes out to be 16 cups (or 3.785 liters for my metric friends.)

The smell of that much belly gravy is sort of like equal parts homeless man sweaty dirty taint on an 105 degree Fahrenheit day (that's 40.55 Celsius) after he's done five hours of aerobics, mixed with six day old pavement warmed roadkill du skunk and three squirts of Paris Hilton's signature perfume.

I fell out of bed, puke dripping off me, and dashed to the bathroom where I jumped into a cold shower (since it takes time I did not want to waste to get hot water) and vigorously washed my body. The cold water didn't help the burning of my nasal canals though. I felt the digestive juices seeping into my throat. I gargled shower water but it didn't help. Nothing helped.

As the water heated up I sat down in the tub letting the water flood over me. By this time my iPhone's alarm started going off. The klaxon warning filled up the apartment. I slid under the water and pretended to drown. It seemed like I was under the water for hours but it was only seconds.

I got out of the tub, wrapped myself up in towels and went to access the damage to the sheets and carpet. While I was in the tub, Stewie had helped Cassie eat some of her vomit. And they say dogs mouths are cleaner than humans. Yuck.

*I'm guessing. Thankfully I've never had an STD. Yeah, that probably makes me a loser and a winner.

No Need to go to Good Vibes

No longer do you need to go to a sex shop to buy your jolly-inducing equipment. All you needs is a PetCo or Pet Food Express.

It never ceases to amaze me how many toys for dogs look like toys for sex. First there was the Kong which looks like a buttplug. Now there's Galileo by Nylabone. which looks a lot like a short squat dildo.

Will Galileo be the first to discover the rings around Uranus?

Cassie's Debut

Here's a sampling of Cassie's tricks followed by the outtake (with an appearance by Stewie.) I have the most annoying voice when talking to the dogs. Blerg!

In the Span of Twenty Minutes

Walking to get some lunch all of these things occured on the same street in the span of twenty minutes:

1)    Two blond hair and blue eyed adults with four blond hair and blue eyed children. Obviously a husband and wife. The kids are all under the age of twelve and from what I can tell their birth order is boy, girl ,boy, girl. All of them are conservatively dressed. They are standing in front of Leather Etc on Folsom at 8th looking into the window. As I approach I hear a collective "Ewww" from the kids.

Father: Some people like to incorporate leather goods into their sexual activities
Eldest son: Like gay people?
Mother: Like gay people.

The round the corner and the father points out a leather cod piece.

Father: Some people wear things like this.
Eldest daughter: Like gay girls?
Mother: Like gay girls.

WTF?

2)     A white woman is on the corner of 8th at Howard walking her French Bulldog. She's stopped talking to a black man and black woman.

Black man: What is that?
White woman: He's a French Bulldog
Black woman: A dog? That ain't no dog.
Black man: That ain't no dog. It's a... it's a...
Black woman: A grem? A gremlin!
Black man: Or a teddy bear.

3)    Disheveled man with a comb over, hobbling down 8th Street. He's wearing Bermuda shorts and a button up shirt that's too small for his ample belly. He's wearing a white plastic cross around his neck. I'm pretty sure it glows-in-the-dark. To everyone he passes he asks "Is it Friday?" A line of people are ahead of me, each one says no. Still he asks the next person he comes across. Now it's my turn to be asked.

"Is it Friday?"

"Yep."

"Splendid!"

4)    A man, who's left arm is missing is frantically pacing on 8th Street yelling "Have you seen my arm? Have you seen my arm?"

5)    Asian man pulling a flier off his Acura SUV. He looks at it and wads it up and throws it on the ground. A black homeless man who's walking by says to him "This ain't China you slant-eyed foo'! Don't litter here!" as the black man wads up a Burger King wrapper and throws it onto the ground.

6)    A black BMW pulls out of the Shell Station onto 8th Street and heads North-- against one way traffic. Two motorcycle cops are idling at the red light. One says to the other "Stupid tourists." But neither of them turn on their lights or even attempt to pull the vehicle over.

A friend hired me to design an invitation for his upcoming BBQ. I'm notorious for not doing commissioned work because I don't like having to do multiple proofs or listen to input. But seeing that he's a friend I made an exception. Originally I tried to construct the graphic using a drawing program. But it kept coming out wrong and I couldn't manage the colors correctly. I ended up taking out some paper, some watercolor pencils and paints and having a go. The colors came out much better and Stewie ended up looking more like Stewie than a furry blob. I imported it into Photoshop, did a little clean-up and this was the end result.

Childhood Memory No. 12,642

In 1981 or 1982 my mother started walking with a neighbor who lived down the street. Her name was Wilma and she was married to a school teacher named Warren. They had a son my age named Michael who up until first grade was my best friend. More often than not Michael and I would accompany our mom's on their walks. We were only around five years old and hadn't yet started kindergarten.

Michael was an only child. His parents were deacons of the local Presbyterian Church. While in retrospect they were very liberal parents when it came to politics-- they had a very staunch moral code they lived by being members of a Calvinistic church. I don't remember Michael rebelling too much against his parents when we were teenagers but I do remember the first time I heard him curse and his burgeoning appreciation for all things rap related, especially the more raunchy songs by 2 Live Crew that dealt with sex.

As a child I tended to be on the quiet side when I was around any adults who weren't related to me. Otherwise I was absolutely manic and hyper-- bouncing off the walls, dressing up in costumes and more or less running wild (under the supervision of a very overprotective mother.) When I was quiet I had a knack for tuning into adult conversations and going completely unnoticed. Although I didn't always know what they were talking about I mentally recorded everything they said for future use.

Once while out walking I heard Wilma confide in my mother about how Warren wouldn't have sex with her if Michael was in the house. This caused her to be horny all the time. Sex talk among adults was something I was used to. My parent's were very open about their sex lives. My father came home every day during his lunch hour to have a "nooner" with my mom. So Wilma's predicament didn't make any sense to me-- I guess at five I didn't understand Warren was a prude-- or even the definition of a prude.

We lived in a neighborhood on the north end of town. Back then our houses were surrounded by vineyards. Most people let their dogs roam free since it we were out in the country. Often on our walks a group of dogs would follow us. They particularly loved Wilma always trailing right behind her. I figured they thought she was the leader of their pack.

It wasn't until many years later when my mom was reminiscing about Wilma's bedroom problems that I learned Wilma had turned to everyday food items to get her jollies. In what I assume was an act of subversion Wilma often used a banana as a dildo. After she was finished she'd pack it into her husband's lunch. She also used to use hot dogs to satisfy her needs-- but she didn't just push them in and pull them out-- she would actually walk around with one or two in her vagina during the day.

It became all too clear after hearing that the real reason the dogs followed her on our walks; the scent of cooter warmed hot dogs.

Castro Clone or Hound from Hell?

What's the world coming to when a dog in the Castro is given testosterone because of its muscle wasting?

Meet Wendy, who looks like a Hound from Hell

Actually she doesn't take testosterone (it's a genetic defect; read about it here) and she doesn't live in SF, but I can't get over how much she looks like a lot of the guys in my neighborhood. And if dogs really look like their owners, and vice versa, when the gents get a load of her I'm sure they'll be injecting their pups with some 'roids.

She's actually kind of cute. I've lived in the Castro too long.

Here's a comparison with her next to a "normal" size Whippet.

Puppy Kindergarten

Last night was Stewie’s first puppy class, sans Stewie. The instructor is a big old queen. We were taught how to respond to our puppies and shit like that. I can’t see Jim doing any of these things because he’s ultra WASPy. If he has to use hand gestures I’m afraid he’ll have a seizure. There were two gay couples in the class. One set trendy guys with a poodle and the others were bearish guys with a lab. It was very cliché. The poodles owners have two poodles and they have these ridiculous French names that I can’t remember. One of them sounds like “Mildew.”

There was one woman in there that has a pit mix and she kept saying, “I can’t get Bear to come. I say, 'come Bear. Bear come. Come Bear. Bear come."

I laugh "Have you tried stimulating her clit?"

There’s another woman in there that has a poodle that doesn’t listen to her—she said, “I don’t know if I have the worse dog in there world or if I’m the worse owner. My dog doesn’t listen. And she bites. And she draws blood. And she tears everything up. And she doesn’t know her name. And she’s an alcoholic. She’ll find any bottle of alcohol in the house and break it and then drink the contents. And she took a chunk out of my ear. But she doesn’t bite anyone else, only me.”

“Hello Victim.”

There are these treat bags that we can use, that are like modified fanny packs. I’m tempted to get one and wear it into work and when ever someone does something good I’ll toss them some cut up hot dog