Life with McShirty | velvetverbosity.com

What I didn’t Say

Nick — Tue, 20 Oct 2020 09:22:56 +0000

“What are you thinking about?”

I smile at being caught, and at the feeling of sheepishness that precedes what I will say.

“I’m thinking about how much I adore you.”

“Yeah? In what way?” Your eyes smile delightedly.

“The perfect blending of your fragile bone structure”, I press the tips of my fingers to the softly sharpened rise of your cheekbone, “like here…with the raw strength of your body. The details of your imperfections…your slight overbite, your imperfectly perfect mouth, the laugh lines around your eyes, your beautiful hands. I love to watch you write, to see the arch of your fingers, the way you gracefully, forcefully hold the paper down on the desk, the same way you touch me.”

I kiss your palm and the tips of your slender fingers. They are warm and soft from the firelight and the sleep that has crept into them.

“The way you think out loud. The pitch and resonance of your voice and all of its variance. How you answer a difficult question with such lucid clarity and honesty. The way I can find the cracks in your confidence and how you still manage to land on your feet, constantly facing and mastering your own fragility.

Your adept, sharp wit and insight. The almost absolute mastery of language you possess and share freely. How I ache when someone speaks eloquently, the way you so often do.”

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Secret Sorrow

Nick — Mon, 19 Oct 2020 09:22:54 +0000

“What do you want to know?”

“I want to know the secret source of your sorrow.”

He says it plainly enough, but I feel my tongue clamp to the roof of my mouth. I smile, look away, pretend to be thinking.

He gently takes me off the hook with a light response, “Of course, we all have sorrow, stemming supposedly from our separation from the Divine.”

We laugh at this and I rest my head on his chest. At least for tonight I won’t have to risk anything.

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A Man and His Dog

Nick — Fri, 24 Jan 2020 09:27:34 +0000

The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too. ~Samuel Butler, Notebooks, 1912

From the dog’s point of view, his master is an elongated and abnormally cunning dog. ~Mabel Louise Robinson

Our dogs will love and admire the meanest of us, and feed our colossal vanity with their uncritical homage. ~Agnes Repplier

With the exception of women, there is nothing on earth so agreeable or necessary to the comfort of man as the dog. ~Edward Jesse, Anecdote of Dogs

Dogs have given us their absolute all. We are the center of their universe. We are the focus of their love and faith and trust. They serve us in return for scraps. It is without a doubt the best deal man has ever made. ~Roger Caras

Mr. Shirty McShirty has been dogsitting for over a week now. The relationship between this man and this dog is a sight to behold. I’ve never been much of a dog person myself (Dooce…I know) partly because my mother would have disowned me (i.e. she conditioned me so) and partly because, well, they smell, the slobber, they wag, they beg, and most of them are as big as me and maybe that scares me just a little.

But Shirty McS? Definitely a dog person. He’s pretty sure he WAS a dog in a past life, and a pack leader at that. Alpha male.

The thing is, if you saw these two beasts together for a day, you’d believe it. Rover (name changed to protect the innocent) yields to S McS in every way and seemingly loves to do so. When S McS locks Rover out of his office so that he can take a sales call, Rover whimpers softly outside the door for several long minutes, and then finally concedes to curling up somewhere and pretending to sleep. When he hears S McS wrapping up the phone call, and yes, he knows, he gets up and goes to the office door which opens on cue. Bizarre.

One week and maybe a half and these two animals are bonded like the best of brothers, only one, of course is Alpha. Wherever S McS goes, Rover goes. When S McS sits in a chair, Rover climbs into his lap and I feel compelled to let you know that Rover is NO SMALL DOG. Rover is a beast. Part dalmation and part BIG DOG, he takes over S McS’s lap, half the chair, and he’s still dangling in several places. He doesn’t seem to care. He just wants to be as close as possible to his master. His master of just under two weeks.

Rover is a friendly enough dog. He’ll greet you with the usual crotch-sniffing because nothing says, “Nice to see ya” like a snout in your soft spot. That doesn’t explain the instant and un-breakable bond of these two. I swear to you, I could walk in the room with a giant bacon flavored dog bone for a head and garlands of dog bones around my neck and Rover would take his eyes off his master only long enough to shoot me a glance as if to say, “What are you trying to prove here?” and then turn his adoring gaze back to Mr. Shirty.

In fact, if I hug Shirty McShirty in Rover’s presence, he becomes extremely distressed. He sits at our feet and barks, then backs up and barks some more until we give up the nonsense. I’m afraid if I gave McShirty a love pat I might end up on the floor with some slobbery teeth on my neck.

So I get it. Man loves Dog. Dog loves Man. And that’s just how it is.

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How to Flunk "Being a Grown Up 101"

Nick — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 09:24:10 +0000

1. Forget to pay the utility bill and then act surprised when the computer won’t turn on in the morning. (For a double flunk, find a way to blame it on the children!)

2. Sleep through your alarm and get to work an hour and a half late. (For a double flunk, show up with Dunkin Donut crumbs on your chin and sleepy seeds still in the corners of your eyes.)

3. Check your myspace. (Double F points for doing this while eating a banana freeze-pop and neglecting dishes in the sink.)

4. Think mean things about the other moms at your daughter’s lacrosse practice. (Double flunk by actually telling Mrs. “I’m so upper-middle class and proud of it” that you like her shirt and that your mother has one just like it that you bought her for Christmas.)

5. When your teenager bites your head off because she’s “hot and grumpy” and then stomps off to her room, make a face at her retreating back. (Oh, the possibilities for double-flunking this one are endless!)

6. Chew Juicy Fruit with your juicy boyfriend at the office. (Double F for chewing two or more pieces at a time. Loudly.)

To answer the question, “How can you double flunk anything?”, this is my blog and I make the rules ’round here (as well as the lies). Understood?

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Letter to a Man

Nick — Tue, 26 Nov 2002 09:25:47 +0000

Dear Shirty McShirty,

Was it only yesterday that I met you? Is it a dream that I once fancied fantasies of becoming the perfect, serene and infinitely organized counterpart to your beautiful madness? No. It wasn’t just yesterday. It was more than a year ago. Funny thing, time.

It was, however, just yesterday morning lying next to your blanketed warm body that I had a dream of a man with a handsome face and a gentle light in his eyes. I was at a garden party, chatting with an old friend who I meet only in dreams now. The handsome, gentle-eyed man smiled at me and I was hopeful, in a dreamy way, that such a man could exist. I read into his face integrity, honesty, loyalty, a capacity for love.

Seeing that I was engaged in conversation, he turned away, not wanting to interrupt. It was then that I saw he was not what he seemed. On the back of his neck was etched a serial number. That neck was old, weathered, and destroyed by time and something else I could not name. The hair was thinned and tired. The clothes were not so polished and unassuming as they were from the front. They were worn, careless, and dirty.

I was just pointing this man out to my friend when I stopped, realizing his face did not reveal the truth. I stared, wondering how this was possible, that his front was so very different from his retreating back. My friend turned to look and I said, “Never mind. It’s not who I thought it was.”

When I woke you asked me with a smile if I slept well, and I told you about the dream but I didn’t have the heart to tell you that you were that guy. I think you knew anyway, and didn’t have the heart to tell me you knew. So now we both know and neither of us are telling. The trajectory of lives can shift and veer significantly in the passage of a year. Truths are often revealed in the soft light of morning.

I hope your day is as flawed and beautiful as you are,

Velvet Verbosity

Image from http://www.jetcityorange.com/barcodes/tattoos/tattoo_31.html

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