Click images for desktop size: "Hallowed Halls" by Stag I haven't been sleeping well.
It's that sort of half sleep half waking that makes me feel like I'm turning into General Sternwood without the money and the hot house orchids.
For whatever reason I thought about my dogs. Not the ones living with me now but the dogs whose friendships have passed through my life.
I remember my third Belgian Shepherd, Penny. It was right after the big tragedy. Penny was recovering but her middle was so tightly wrapped with brown stained bandages that she looked like some sort of anorexic mummy.
I couldn't stand to be in the house that night so I took her and we checked into a motel on the Strip.
Click image: "Lon Chaney-Phantom Of The Opera" After we checked in I lay down on the bed. I became aware of all the activity outside my room and realized that I had checked into one of those joints used by the Sunset Strip streetwalkers for business.
That didn't bother in and of itself but lying there in that sin filled bed started to creep me out.
I threw the spread on the floor and laid down on it. Penny came over and with no preamble laid down beside me and pressed her damaged body hard against me. She rested her head on my stomach, looked at me and closed her eyes to sleep.
She made me feel loved. There's nothing ever wrong or cheap about feeling loved.
I remembered her body pressed against mine clearly with muscle and skin memory.
I remembered my little Texas dog. I used to get up at 3 AM or so to go down to the daily labor place. One day this puppy started to follow me. She waited outside the daily labor place while I waited inside to get no work. When it started to dawn I started to walk home. The puppy followed me.

Click images for desktop size: "Harbour Sunset" by MattV8 I remember how I was distraught about this. How I knew I couldn't afford to feed a dog. I was eating a 25 cent bag of microwave popcorn for my meal a day, on good days I was eating those 49 cent macaroni and cheese dinners. I lived in a room with a communal kitchen. No pets allowed. Taking care of a dog would be impossible.
I tried to tell the little pup this but she just keep dancing and play bounding around me. Other people started to pass us as the city began to wake up. The pup ignored them and just stuck close to me.
As worried and impossible as it was I was still thrilled to know that no matter how decrepit my station in life this little dog didn't care. She just loved me.
it went in a roundabout way but we took care of each other. I paid for her shots and her food by bartering with a vet. She let me help her on her large animal calls.
I remember the little pup snuffling and snorting at bulls who moo-ed at me too aggressively. But what I remember with present time resolution and 100,000:1 contrast is how much she loved me and trusted me.
And I remember the little blind dog who on first "sight" of me decided that we were best friends. Now and forever and that we'd been best friends before we ever knew each other.
I think that people who minimize the value of animals are sad and lonely people who can't get past the cruelty that burns itself across their tarnished hearts.
Not to diminish any person who has loved me or that I have loved I still think that the love I have for dogs and that they have had for me is the cleanest, least complicated and deepest that a man can feel.
Love between people is more intense and maybe a touch more important to our sanity and dealings and copings with a mad world, but its the unwavering love between a man and his dog that sets the zenith that people need to aspire to.
With all the bickering and squabbling I realized that I've probably gotten there. That realization let me sleep.

There's an article in Todays Guardian: "The Chameleon: Who is the real Sarah Palin?"
It takes a Brit paper to give an objective view of this woman. Or maybe i just think its objective
Click images for desktop size: "Dark Futurist" by Maxfield Parrish because it fits my view of the woman.
There are some bits that actually make me feel some empathy, actually pity, for the woman. She's a monster, no doubt, but she's a human being as well. A conniving hate filled angry insecure scaredy cat, but a person beneath that.
It certainly looks like her ambition has put her in an ugly place where she's being manipulated rather cynically. Part of her monstrosity is in her rather sad need to be accepted by people who are even more unscrupulous than she is.
That is sad. A tragedy in some ways. It doesn't excuse her, nor does it justify here confounding ability to believe whatever "truth" she sputters out no matter how contradicting to the facts or even to her previous statements is the honest to Her God's truth.
All people are unique. All people share points in common. Palin is confirmed in my mind as being exactly like every other failed actress wannabee beauty queen that I've ever met.
Except Palin discovered politics. She started by get just over 600 people to think she was okay. That's not enough to fill an Equity Waiver show for a week. Her act would have closed after one night on Broadway, off-Broadway. But it made her happy. Her apparent incompetence didn't deter her. She was loved.
She become a blood lusting wench to appeal and keep her rather dowdy insecure husband in love with her. That all makes sense and it fits the known facts and makes what is happening now inevitable.
She's the superstar she always wanted to be. She'll view every vote she gets on election day like a ticket purchased to the Sarah movie and it will thrill her. No matter if it costs her her soul. She gave her soul away a long time ago. Maybe it was stolen from her. Not my problem to figure out.
Its a decent article. Worth reading.
I have to go play with my puppies. They think they have a strategy for beating me.