Serafine Laveaux's Blog, page 3

The Old Man

I have a blind dog. He wasn't always this way, but he's pushing fourteen now and his eyes are more grey haze than brown. We try to keep everything in the same position so he can find his way around the maze of chair legs and couch corners, but he spins in circles when he gets excited and then loses his place in the world. I have learned to shuffle my feet when I walk so he can follow the sound, and wait until he is directly lined up with the steps to call his name, rather than when he is coming around the corner. The other day he tried to turn around on the couch and fell off.

I got him almost ten years ago from the dog pound, death row inmate due to skin allergies that left him looking like a scabby newborn rat. We really don't know how old he is; he acted like an old man then but the vet guesstimated him to be around four then.

Despite his failing vision there is nothing wrong with his nose, as it reliably leads him to the most wretched spots in the back yard. I have a neighbor whose sinister cat scales our fence every evening to murder dove and grackles in our apricot trees. Sometimes the vicious bastard is thoughtful enough to carry his victims back home, but most of the time he flings their decapitated bodies to the ground for the old man to find. Of course he only finds them after they've turned to a rotted, reeking mess at which point he must enthusiastically and with great vigor roll and rub every inch of his tiny body in the remains.

Only then is he ready to come back inside, and if he is lucky and I am not mindful, he will beeline without bump or bobble to the nearest bit of furniture and proceed to share his newly donned aroma with it as well.

Nothing like the smell of four day dead dove ground into my blanket to start the morning off right.

Would you like fries with that?

An old college professor once told me to strap on the blinkers and run my own race, not worry about how others run their own. While I have found a stiff margarita to be an outstanding substitution for racing blinkers, as well as much easier on my hair, I still suffer regular bouts of "who the fuck am I kidding?".

Every so often, and really it's more every than often, I read someone else's work and am left feeling as if I should bone up on the latest techniques for properly preparing french fries and cheeseburgers and leave the writing to those with real talent. I don't know why this happens, it's not as if my scribblings are so wretched that the reader is driven to drink, hoping to erase the chapters from his memory. Or hey, maybe they are! In that case I will be proud to have contributed a valuable resource for anyone who needs a reason to get completely blotto.

I write because I love to, even have to, because I can sit down in front of the Dell at the crack of noon and get up for my first 48 ounce iced chai tea latte two pink stuffs easy on the ice of the day and discover it's already 5 in the afternoon. The time flies almost as fast as my fingers. Sometimes it seems I have an unruly hoard in my head demanding to have their stories told, and I can't write fast enough.

Today was not one of those days though. Today was "research day", thanks to Miss Emma Adler whose tale of lust, betrayal, and revenge demands I understand the fashion trends, hairstyles, slang, and daily life of a teenager living in the dustbowl during the Great Depression.

For the record, I think Marian Marsh is one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen. I would gladly sacrifice a hundred Kardashians, Honey Boo Boos, and Snookies if I thought the gods would see fit to return old school glamour to Hollywood.