I said goodbye to our dog Duane (who I gave away) and our favorite band Pavement (who broke up but whose members made excellent solo albums). Duane spent her last year with me barking and howling, wishing she were anywhere else; Pavement spent their last tour fighting onstage. At their final shows, the band members reportedly wore handcuffs onstage as symbols of their frustration. Each goodbye came with different levels of relief, guilt, and confusion, so I put them off as long as I could. But dogs need to run free,
