Dog Digging Quotes

I am a cutter, you see. Also a snipper, a slicer, a carver, a jabber. I am a very special case. I have a purpose. My skin, you see, screams. It's covered with words - cook, cupcake, kitty, curls - as if a knife-wielding first-grader learned to write on my flesh. I sometimes, but only sometimes, laugh. Getting out of the bath and seeing, out of the corner of my eye, down the side of a leg: babydoll. Pull on a sweater and, in a flash of my wrist: harmful. Why these words? Thousands of hours of therapy have yielded a few ideas from the good doctors. They are often feminine, in a Dick and Jane, pink vs. puppy dog tails sort of way. Or they're flat-out negative. Number of synonyms for anxious carved in my skin: eleven. The one thing I know for sure is that at the time, it was crucial to see these letters on me, and not just see them, but feel them. Burning on my left hip: petticoat. And near it, my first word, slashed on an anxious summer day at age thirteen: wicked. I woke up that morning, hot and bored, worried about the hours ahead. How do you keep safe when your whole day is as wide and empty as the sky? Anything could happen. I remember feeling that word, heavy and slightly sticky across my pubic bone. My mother's steak knife. Cutting like a child along red imaginary lines. Cleaning myself. Digging in deeper. Cleaning myself. Pouring bleach over the knife and sneaking through the kitchen to return it. Wicked. Relief. The rest of the day, I spent ministering to my wound. Dig into the curves of W with an alcohol-soaked Q-tip. Pet my cheek until the sting went away. Lotion. Bandage. Repeat.

What actually happens when you die is that your brain stops working and your body rots, like Rabbit did when he died and we buried him in the earth at the bottom of the garden. And all his molecules were broken down into other molecules and they went into the earth and were eaten by worms and went into the plants and if we go and dig in the same place in 10 years there will be nothing exept his skeleton left. And in 1,000 years even his skeleton will be gone. But that is all right because he is a part of the flowers and the apple tree and the hawthorn bush now.

Charlie helped with the dig as well?"Jackaby said. Charlie nodded. "Surprising-I should think that unburying bones would go against generations of instinct to do just the opposite, wouldn't it? Ouch! Watch your step in the dark, Miss Rook-you just kicked my shin. Where was I? Right-I was saying that coming from a family of dogs-ouch! You've done it again, rather hard that time. Really, the path isn't even bumpy here.

Depressions and melancholy are often a cover for tremendous greed. At the beginning of an analysis there is often a depressed state of resignation-life has no meaning, there is no feeling of being in life. An exaggerated state can develop into complete lameness. Quite young people give the impression of having the resignation of a bitter old man or woman. When you dig into such a black mood you find that behind it there is overwhelming greed-for being loved, for being very rich, for having the right partner, for being the top dog, etc. Behind such a melancholic resignation you will often discover in the darkness a recurring theme which makes things very difficult, namely if you give such people one bit of hope, the lion opens its mouth and you have to withdraw, and then they put the lid on again, and so it goes on, back and forth.

Unreal City, Under the brown fog of a winter dawn, A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, I had not thought death had undone so many. Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled, And each man fixed his eyes before his feet. Flowed up the hill and down King William Street, To where St Mary Woolnoth kept the hours With a dead sound on the final stock of nine. There I saw one I knew, and stopped him crying: 'Stetson! You, who were with me in the ships at Mylae! That corpse you planted last year in your garden, Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year? Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed? Oh keep the Dog far hence, that's friend to men, Or with his nails he'll dig it up again! You! hypocrite lecteur!-mon semblable,-mon frere!

I swear, Skulduggery, you either give me a straight answer or I’m finding the biggest dog you’ve ever seen and I’m going to make him dig a hole and bury you in it.

Francis Marion Tarwater’s uncle had been dead for only half a day when the boy got too drunk to finish digging his grave and a Negro named Buford Munson, who had come to get a jug filled, had to finish it and drag the body from the breakfast table where it was still sitting and bury it in a decent and Christian way, with the sign of its Savior at the head of the grave and enough dirt on top to keep the dogs from digging it up. Buford had come along about noon and when he left at sundown, the boy, Tarwater, had never returned from the still.

What actually happens when you die is that your brain stops working and your body rots, like Rabbit did when he died and we buried him in the earth at the bottom of the garden. And all his molecules were broken down into other molecules and they went into the earth and were eaten by worms and went into the plants and if we go dig in the same place in 10 years there will be nothing except his skeleton left. And in 1,000 years even his skeleton will be gone. But that is all right because he is part of the flowers and the apple tree and the hawthorn bush now. When people die they are sometimes put into coffins which means that they don't mix with the earth for a very long time until the wood of the coffin rots. But Mother was cremated. This means that she was put into a coffin and burnt and ground up and turned into ash and smoke. I do not know what happens to the ash and I couldn't ask at the crematorium because I didn't go to the funeral. But the smoke goes out of the chimney and into the air and sometimes I look up into the sky and I think that there are molecules of Mother up there, or in clouds over Africa or the Antartic, or coming down as rain in rainforests in Brazil, or in snow somewhere.

Now this girl was about twenty-one years old. A sweet little coed. Spends a night with a married man. Goes home the next day and tells her mama and daddy. Don’t ask me why. Maybe just to rub their faces in it. They decide she needs a lesson. Whole family drives out into the desert, right out to that spot we just passed. All three of them plus the girl’s pet dog. Papa tells the girl to dig a shallow grave. Mama gets down on her hands and knees and holds the dog by the collar. When the girl is all through digging, papa gives her a .22 caliber revolver and tells her to shoot the dog. A real touching family scene. Make a good calendar for some religious group to give away. The girl puts the weapon to her temple and kills herself. Now isn’t that a heartwarming story? Restores my faith in just about everything.

Because getting a headset sweaty was kind of small potatoes compared to the fact that I was brandishing a machete at large raptors, while considering the pros and cons of hiring a pimp to dig up our dead dog.

det svier, der hvor du lagde din hånd. som om du har sat dit aftryk i mit kød. og det er jo det du har. som ingen anden har du sat dit aftryk i mit kød. jeg er fuld af ar. jeg er dig ikke utaknemmelig. det hører til mit livs store oplevelser. det er uforklarligt. det er kemi. og jeg husker det hele som viljeløse handlinger, der dog var så fulde af vilje . til dit kød. dengang. lagenernes hvide stof i min knyttede hånd.

Could I, I thought, be the last coward on earth? How terrifying!… All alone with two million stark-raving heroic madmen, armed to the eyeballs? With and without helmets, without horses, on motorcycles, bellowing, in cars, screeching, shooting, plotting, flying, kneeling, digging, taking cover, bounding over trails, sputtering, shut up on earth as if it were a loony bin, ready to demolish everything on it, Germany, France, whole continents, everything that breathes, destroy, destroy, madder than mad dogs, worshipping their madness (which dogs don’t), a hundred, a thousand times madder than a thousand dogs, and a lot more vicious! A pretty mess we were in! No doubt about it, this crusade I’d let myself in for was the apocalypse.

The men digging in on both sides of me cursed the stench and the mud. I began moving the heavy, sticky clay mud with my entrenching shovel to shape out the extent of the foxhole before digging deeper. Each shovelful had to be knocked off the spade, because it stuck like glue. I was thoroughly exhausted and thought my strength wouldn’t last from one sticky shovelful to the next. Kneeling on the mud, I had dug the hole no more than six or eight inches deep when the odor of rotting flesh got worse. There was nothing to do but continue to dig, so I closed up my mouth and inhaled with short shallow breaths. Another spadeful of soil out of the hole released a mass of wriggling maggots that came welling up as though those beneath were pushing them out. I cursed and told the NCO as he came by what a mess I was digging into. ‘You heard him, he said put the holes five yards apart.’ In disgust, I drove the spade into the soil, scooped out the insects, and threw them down the front of the ridge. The next stroke of the spade unearthed buttons and scraps of cloth from a Japanese army jacket in the mud—and another mass of maggots. I kept on doggedly. With the next thrust, metal hit the breastbone of a rotting Japanese corpse. I gazed down in horror and disbelief as the metal scraped a clean track through the mud along the dirty whitish bone and cartilage with ribs attached. The shoved skidded into the rotting abdomen with a squishing sound. The odor nearly overwhelmed me as I rocked back on my heels. I began choking and gagging as I yelled in desperation, ‘I can’t dig in here! There’s a dead Nip here!’ The NCO came over, looked down at my problem and at me, and growled, ‘You heard him; he said put the holes five yards apart.

Ah, are you digging on my grave, My loved one? -- planting rue?" -- "No: yesterday he went to wed One of the brightest wealth has bred. 'It cannot hurt her now,' he said, 'That I should not be true.'" "Then who is digging on my grave, My nearest dearest kin?" -- "Ah, no: they sit and think, 'What use! What good will planting flowers produce? No tendance of her mound can loose Her spirit from Death's gin.'" "But someone digs upon my grave? My enemy? -- prodding sly?" -- "Nay: when she heard you had passed the Gate That shuts on all flesh soon or late, She thought you no more worth her hate, And cares not where you lie. "Then, who is digging on my grave? Say -- since I have not guessed!" -- "O it is I, my mistress dear, Your little dog, who still lives near, And much I hope my movements here Have not disturbed your rest?" "Ah yes! You dig upon my grave... Why flashed it not to me That one true heart was left behind! What feeling do we ever find To equal among human kind A dog's fidelity!" "Mistress, I dug upon your grave To bury a bone, in case I should be hungry near this spot When passing on my daily trot. I am sorry, but I quite forgot It was your resting place.

Poetry, I tell my students, is idiosyncratic. Poetry is where we are ourselves, (though Sterling Brown said "Every 'I' is a dramatic 'I'") digging in the clam flats for the shell that snaps, emptying the proverbial pocketbook. Poetry is what you find in the dirt in the corner, overhear on the bus, God in the details, the only way to get from here to there. Poetry (and now my voice is rising) is not all love, love, love and I'm sorry the dog died. Poetry (here I hear myself loudest) is the human voice, and are we not of interest to each other?

Hipster (n.): Yes, you ride a fixed-gear bike and drink single-origin chai from a local specially abled artist’s hand-thrown ceramic mug. Your bi-friend only listens to cassettes, and you just love vintage flats, and your rescue dog is named Cobain. Please just wear your hat and glasses and turned-up pants and defy categorizing. Remember: you will one day be driving a Volvo with toys thrown willy-nilly and Burger King wrappers on the floor, listening to Sade and digging it unironically. Even the freshest kale can go brown and wilt. Cave futurum.

There is a madman who lives on the road to Mkushi. Every full moon he comes out onto the tarmac and digs a deep trench across the road. Dad would like to find the madman and bring him back to the farm. 'Think what a strong bugger he is, eh?' 'Yes, but you could only get him to work when there was a full moon.' 'Which is twice as hard as any other Zambian.

Never stop. Truly, never stop. Keep cleaning, cooking, chopping your own wood. Go on walks with the dog. Dig in your garden. We are meant to be busy. Idle hands do the Devil’s work.

Imagine waking up in the morning and going to the kitchen and to make yourself some breakfast. You take some soybean grits, mix them with some tainted cattle meat, throw in a few beaks and feathers, smother your concoction with processed sugar syrup and chemicals, then sprinkle on a few preservatives and dyes. Pressure cook the hell out of it, let it cool-and dig in!

While our life remains more chaotic than not, we continue to land on our blistered feet, drag each other out of the quicksand, beg for forgiveness as we wander out of the doghouse, and dig for the humor beneath our grief. So our family, four-pawed members included, continues to bound forward celebrating our canine connection and sharing hope with all who need healing.

What the hell am I doing?” I asked her. Her tail began to wag in response and I couldn’t help but think how fucking wonderful it would be to be a dog. Having no responsibility, no pressure. Just running around and pooping. I hated being human; I hated having to think and make decisions and dig myself out of the bottomless holes that I’d created. It would be so much easier to be a dog.

Luther describes how backbiters are like hyenas or dogs who dig up stinking human corpses, pullulating with decay and full of worms, and bite into them—“Ugh, what a dreadful monster the backbiter is!

Shit, man, if you see a dog scratching at the dirt trying to dig something up, walk away real fast,” he said, then pulled a little square of paper from his pocket and swallowed whatever was folded inside.

Cradling her to his chest, he cursed himself for taking too much blood. He was certain he hadn't taken enough for her to need a transfusion, but it had clearly left her weak. "I'm so sorry," he whispered, glad she hadn't found the deed in his thoughts. He had feared he wouldn't be able to hide it from her. The dog began to whine again. "It's okay, boy," he murmured. "She's okay. She's just tired." Several minutes passed while he stroked her hair and held her close despite the pain it caused. She was petite and looked as though she only weighed about a hundred pounds. After spending all damned night digging his sorry ass up, no wonder she passed out. "I haven't seen it yet," she mumbled against his neck as consciousness returned, "but I'm willing to bet your ass is actually quite nice." Startled laughter escaped him, inspiring another groan. "Don't make me laugh. It hurts too much." "Sorry. I couldn't resist.

Sometimes you will need to leap from one end of this paradoxical spectrum to the other in a matter of minutes, and then back again. As I write this book, for instance, I approach each sentence as if the future of humanity depends upon my getting that sentence just right. I care, because I want it to be lovely. Therefore, anything less than a full commitment to that sentence is lazy and dishonorable. But as I edit my sentence—sometimes immediately after writing it—I have to be willing to throw it to the dogs and never look back. (Unless, of course, I decide that I need that sentence again after all, in which case I must dig up its bones, bring it back to life, and once again regard it as sacred.) It matters./It doesn’t matter.

All dogs are predators, but over thousands of generations, we’ve created sporting breeds to be exceptionally focused predators. All dogs like to dig and chase small prey, but terriers are superdriven to dig and find rodents. All dogs love to run, but greyhounds can run up to forty miles an hour, and huskies can run for hours and hours on end. All dogs have the natural ability to fight or wrestle with one another, but the bully breeds have been genetically engineered to fight to the death. The more pure the bloodline, the more that genetic “boost” will probably play a part in your dog’s behavior. That’s why some owners claim that their “mutts” make mellower pets, because, they theorize, their DNA has been somewhat diluted, and their breed-related drives diffused as a result.

...there should be a few places where prairie dogs can just be prairie dogs, where they can kick back and fulfill their niches in the grand scheme of the shortgrass prairie, work on their whistles, try to dig to China or least to Amarillo. Sooner or later a hungry mother kit fox will strike blood, but until then there should be a few places where prairie dogs don't have to worry about two guys bumping chests behind a pickup truck after a single exploding bullet launches them heavenward for an extra eleven points. "Montana Mist!" If not on public lands like the Cimarron National Grassland, then where?

Children can have a cruel, absolute sense of justice. Children can kill monsters and feel quite proud of themselves. Even a girl who carries spiders outside instead of stepping on them, a girl who once fed a tiny fox kit with an eyedropper every two hours until wildlife rescue could come and pick it up—that same girl can kill and be ready to do it again. She can take her dead dog home and bury him and cry over his cooling and stiffening body, making promises as she digs a deep hole in the backyard. She can look at her brother and believe that together they’re a knight and a bard who battle evil, who might someday find and

We went far down the garden to the farthest end, where the children and the nurse and the puppy and I used to play in the summer in the shade of a great elm, and there the footman dug a hole, and I saw he was going to plant the puppy, and I was glad, because it would grow and come up a fine handsome dog, like Robin Adair, and be a beautiful surprise for the family when they came home; so I tried to help him dig, but my lame leg was no good, being stiff, you know, and you have to have two, or it is no use. When the footman had finished and covered little Robin up, he patted my head, and there were tears in his eyes, and he said: "Poor little doggie, you saved HIS child!

Where the weather is concerned, the Midwest has the worst of both worlds. In the winter the wind is razor sharp. It skims down from the Arctic and slices through you. It howls and swirls and buffets the house. It brings piles of snow and bonecracking cold. From November to March you walk leaning forward at a twenty-degree angle, even indoors, and spend your life waiting for your car to warm up, or digging it out of drifts or scraping futilely at ice that seems to have been applied to the windows with superglue. And then one day spring comes. The snow melts, you stride about in shirtsleeves, you incline your face to the sun. And then, just like that, spring is over and it’s summer. It is as if God has pulled a lever in the great celestial powerhouse. Now the weather rolls in from the opposite direction, from the tropics far to the south, and it hits you like a wall of heat. For six months, the heat pours over you. You sweat oil. Your pores gape. The grass goes brown. Dogs look as if they could die. When you walk downtown you can feel the heat of the pavement rising through the soles of your shoes. Just when you think you might very well go crazy, fall comes and for two or three weeks the air is mild and nature is friendly. And then it’s winter and the cycle starts again. And you think, “As soon as I’m big enough, I’m going to move far, far away from here.

I realized I still had my eyes shut. I had shut them when I put my face to the screen, like I was scared to look outside. Now I had to open them. I looked out the window and saw for the first time how the hospital was out in the country. The moon was low in the sky over the pastureland; the face of it was scarred and scuffed where it had just torn up out of the snarl of scrub oak and madrone trees on the horizon. The stars up close to the moon were pale; they got brighter and braver the farther they got out of the circle of light ruled by the giant moon. It called to mind how I noticed the exact same thing when I was off on a hunt with Papa and the uncles and I lay rolled in blankets Grandma had woven, lying off a piece from where the men hunkered around the fire as they passed a quart jar of cactus liquor in a silent circle. I watched that big Oregon prairie moon above me put all the stars around it to shame. I kept awake watching, to see if the moon ever got dimmer or if the stars got brighter, till the dew commenced to drift onto my cheeks and I had to pull a blanket over my head. Something moved on the grounds down beneath my window — cast a long spider of shadow out across the grass as it ran out of sight behind a hedge. When it ran back to where I could get a better look, I saw it was a dog, a young, gangly mongrel slipped off from home to find out about things went on after dark. He was sniffing digger squirrel holes, not with a notion to go digging after one but just to get an idea what they were up to at this hour. He’d run his muzzle down a hole, butt up in the air and tail going, then dash off to another. The moon glistened around him on the wet grass, and when he ran he left tracks like dabs of dark paint spattered across the blue shine of the lawn. Galloping from one particularly interesting hole to the next, he became so took with what was coming off — the moon up there, the night, the breeze full of smells so wild makes a young dog drunk — that he had to lie down on his back and roll. He twisted and thrashed around like a fish, back bowed and belly up, and when he got to his feet and shook himself a spray came off him in the moon like silver scales. He sniffed all the holes over again one quick one, to get the smells down good, then suddenly froze still with one paw lifted and his head tilted, listening. I listened too, but I couldn’t hear anything except the popping of the window shade. I listened for a long time. Then, from a long way off, I heard a high, laughing gabble, faint and coming closer. Canada honkers going south for the winter. I remembered all the hunting and belly-crawling I’d ever done trying to kill a honker, and that I never got one. I tried to look where the dog was looking to see if I could find the flock, but it was too dark. The honking came closer and closer till it seemed like they must be flying right through the dorm, right over my head. Then they crossed the moon — a black, weaving necklace, drawn into a V by that lead goose. For an instant that lead goose was right in the center of that circle, bigger than the others, a black cross opening and closing, then he pulled his V out of sight into the sky once more. I listened to them fade away till all I could hear was my memory of the sound.

plausible. He killed her, then panicked and tried to dismember her body to get rid of it. But the dog interrupted him. He decided to pretend he had been asleep through the whole thing. When we arrived, the dad was asleep when Joel went up, but he might have pretended to be. Joel said he seemed out of it, though. Might just be a good actor.” “It’s all a lot of theories so far,” I said with a deep exhale. It was going to be a long day for me. I was so grateful I had my parents nearby. I grew up in Ft. Lauderdale, further down south, but when I left for college, my parents wanted to try something new. They bought a motel by the beach in Cocoa Beach a few years after I left the house. The place was a haven for the kids. They never missed me while

dogs dig deep into your heart. They’re in the room, on the floor, in your lap, on the bed, pestering you for treats, chewing your sock, burrowing under sheets, making you laugh, following you about, eating the cheese you left on the table, tearing in wild happy circles after baths. They trust. They are innocence. They are unjudgmental observers of your every unguarded moment.

One might go to the bakery, perhaps," he said. "But did you know the baker has tuberculosis? All the people here run around in a highly infectious state. The baker's daughter has tuberculosis too, it seems to have something to do with the runoff from the cellulose factory, with the steam that the locomotives have spewed out for decades, with the bad diet that people eat. Almost all of them have cankered lung lobes, pneumothorax and pneumoperitoneum are endemic. They have tuberculosis of the lungs, the head, the arms and legs. All of them have tubercular abscesses somewhere on their bodies. The valley is notorious for tuberculosis. You will find every form of it here: skin tuberculosis, brain tuberculosis, intestinal tuberculosis. Many cases of meningitis, which is deadly within hours. The workmen have tuberculosis from the dirt they dig around in, the farmers have it from their dogs and the infected milk. The majority of the people have galloping consumption. Moreover," he said, "the effect of the new drugs, of streptomycin for example, is nil. Did you know the knacker has tuberculosis? That the landlady has tuberculosis? That the landlady has tuberculosis? That her daughters have been to sanatoria on three occasions? Tuberculosis is by no means on the way out. People claim it is curable. but that's what the pharmaceutical industry says. In fact, tuberculosis is as incurable as it always was. Even people who have been inoculated against it come down with it. Often those who have it the worst are the ones who look so healthy that you wouldn't suspect they were ill at all. Their rosy faces are utterly at variance with their ravaged lungs. You keep running into people who've had to endure a cautery or, at the very least, a transverse lesion. Most of them have had their lives ruined by failed reconstructive surgery." We didn't go to the bakery. Straight home instead.

Adam wet his dry lips and tried to ask and failed and tried again. "Why do they have to do it?" he said. "Why is it?" Cyrus was deeply moved and he spoke as he had never spoken before. "I don't know," he said. "I've studied and maybe learned how things are, but I"m not even close to why they are. And you must not expect to find that people understand what they do. So many things are done instinctively, the way a bee makes honey or a fox dips his paws into a stream to fool dogs. A fox can't say why he does it, and what bee remembers winter or expects it to come again? When I knew you had to go I thought to leave the future open so you could dig out your own findings, and then it seemed better if I could protect you with the little I know. You'll go in soon now--you've come to the age." "I don't want to," said Adam quickly. "You'll go in soon," his father went on, not hearing. "And I want to tell you so you won't be surprised. They'll first strip off your clothes, but they'll go deeper than that. They'll shuck off any little dignity you have--you'll lose what you think of as your decent right to live and be let alone to live. They'll make you live and eat and sleep and shit close to other men. And when they dress you up again you'll not be able to tell yourself from the others. You can't even wear a scrap or pin a note on your breast to say, 'This is me--separate from the rest.'" "I don't want to do it," said Adam. "After a while," said Cyrus, "you'll think no thought the others do not think. You'll know no word the others can't say. And you'll do things because the others do them. You'll feel the danger in any difference whatever-- a danger to the whole crowd of like-thinking, like-acting men." "What if I don't?" Adam demanded. "Yes," said Cyrus, "sometimes that happens. Once in a while there is a man who won't do what is demanded of him, and do you know what happens? The whole machine devotes itself coldly to the destruction of his difference. They'll beat your spirit and your nerves, your body and your mind, with iron rods until the dangerous difference goes out of you. And if you can't finally give in, they'll vomit you up and leave you stinking outside--neither part of themselves nor yet free. It's better to fall in with them. They only do it to protect themselves [...]

And all his molecules were broken down into other molecules and they went into the earth and were eaten by worms and went into the plants and if we go and dig in the same place in 10 years there will be nothing except his skeleton left. And in 1,000 years even his skeleton will be gone. But that is all right because he is a part of the flowers and the apple tree and the hawthorn bush now.

The side of the van was decorated with a magnetic sign that they could easily exchange before an op. For this particular mission, they’d chosen the sign that read Clean Freaks Laundry Services. Yep, they’d let Tag design the signs. There was also a Master Painting Crew sign, Dig It Deep Plumbers, Little Bro Catering, and Adam’s Dog Grooming Services. But it looked like they were in the laundry business today.

There was no room in London to stretch the sinews and muscles and skin, not enough clean air to refresh her lungs with gulping breaths. There was no big sky on which to rest her eyes, just a crushing grey smudge. It was impossible to find a clear path for more than a minute before it became blocked by children's buggies and bikes on the pavement and dogs on leads; by workmen endlessly digging up roads; by 4X4s squeezing through the narrow paths left by the workmen.

Oh! to think that he should actually let her come as near to him as that! He knew nothing in the world would make her put out her hand toward him or startle him in the least tiniest way. He knew it because he was a real person—only nicer than any other person in the world. She was so happy that she scarcely dared to breathe. The flower-bed was not quite bare. It was bare of flowers because the perennial plants had been cut down for their winter rest, but there were tall shrubs and low ones which grew together at the back of the bed, and as the robin hopped about under them she saw him hop over a small pile of freshly turned up earth. He stopped on it to look for a worm. The earth had been turned up because a dog had been trying to dig up a mole and he had scratched quite a deep hole. Mary looked at it, not really knowing why the hole was there, and as she looked she saw something almost buried in the newly-turned soil. It was something like a ring of rusty iron or brass and when the robin flew up into a tree nearby she put out her hand and picked the ring up. It was more than a ring, however; it was an old key which looked as if it had been buried a long time.

I believe by Elizabeth Alexander Poetry, I tell my students, is idiosyncratic. Poetry is where we are ourselves, (though Sterling Brown said “Every ‘I’ is a dramatic ‘I’”) digging in the clam flats for the shell that snaps, emptying the proverbial pocketbook. Poetry is what you find in the dirt in the corner, overhear on the bus, God in the details, the only way to get from here to there. Poetry (and now my voice is rising) is not all love, love, love, and I’m sorry the dog died. Poetry (here I hear myself loudest) is the human voice, and are we not of interest to each other?

Shaking his head, Lord St. Vincent watched the retriever scamper across the lawn. "I owe you a new hat," he told Pandora. "That one will return in shreds." "I don't mind. Ajax is still a pup." "The dog is inbred," he said flatly. "He doesn't retrieve or obey commands, he tries to dig holes in carpets, and as far as I can tell, he's incapable of walking in a straight line." Pandora grinned. "I rarely walk in a straight line," she confessed. "I'm too distractible to keep to one direction- I keep veering this way and that, to make certain I'm not missing something. So whenever I set out for a new place, I always end up back where I started." Lord St. Vincent turned to face her fully, the beautiful cool blue of his eyes intent and searching. "Where do you want to go?" The question caused Pandora to blink in surprise. She'd just been making a few silly comments, the kind no one ever paid attention to. "It doesn't matter," she said prosaically. "Since I walk in circles, I'll never reach my destination." His gaze lingered over her face. "You could make the circles bigger." The remark was perceptive and playful at the same time, as if he somehow understood how her mind worked. Or perhaps he was mocking her.

Shall we go," he said, "from the woods that all folk know, and the pleasant ways of the Land, to see a new thing, and be swept away by time?" And there was a murmur among the trolls, that hummed away through the forest and died out, as on Earth the sound of beetles going home. "Is it not to-day?" he said. "But there they call it to-day, yet none knows what it is: come back through the border again to look at it and it is gone. Time is raging there, like the dogs that stray over our frontier, barking, frightened and angry and wild to be home." "It is even so," said the trolls, though they did not know; but this was a troll whose words carried weight in the forest. "Let us keep to-day," said that weighty troll, "while we have it, and not be lured where to-day is too easily lost. For every time men lose it their hair grows whiter, their limbs grow weaker and their faces sadder, and they are nearer still to to-morrow." So gravely he spoke when he uttered that word "to-morrow" that the brown trolls were frightened. "What happens to-morrow?" one said. "They die," said the grizzled troll. "And the others dig in their earth and put them in, as I have seen them do, and then they go to Heaven, as I have heard them tell." And a shudder went through the trolls far over the floor of the forest. And Lurulu who had sat angry all this while to hear that weighty troll speak ill of Earth, where he would have them come, to astonish them with its quaintness, spoke now in defence of Heaven. "Heaven is a good place," he blurted hotly, though any tales he had heard of it were few. "All the blessed are there," the grizzled troll replied, "and it is full of angels. What chance would a troll have there? The angels would catch him, for they say on Earth that the angels all have wings; they would catch a troll and smack him forever and ever." And all the brown trolls in the forest wept.

There are three ways to approach secrets, you know. The first is what you find on soap operas and in poorly executed middle-school maneuvers. First, you uncover a piece of incriminating information, and then you use it to force a steady stream of favors or payment or behavior. The problem here is that, if extended indefinitely, the expected cost of compliance eventually outweighs the cost of exposure. Moreover, the probability that you'll lose your monopoly of your information increases with each passing day. Never, ever assume that you're only person digging for dirt, especially in Los Angeles. Vipers are measured by the pitful for a reason. The second approach is more effective: You make one, single very carefully chosen demand. And you give your mark just one chance. This was my usual MO. If this mark doesn't do as you ask, when you ask, you leak their secret. No excuses. No mercy. Brutal consistency is the key to credibility. Mothers, dog trainers, Israel -- you know what I'm talking about. But there's also a radical third approach: You reveal that you know the secret...and they you keep it under wraps. Do that, and they're not just going to tell you other secrets, they might even keep yours in return. And they'll think they're doing of their own free will when what you've really done is painstakingly aligned your incentives. That's all trust is, really. Some people are just incentivized by nature.

At first Shuggie had recoiled and looked like he had never heard a worse idea. She had cried in the bath later that night, trying to dig the oil out from her skin and feeling like a fool. Shuggie had heard her there, sat in the cold water, crying to herself. She had been mostly sober, and to him it was different from the drunken poor me’s. He resolved to show an interest in the fishing, anything to make her happy again. He fixated on the planning of the day, the organizing, the list making and the list checking. He planned the lunch and the clothes, the things he would put in his school bag and the little things he would put in each pocket: tomato sandwiches, a toy robot for sharing, a little plasticky pair of sunglasses, and a Christmas cracker whistle. When he had laid out all the preparations and put everything neatly in its place, he sat on the edge of his bed like a patient little dog.

Is it not very important, while we are young, to be loved and to love? It seems to me that most of us neither love nor are loved. And I think it is essential, while we are young, to understand this problem very seriously because it may be that while we are young, we can be sensitive enough to feel it, to know its quality, to know its perfume and perhaps, when we grow older, it will not be entirely destroyed. So, let us consider the question—that is, not that you should not be loved, but that you should love. What does it mean? Is it an ideal? Is it something far away, unattainable? Or is it something that can be felt by each one at odd moments of the day? To feel it, to be aware, to know the quality of sympathy, the quality of understanding, to help naturally, to aid another without any motive, to be kind, to be generous, to have sympathy, to care for something, to care for a dog, to be sympathetic to the villager, to be generous to your friend, to be forgiving, is that what we mean by love? Or is love something in which there is no sense of resentment, something which is everlasting forgiveness? And is it not possible while we are young, to feel it? Most of us, while we are young, do feel it—a sense of outward agony, sympathy to the villager, to the dog, to those who are little. And should it not be constantly tended? Should you not always have some part of the day when you are helping another or tending a tree or garden or helping in the house or in the hostel so that as you grow into maturity, you will know what it is to be considerate naturally—not with an enforced considerateness that is merely a negative word for one’s own happiness, but with that considerateness that is without motive. So, should you not when you are young, know this quality of real affection? It cannot be brought into being; you have to have it, and those who are in charge of you, like your guardian, your parents, your teachers, must also have it. Most people have not got it. They are concerned with their achievements, with their longings, with their success, with their knowledge, and with what they have done. They have built up their past into such colossal importance that it ultimately destroys them. So, should you not, while you are young, know what it is to take care of the rooms, to care for a number of trees that you yourself dig and plant so that there is a feeling, a subtle feeling of sympathy, of care, of generosity, the actual generosity—not the generosity of the mere mind—that means you give to somebody the little that you may have? If that is not so, if you do not feel that while you are young, it will be very difficult to feel that when you are old. So, if you have that feeling of love, of generosity, of kindness, of gentleness, then perhaps you can awaken that in others.

On the picture it can be seen that Chunkie is feeling cheerful again. At first, when Knobbie too left him, he was greatly depressed and bewildered, and to console him for his different trials I took him, each afternoon, down to the sea, knowing that he loves bathing and digging holes in the sand; and after a few days of this treatment I observed, with pleasure, that air of Never-say-die, which I have always so much admired in him, reappearing. Chunkie certainly, whatever I may be, is resolut. He, certainly, is ready, after any set-back, to face life again as soon as possible in the proper spirit. And what is the proper spirit? Chunkie’s, I think—keeping one’s end up, and the flag of one’s tail briskly flying to the last. Wise and sensible dog; making the most of what he has, rather than worrying over what he hasn’t. And ruminating on the rocks during those afternoons by the sea, it occurred to me that it would be very shameful if I were less sensible, less wholesome, and less sturdy of refusal to go down before blows, than Chunkie. So I made another vow. THE

Something moved on the grounds down beneath my window — cast a long spider of shadow out across the grass as it ran out of sight behind a hedge. When it ran back to where I could get a better look, I saw it was a dog, a young, gangly mongrel slipped off from home to find out about things went on after dark. He was sniffing digger squirrel holes, not with a notion to go digging after one but just to get an idea what they were up to at this hour. He’d run his muzzle down a hole, butt up in the air and tail going, then dash off to another. The moon glistened around him on the wet grass, and when he ran he left tracks like dabs of dark paint spattered across the blue shine of the lawn. Galloping from one particularly interesting hole to the next, he became so took with what was coming off — the moon up there, the night, the breeze full of smells so wild makes a young dog drunk — that he had to lie down on his back and roll. He twisted and thrashed around like a fish, back bowed and belly up, and when he got to his feet and shook himself a spray came off him in the moon like silver scales.

this. I can’t smile or fake things I’m not feeling. Digging chopsticks out of the drawer, I stick them in the bowl and pick it up, carrying it upstairs. I reach the top and don’t pause as I turn away from their bedroom door and head left, toward my own room. Carrying the bowl to my desk, I pause, the smell of the ramen making my stomach roll. I set it down and move to the wall, sliding down until I’m sitting on the floor. The cool hardwood eases my nerves, and I’m tempted to lie down and rest my face on it. Is it weird I stayed in the house tonight when they died just down the hall this morning? The coroner estimated the time of death about two a.m. I didn’t wake up until six. My mind races, caught between wanting to let it go and wanting to process how everything happened. Mirai is here every day. If I didn’t find them, she would’ve. Why didn’t they wait until I’d gone back to school next week? Did they even remember I was in the house? I let my head fall back against the wall and lay my arms over my bent knees, closing my burning eyes. They didn’t leave me a note. They dressed up. They put the dog out. They scheduled Mirai to come late this morning, instead of early.

What actually happens when you die is your brain stops working and your body rots, like Rabbit did when he died and we buried him in the earth at the bottom of the garden. And all his molecules were broken down into other molecules and they went into the earth and were eaten by worms and went into the plants and if we go and dig in the same place in 10 years there will be nothing except his skeleton left. And in 1,000 years even his skeleton will be gone. But that is all right because he is a part of the flowers and the apple tree and the hawthorn bush now. When people die they are sometimes put into coffins, which mean that they don't mix with the earth for a very long time until the wood of the coffin rots. But Mother was cremated. This means she was put into a coffin and burned and ground up and turned into ash and smoke. I do not know what happens to the ash and I couldn't ask at the crematorium because I didn't go to the funeral. But the smoke goes out of the chimney and into the air and sometimes I look up into the sky and I think there are molecules of Mother up there, or in clouds over Africa or the Antarctic, or coming down as rain in the rain forests in Brazil, or in snow somewhere.

Today, if a landowner feels the urge, he can put a backhoe into his hillside pasture and disembowel it. He can set his plow against the contours and let his wealth run down into the brook and into the sea. He can sell his topsoil off by the load and make a gravel pit of a hayfield. For all the interference he will get from the community, he can dig through to China, exploiting as he goes. With an ax in his hand he can annihilate the woods, leaving brush piles and stumps. He can build any sort of building he chooses on his land in the shape of a square or an octagon or a milk bottle. Except in zoned areas he can erect any sort of sign. Nobody can tell him where to head in—it is his land and this is a free country. Yet people are beginning to suspect that the greatest freedom is not achieved by sheer irresponsibility. The earth is common ground and we are all over-lords, whether we hold title or not; gradually the idea is taking form that the land must be held in safekeeping, that one generation is to some extent responsible to the next, and that it is contrary to the public good to allow an individual, merely because of his whims or his ambitions, to destroy almost beyond repair any part of the soil or the water or even the view.

Listen, I noticed you haven't brought your swimsuit home yet. I hope you're not still getting in the water. It's too cold for swimming, Emma." I do my own laundry. Digging around in my drawers is the only way she could have "noticed" anything missing. Does she also look for condoms or other incriminating evidence moms usually scavenge for? Does she come home to scavenge? The thought tickles my temper. Making a mental note to by a new bathing suit strictly for Galen's house, I say, "You're telling me this? You know how cold-natured I am." My laugh is loud enough to be suspicious, but Mom doesn't seem to notice. Rachel smirks though. "Don't try to tell me you and Galen haven't figured out how to stay warm in the water." "Mom!" "Just promise you won't get in the water," she says, her voice tight again. "I don't need you getting sick." "Fine. I promise." "And be home before dawn this time. I dare you to bring home anything less than an A on your report card after this. I double dog dare you." I mouth the words into the phone as she says them; you'd think she'd at least change the wording after all these years. It's her go-to threat for just about everything. But somehow, it doesn't work this time. There's no bluster behind it. She's getting soft lately, and I think it has to do with the night I accused her of adopting me.

Mr. Fish told my mother that he would make a “gift” of Sagamore’s body—to my grandmother’s roses. He implied that a dead dog was highly prized, among serious gardeners; my grandmother wished to be brought into the discussion, and it was quickly agreed which rosebushes would be temporarily uprooted, and replanted, and Mr. Fish began with the spade. The digging was much softer in the rose bed than it would have been in Mr. Fish’s yard, and the young couple and their baby from down the street were sufficiently moved to attend the burial, along with a scattering of Front Street’s other children; even my grandmother asked to be called when the hole was ready, and my mother—although the day had turned much colder—wouldn’t even go inside for a coat. She wore dark-gray flannel slacks and a black, V-necked sweater, and stood hugging herself, standing first on one foot, then on the other, while Owen gathered strange items to accompany Sagamore to the underworld. Owen was restrained from putting the football in the burlap sack, because Mr. Fish—while digging the grave—maintained that football was still a game that would give us some pleasure, when we were “a little older.” Owen found a few well-chewed tennis balls, and Sagamore’s food dish, and his dog blanket for trips in the car; these he included in the burlap sack, together with a scattering of the brightest maple leaves—and a leftover lamb chop that Lydia had been saving for Sagamore (from last night’s supper).

Top Dog" If I could, I would take your grief, dig it up out of the horseradish field and grate it into something red and hot to sauce the shellfish. I would take the lock of hair you put in the locket and carry it in my hand, I would make the light strike everything the way it hit the Bay Bridge, turning the ironwork at sunset into waffles. If I could, I would blow your socks off, they would travel far, always in unison, past the dead men running, past the cranes standing in snow, beyond the roads we rode, so small in our little car, it was like riding in a miner's helmet. If I could I would make everyone vote and call their public servants to say, “No one was meant for this.” I would go back to the afternoon we made love in the tall grass under the full sun not far from the ravine where the old owner had flung hundreds of mink cages. I would memorize gateways to the afterworld, the electric third rail, the blond braid our girl has hanging down her back, the black guppy we killed at our friends’ when we unplugged the bubbler and the fish floated to the top, one eye up at the ceiling, the other at the blue gravel on the bottom of the tank. I would beg an audience with Sister Lucia, the last living of the children visited by Our Lady of Fatima, I would ask her about the weight of secrets, if they let her sleep or if she woke at night with a body on her body, if the body said, “Let's play top dog, first I'll lie on you, then you lie on me.” I would ask how she lived with revelation, the normal state of affairs amplified beyond God, bumped up to the Virgin Mother, who no doubt knew a few things, passed them on, quietly, and I would ask Lucia how she lived with knowing, how she could keep it under her hat, under wraps, button up, zip her lip, play it close to the vest, never telling, never using truth as a weapon.

Ryder’s heart beats madly against my ear as we cling to each other, holding on for dear life. Adrenaline races through my veins, making my breath come in short gasps. I can feel Ryder’s fingers in my hair, his nails digging into my scalp as he presses me tightly against his body, his muscles bunched and rigid. I know I’m supposed to hate him, but all I can think right now is how glad I am he’s here--glad that I’m not alone. I’ve never been so scared in all my life, but I know it would be worse without him. It’s over in a matter of seconds. The freight-train roar quiets, the rain returning with a vengeance. I don’t need Jim Cantore to tell me it’s a rain-wrapped tornado. I’ve watched enough Storm Chasers to recognize it, even from my little hidey-hole under the stairs. If we had been outside, we probably wouldn’t have seen it coming, not till it was too late. Ryder releases his grip on my head, and I pull away slightly, peering up at him. His deep brown eyes are slightly wild-looking, but otherwise he looks okay. His face isn’t a shade of green, at least. I lean back against him, my head resting on his shoulder now. We’re still holding hands, our fingers intertwined. Somehow, it doesn’t seem at all weird. It just feels…safe. Neither of us says a word, not till the sirens are silenced a few minutes later. “I guess we should give it a few minutes,” I say, my voice slightly hoarse. “You know, just to make sure that’s it. No point in going out just to climb right back in.” He nods. “Besides, it’s perfectly comfortable in here.” “Well, I wouldn’t go that far.” “Okay, let me rephrase. It’s not uncomfortable.” I swallow hard. “I hope it’s not bad out there. I’m afraid of what we’re going to find.” “No matter how bad it is, we’re fine; the dogs and cats are fine. That’s what matters, Jemma. Anything else is replaceable.” “You sound like my dad, you know that? Have you been studying at the Bradley Cafferty School of Platitudes or something?” “Your dad’s a smart guy,” he says with a shrug.

Damn, Mari, it’s cold!” Carrow chafed her arms. “I dig the whole Narnian vibe you’ve got going on, I do. And I’ve been dutifully keeping an eye out for talking beavers wearing armor—but come on, this is getting ridiculous! If you miss the Scot so much, then just break free.” Elianna said, “Do you know he’s bought the property just next door to Andoain so he can scent you the minute you come home. And, well, because his house got blown up.” “Look, Mari, you have to come out of this and do something,” Carrow said. “Put him out of his misery—or—allow me to make him fall in love with dryer lint. You decide.” She shrugged. “I know you’d worried about Bowen not wanting to come near the coven, but we can’t get him to leave. Apparently, some of the witches admitted to him that you’re on a different plane—he can be really dogged with the questions—and now he’s determined to reach you here. Interestingly, he believes the information about the plane’s existence—but not about the fact that he can’t travel to it.” “He returns to Adoain daily, sometimes hourly, researching witchery,” Elianna said. Carrow glared, “Well, maybe if you and the others would stop sneakily setting out food for him, he wouldn’t keep coming back!” Crossing her arms over her chest, Elianna said in a mulish tone, “He wouldn’t eat otherwise.” “Whatever. But seriously, Mari, he’s having such a hard time with all this that even Regin feels sorry for what he’s been through.” Elianna added, “He’s watched your graduation video so many times, I’m sure he’s memorized your school’s alma mater.” “I don’t know what he does with the videos of your college cheerleading he brings back to his place”—Carrow waggled her eyebrows—“but I have suspicions.” Elianna coughed delicately. “Now that you’ve done what you were Awaited to do—well, part one at least—everyone’s grasping about for a new name for you,” Carrow said. “If you don’t kick this enthrallment, then I’m going to campaign for Mariketa the Glass Witch, or ‘Glitch.’ Come kick my ass if you don’t like it, otherwise . . .” Elianna squinted at Mari and sighed. “I think she wants to be called Mariketa MacRieve.

It takes me nearly a half hour to make what should be a ten-minute trip, and by the time I pull up in front of my house, my hands are cramped from my death grip on the steering wheel. It’s not until I step out of the car, my legs feeling like they’re made of Jell-O, that I notice Ryder’s Durango parked in front of me. “Where the hell have you been?” he calls out from the front porch, just as I make a mad dash to join him there. His face is red, his brow furrowed over stormy eyes. “They let us out an hour ago!” I am really not in the mood for his crap. “Yeah, so?” “So I was worried sick. A tornado touched down over by the Roberts’ place.” “I know! I mean, I didn’t know it touched down, but I was still at school when the sirens went off.” I drop my ridiculously heavy backpack and shake the rain from my hair. “Is everyone okay over there?” He runs a visibly trembling hand through his hair. “Yeah, it just tore up their fence or something. Jesus, Jemma!” “What is wrong with you? Why are you even here?” “I’m supposed to stay over here, remember?” “What…now?” I look past him and notice an army-green duffel bag by the front door. He’s got a key--he could’ve just let himself in. “I figured now’s as good a time as any. We need to put sandbags in front of the back door before it gets any worst out, and then we’ve got to do something about the barn. It’s awful close to the creek, and the water’s rising fast.” “Well, what do you propose we do?” “Don’t you keep your guns out there? We should move them inside. And your dad has some expensive tools in his workshop--we should get those, too.” I let out a sigh. He’s got a point. “Can I at least go inside first? Put my stuff away?” “Sure?” He moves to the edge of the porch and gazes up at the sky. “It looks like we might get a break in a few minutes, once this band moves through. Might as well wait for it.” I dig out my keys and unlock the door. I can hear the dogs howling their heads off the minute I step inside. “I’ve gotta let Beau and Sadie out,” I say over my shoulder as I head toward the kitchen. “Take your stuff to the guest room and get settled, why don’t you?” That’s my attempt at reestablishing the fact that I’m in charge here, not him. This is my house. My stuff. My life.

Feelie Box—Cut a hole in a shoebox lid. Place spools, buttons, blocks, coins, marbles, animals, and cars in the box. The child inserts a hand through the hole and tells you what toy she is touching. Or, ask her to reach in and feel for a button or car. Or, show her a toy and ask her to find one in the box that matches. These activities improve the child’s ability to discriminate objects without the use of vision. “Can You Describe It?”—Provide objects with different textures, temperatures, and weights. Ask her to tell you about an object she is touching. (If you can persuade her not to look at it, the game is more challenging.) Is the object round? Cool? Smooth? Soft? Heavy? Oral-Motor Activities—Licking stickers and pasting them down, blowing whistles and kazoos, blowing bubbles, drinking through straws or sports bottles, and chewing gum or rubber tubing may provide oral satisfaction. Hands-on Cooking—Have the child mix cookie dough, bread dough, or meat loaf in a shallow roasting pan (not a high-sided bowl). Science Activities—Touching worms and egg yolks, catching fireflies, collecting acorns and chestnuts, planting seeds, and digging in the garden provide interesting tactile experiences. Handling Pets—What could be more satisfying than stroking a cat, dog or rabbit? People Sandwich—Have the “salami” or “cheese” (your child) lie facedown on the “bread” (gym mat or couch cushion) with her head extended beyond the edge. With a “spreader” (sponge, pot scrubber, basting or vegetable brush, paintbrush, or washcloth) smear her arms, legs, and torso with pretend mustard, mayonnaise, relish, ketchup, etc. Use firm, downward strokes. Cover the child, from neck to toe, with another piece of “bread” (folded mat or second cushion). Now press firmly on the mat to squish out the excess mustard, so the child feels the deep, soothing pressure. You can even roll or crawl across your child; the mat will distribute your weight. Your child will be in heaven.

I don’t fuck girls,” Stitch repeated. “Are you blind? I’m a fucking fag. I’ve always been. I couldn’t even fuck my wife properly. Why do you think she divorced me? This is some bullshit!” He kicked the broken window and cracked the wood with his boot. Zak let out a long breath, his mouth pressing into a thin like. “Why didn’t you say anything? You never said you were gay. How could I know that?” he asked in a small voice. “I thought... that we were just buddies.” Stitch walked up to him and cupped Zak’s face, digging his thumbs into his warm cheeks. “I don’t like to talk about this kind of shit. There is no other option for me. Either you’re in, or you’re not. We’re not ‘buddies’ and we never were. We’re not friends, we’re not mates. I see you as a… lover. Someone to get close to, someone I can be myself with. If you need to arrange to be exclusive, then it looks like this dog was barking up the wrong tree.” Zak opened and closed his mouth, his shining blue eyes looking straight into Stitch’s soul. “I’ve never been with anyone like this.

I Imagine Them turning some dog-eared page tapping out a drum beat on the dash sorting the laundry digging for a matching sock buried in deep pockets breaking an egg on the side of a bowl fingering guitar strings Where are they now? tenderly holding a pen to paper furiously moving through air in concert with your conversation resting assuredly on the back of a chair oh to be the steering wheel or the spoon to have your palms pressed solidly upon me the full fan of your fingers curved to the slope of my shoulders oh to be warmed to be wrapped in hope to be healed by the laying on of your hands

COFFIN CANVAS   Unlike some, I take joy in my work Out every evening, prowling the night In an alley, part of the shadows Butchering, it feels to me so right Find an innocent so beautiful Excellent for my collection   Blinded and gagged, she tries to screams Like all the others, I’ll make her bleed Hands tied behind, she cannot fight I will be with you all day, all night   The body is gone, but you’re still fresh   In my mind, so I take up my brush To the canvas, what’s the rush? Your face is so beautiful upon the white Jaw hanging slack, eyes without light I’m so happy seeing you with the others So many little daughters and some mothers Have fallen to my charms An exciting sensation of lovely harm   Who shall I pick among them today I see a fair haired princess, a shining ray Her smile it dazzles like the sun When night falls, let’s have some fun   Spasms and twitches on the meat hook A smile breaks on my face as I look She struggles but the hook digs in You are mine now, my little Lynn   Like the others, she can’t last   So it’s time for me to take up the brush To the canvas, what’s the rush? Your face is so beautiful upon the white Jaw hanging slack, eyes without light I’m so happy seeing you with the others So many little daughters and some mothers Have fallen to my charms An exciting sensation of lovely harm   Job done, I toss the body to the dogs Out in the cold, out in the fog You’ll rest peacefully on my wall As you’re torn asunder in their jaws   I look upon my bloodstained hands Humble and true, I’m just a man Who likes to have a little fun And know, my darlings, it has just begun

10. Never Give Up If there’s one person who understood the value and importance of sticking with things, it was Sir Winston Churchill. Legend has it that when he once gave a speech at Harrow School, he simply stood up and said, ‘Never give in, never, never, never. Never give in.’ He knew those simple words make such a difference. Whatever your walk in life, the ability to dig in and not quit when it gets tough will not only set you apart, it will set you up for a more exciting, more fulfilled and more prosperous life. That dogged resolve, that never-say-die attitude, takes people to a place that few are prepared to explore. And it is here that life becomes most interesting. So, when you think you’ve exhausted all possibilities, look inwards and just remember one thing: you haven’t! You always retain the ultimate decision whether or not to hang on in there. No one can force you to quit. And luckily Churchill knew that this tenacity had power. ‘Never give in, never, never, never. Never give in.’ He didn’t need to say any more during that speech. They were the wisest few words he could ever have imparted to those pupils - and it was a lesson learnt the hard way, at the bleak coalface of war. Never give in, never, never, never. Never give in.

We usually camp out on digs. Smoked briskets and pulled chicken is a big step up from hot dogs and walking tacos.

They stepped into the gloom and peered into the rows of cages. Luxuriant, curly fur covered some rabbits, so thick it weighed the tips of the ears down. Other pens housed pink-eyed albinos, their jaws working furiously on bits of hay poking out of their mouths. Earth's biodiversity never ceased to amaze him. One of the rabbits was easily the size of a dog. The label on its cage read FLEMISH GIANT. Giant was right. Quentin leaned close to one to snap a photo for his nieces, and the rabbit thumped its back feet on the metal cage. Next to the rabbit, Alisha jumped a mile, her sneakers skidding on the concrete as she danced away. Not so eager for the bunnies, then. Fine by him. The next barn housed horses. In one of the stalls, a huge horse regarded them through wise dark eyes, like a sentient Narnian beast. A black mane fell across its face, and feathery white hair fanned out around its hooves. "A Budweiser horse!" She laughed, pointing to the placard. "Clydesdale.

A dog that will chew dried corn must be brave, a cat that will eat a frog will dig its face in water

Her momma finds her stray hair still left in the bathroom sink. Where she combed out her ratty do for what seemed like forever. Staring at herself in the mirror and pulling and teasing and shaping all that her stingy god would give her and nothing ever more. She’d contemplate her face there. Her flat wide nose and dark eyes and the combinations. She’d test her looks to see how she looked when she kissed. She'd extend her tongue as far out of her mouth as she could to check out how long it was and if she had anything extra special to offer. And what she'd have to do to serve it up. Momma grabs a kleenex and cleans around the deep rust stains in the sink. Does she throw away the old dry hairs crumbled in her hand under the tissue or keep such sad memories. Does she store them in a drawer or is she just being silly. Should she cherish this precious angel manna or try and just fucking get over it. Not give into it. Could she even possibly throw them away into the garbage without bawling uncontrollably. Can she possibly change the urge over from utter despair. When she sees her child getting brutally raped and hammered into, her baby's baby fingers digging into the rocks and dirt she can pass by daily. A dilapidated pit that crumbles in the middle of all their continuing lives and remains standing out of sheer old bull-headed promise and well organized planning. The forefathers of this neighborhood didn't count on the incredibly heavy weight of the public’s filthy laziness. My poor baby. My poor baby. She has to seek help. This nameless faceless mother. She can’t deal with this all alone. She can’t quit these imaginings from her old yellowed eyes and ears and off her cleaning washing working fingertips and the very constant edges of her smaller brain. The sickness that slipped thick repetitive blobs of useless male sperm and thin streams of rust washed metal stripping toxins bleeding down her daughter’s black throat may or may not be only one in a great number of difficult dreams and attempts but she just can’t find a polite perspective anymore. She can’t live like this any longer. She should have offered her child more than a dirty smudged mirror in a peeling and running bathroom when she got home from a dirty hot school every damn day. Where were the cops? And the doctors who were supposed to save her? And the fucking psychiatrists who could have done some trepanning into that evil dog's motherfucking bursting crack head before he was let out on the streets with his glass dick and his screaming pussy hunting cock. Dogs don't need help. They need to be put down.

We have not been able to ascertain from travelers why the owls have gone to live with these doggies, so we beg humbly to offer our own private opinion to the reader. We assume, then, that owls find it absolutely needful to have holes. Probably prairie-owls cannot dig holes for themselves. Having discovered, however, a race of little creatures that could, they very likely determined to take forcible possession of the holes made by them. Finding, no doubt, that when they did so the doggies were too timid to object, and discovering, moreover, that they were sweet, innocent little creatures, the owls resolved to take them into partnership, and so the thing was settled—that’s how it came about, no doubt of it!

if what Odin was doing hurt my man, I was ready and willing to move on to the just kill him plan. Grr. I am woman, hear me murder. Then dig a deep grave, toss an animal carcass on top to confuse any cadaver dogs, and plant a whole-ass field of endangered plant species to make it really damn hard to get permission to even search for, much less dig up, any bodies. Not that I'd thought about it much or anything.

Like a dog that won’t let go. They dig in, too, something deeper . . . dark. I can feel this calling for more, like a thirst. Like your temper when you know you’ve taken things too far, but you just can’t stop shouting.

I’ve always believed the adage that behind every fortune, if you dig deep enough, you’ll usually find a crime.

Little Timmy was digging a big hole in his backyard when the next-door neighbor looked over. “Why are you digging that huge hole?” he asked. “My ferret died,” Little Timmy replied, throwing another shovel full of dirt over his shoulder. “But why are you making the hole so big?” the neighbor asked. “Because your dog ate it,” Little Timmy replied.

Do not, then, go beyond yourself to seek for evil, and imagine that there is an original nature of wickedness. Each of us, let us acknowledge it, is the first author of his own vice.               Among the ordinary events of life, some come naturally, like old age and sickness; others by chance, like unforeseen occurrences, of which the origin is beyond ourselves, often sad, sometimes fortunate as, for instance, the discovery of a treasure when digging a well, or the meeting of a mad dog when going to the marketplace.               Others depend upon ourselves; such as ruling one’s passions, or not putting a bridle on one’s pleasures; the mastery of anger, or resistance against him who irritates us; truth telling or lying, the maintenance of a sweet and well regulated disposition, or of a mood fierce and swollen and exalted with pride. Here you are the master of your actions. Do not look for the guiding cause beyond yourself, but recognize that evil, rightly so called, has no other origin than our voluntary falls. If it were involuntary, and did not depend upon ourselves, the laws would not have so much terror for the guilty, and the tribunals would not be so pitiless when they condemn wretches according to the measure of their crimes.

... only a country to which people flock by the thousands from all corners of the world, has the right to advise others how to live. And the country from which so many others break out, across its frontiers, in tanks, or fly away in the homemade balloons or in the latest supersonic fighter, or escape across mine-fields and through machine-gun ambushes, or give the slip to packs of guard-dogs, that country certainly has no right to teach anyone anything - at least not for the time being. First of all, put your own house in order. Try to create there such a society that people will not dig underground passages in order to escape. Only then shall we earn the right to teach others. And not with our tanks, but with good advice and our own personal example. Observe, admire, then go and imitate our example, if it pleases you.

Pavel Menansi is dead,” Myron said. “Someone murdered him last night.” “The guy who molested Valerie Simpson?” “Yep.” “Gee, I’m so brokenhearted. I hope I don’t lose too much sleep.” Esperanza finally flicked a glance away from the screen. “Did you know he was on that party list you gave me?” “Yeah. You find any other interesting names?” She almost smiled. “One.” “Who?” “Think puppy dog,” Esperanza said. Myron shook his head. “Think Nike,” she continued. “Think Duane’s contact with Nike.” Myron froze. “Ned Tunwell?” “Correct answer.” Everyone in Myron’s life was a game show host. “Listed as E. Tunwell on the list. His real name is Edward. So I did a little digging. Guess who first signed Valerie Simpson to a Nike deal.” “Ned Tunwell.

Faced with the task of building a strong, cohesive corporate culture, many software companies have borrowed heavily from other organizations. Trilogy Software made headlines by sending its new recruits to a training “boot camp” for three months—with classes running from 8:00 a.m. to midnight, seven days a week, for the first month. Other companies, such as Scient, subject their new recruits to intense pep rallies, with constant repetition of the company slogan— “I’m on fire!” The popularity of these tactics has even led to some hand-wringing about the cult-like character of many business initiation rituals. One writer for Shift magazine captured the dilemma quite well in a brilliant article entitled “Why Your Fabulous Job Sucks.” “Work is a blast. Your colleagues are cool and they dig having your dog around. But something evil lures you to the company beer fridge. Ever wonder why you’re never home?” The observation here is quite astute. Creating a cool work environment, holding fabulous office parties with great bands, letting people wear whatever they want, setting up the LAN for multiplayer gaming— this may all seem like corporate generosity. But it also has a sound economic rationale. All these devices help to build among young employees allegiance, loyalty, and a willingness to work. The easiest way to persuade people to pull an all-nighter is to make being at the office more fun than being at home.

Adult Labrador Retrievers need thirty to sixty minutes of interactive exercise every morning and evening. You can’t just put a Lab in the yard while you’re cooking dinner because Labs tend not to exercise themselves—at least not in constructive ways. They may bark, chew, and dig, but most owners interpret that as unruly behavior, not exercise. Labs only get appropriate exercise when it is directed by a person, either by walking, hiking, swimming, or retrieving. Don’t think bad weather is an excuse to take the day off; the typical Lab thinks a hurricane only makes the outing more invigorating.

For you make me glad by your deeds, Lord; I sing for joy at what your hands have done. —Psalm 92:4 (NIV) My golden retriever, Millie, and I were walking home from the dog park, where Millie socialized for a bit but mostly sat sedately next to me on a bench while I read. At five, Millie doesn’t play as rambunctiously as she once did. She has a few select friends whom she will cavort with, but her inner puppy rarely emerges anymore. Except when we pass Clement Clarke Moore Park, which is teeming with children. There is nothing my dog loves more than kids. She gives me a plaintive look as if to ask, “Can we go inside and have some real fun?” There is a sign, though, that says the park is only for kids and their parents or guardians. No dogs allowed. I gently tug on her leash. She is reluctant to go, dawdling and glancing longingly over her shoulder, her tail drooping. Lord, I wonder, do dogs know that they break our hearts? “Sir? Excuse me, sir?” A woman stood at the park’s gate, pushing a baby in a stroller trailed by two older kids. She waved at me. “Can my kids say hello to your dog?” Before I could answer, Millie was on the move, prancing and pulling me back. First she said hello to the baby, giving it a kiss, her tail flying. Then she bumped up against the older kids, letting them hug and pet her, all the while with an ecstatic look on her face. Finally the woman maneuvered her kids back into the park. “Thanks,” she said, “they really wanted to see a dog today.” Thank You, Lord, for giving us what we need, even a maturing golden retriever whose inner puppy still wants to play. —Edward Grinnan Digging Deeper: Ps 84:11

She sees washing lines and women squatting by a stream, and the creaking ropes of a swing beneath a big tree, and a big dog, cowering from the taunts of the village boys, and a hawk-nosed man digging a ditch, shirt plastered to his back with sweat, and a veiled woman bent over a cooking fire.

Tommy asks where Carolyn is. "She's at Cindy's." "They live together now," Salvador added. "Didn’t they just start dating?" Tommy asked. Tiger answered, "Yeah... A couple of WEEKS ago." Unhappy about the news, Tommy objects to Carolyn moving in with Cindy. "That's how it happens in our WORLD," Salvador said. "One night you MEET, the next night you MOVE IN, and before you KNOW IT- you're digging a GRAVE IN THE BACK YARD FOR YOUR LOVER DURING A FREAK THUNDERSTORM." "THAT IS HIGHLY INAPPROPRIATE," Tommy said. After Salvador apologizes, Tommy asks how Raven's doing in prison. "Fucking GREAT." Tiger answered. "How do you THINK?" "No longer on suicide watch?" "NO... FUCK..." "Speaking of fucking. Is he still with BULL DOG?" "I REALLY don’t wanna TALK about RAVEN right now- AND WHO HE'S FUCKING. Talk about INAPPROPRIATE.

People are like dogs: once they start digging, they don't want to stop.

Clean Freaks Laundry Services. Yep, they’d let Tag design the signs. There was also a Master Paining Crew sign, Dig it Deep Plumbers. Little Bro Catering, and Adam’s Dog Grooming Services. But it looked like they were in the laundry business today.

And did I mention how much chicks dig guys with dogs? Go out with Tiny and they’ll flock.” “Val...” Ryder shoved a hand through his hair. “I play in one of the country’s most elite rugby teams. I’m on the tele. And billboards. In my underwear. I do okay with the chicks.

If you could go back to Trehaug, would you want to?” “What?” “Last night you said you couldn’t go home. I wondered if that was what you really wanted to do.” He followed her silently for a time, then added, “Because if it was, I’d find a way to take you there.” She stopped, turned and met his eyes. He seemed so earnest, and she suddenly felt so old. “Tats. If that was what I really wanted to do, I’d find a way to do it. If I left now…well. It all would have been for nothing, wouldn’t it? I’d just be Thymara, slinking back home, to live in my father’s house and abide by my mother’s rules.” He furrowed his brow. “ ‘Just Thymara.’ I don’t think that’s such a bad thing to be. What do you want to be?” That stumped her. “I don’t know. But I know that I want to be something more than just my father’s daughter. I want to prove myself somehow. That’s what I told my da when he asked why I wanted to go on this expedition. And it’s still true.” They’d come to the next trunk and Thymara started up it, digging her claws into the bark. The same claws that had condemned her to a half life in Trehaug might be her salvation out here, she thought. Tats came behind her, more slowly. When Thymara reached a likely branch, she paused and waited for him. When he caught up with her, his face was misted with sweat. “I thought only boys felt things like that.” “Like what?” “That we have to prove ourselves, so people would know we were men now, not boys any longer.” “Why wouldn’t a girl feel that?” Her eyes had caught a glint of yellow. She pointed toward it, and he nodded. At the end of this branch, out over the river, a parasitic vine garlanded the tree. The weight of hanging yellow fruit sagged both vine and branches. It swayed and she saw the flicker of wings. Birds were feeding there, a sure sign the fruit was ripe. “I don’t know if the branches will take your weight.” “I’ll find out.” “Your choice. But don’t follow me too closely.” “I’ll be careful. And I’ll stick to my own branch.” And he was. She ventured out onto the branch, and he transferred to one beside it. She crouched, digging her claws in as she ventured toward the vine. The farther she went, the more the branch sagged. “It’s a long drop to the river, and shallow down there,” Tats reminded her. “Like I don’t know,” she muttered. She glanced over at him. He was belly down on his branch, inching out doggedly. She could tell he was afraid. And she knew that he wouldn’t go back until she did. Proving himself. “Why wouldn’t a girl want to prove herself?” “Well.” He gave a grunt and inched himself along. She had to admire his nerve. He was heavier than she was, and his branch was already beginning to droop with his weight. “A girl doesn’t have to prove herself. No one expects it of her. She just has to, you know, be a girl.” “Get married, have babies,” she said. “Well. Something like that. Not right away, the having babies part. But, well, I guess no one expects a girl to, well—” “Do anything,” she supplied for him. She was as far out as she dared to go, but the fruit was barely within her reach. She reached out and took a cautious grip on a leaf of the vine. She pulled it slowly toward her, careful not to pull the leaf off. When it was near enough, she hooked the vine itself with her free hand. Carefully she scooted back on the parasitic vines had very tough and sturdy stemwork. She’d be able to pull it from here and pluck as much fruit as she wanted. Tats saw that, and she credited his intelligence that he stopped risking himself immediately and backed along the branch. He sighed slightly, watching her. “You know what I mean.” “I do. It didn’t used to be like that, with the early Traders. Women were among the toughest of the new settlers. They had to be, not only to live but to raise their children.

Lorena saw Bill and his family through the windows of their house.” Judith looked away. “She fell in love. For several nights, she listened to the family. During the day she would dig a hole in the woods and bury herself. At night, she’d watch. “Finally, she decided to act. She realized—even Lorena realized—Bill would never forgive her if she killed his children, so she waited until he came out in the middle of the night to find out why the dog wouldn’t stop barking. When Bill came out with his rifle, she crept up behind him and took him.

We all have great expectations of how our dogs should behave! But when our dogs develop a 'problem', do we ever ask ourselves if they are really just showing a part of normal dog behaviour which has only become a problem because the dog has to fit into our lifestyle? After all, if we didn't have all the trappings of modern civilisation like cars, houses, furniture, washing, gardens and other domesticated animals, our dogs couldn't chase cars, urinate in the house, pull washing off the line, dig holes and uproot our favourite plants or chase the neighbour's cat! So what can we do about it? Obviously, if we choose to share our life with one or more dogs, then the dogs' behaviour must be acceptable to us, our friends, neighbours and veterinarian. But this shouldn't be a one-way affair. It's not just up to the dog to modify its actions so that we can live together successfully, it is up to us to find out as much as we can about natural dog behaviour so that we can understand why our dog acts in certain ways. We will then be in a better position to modify our own behaviour and perhaps our surroundings, so that our dog finds it easier to live with us! After all, our dog probably thinks we are a problem when we don't take it for a walk. forget to feed it or leave it alone

And I don’t even know when my days start or end, heartsick babe in arms, waiting for an appointment with the cardiologist, waiting for her next breath, waiting to read some epiphany about attachment in the books that I’m burning the midnight oil to read. Is he tired of me? Maybe I’m tired of being me. Or maybe we’re both just really dog-tired. As painful as it is, it’s easier for me to bear witness to all of this, if it will spare even one other soul from bearing the weight of what happens next. Keep burying how you feel and you'll end up digging your relationships a pretty big grave. If you don’t speak your fears and questions aloud, they only grow louder in your soul.

Must poor old Homer father a lot of esoteric things? Is the Iliad to have four or five layers of meaning, one below the other, like a pile of sandwiches? This digging up of unsuspected meanings goes too far. It spoils a poem to be all the time spading it or boring through its imagery with a steam drill. These critics spend too much of their time underground, and they look pale and unwholesome when they come up. And it often happens that what they bring up is something they have dropped themselves. There are commentators who have been digging all their lives and come up with their own pocket handkerchief. They expect you to be glad about it. They think a poet, like a dog, no sooner happens on a good thing than he wants to bury it.

Like scruffy dogs, we were always burying things and digging them up, things of value to no one else but to which we attached a mystical importance, creating with them imagined and magical worlds.

Fucking in Cornwall The rain is thick and there’s half a rainbow over the damp beach; just put your hand up my top. I’ve walked around that local museum a hundred times and I’ve decided that the tiny, stuffed dog labelled: the smallest dog in the world, is a fake. Kiss me in a pasty shop with all the ovens on. I’ve held a warm, new egg on a farm and thought about fucking. I’ve held a tiny green crab in the palm of my hand. I’ve pulled my sleeve over my fingers and picked a nettle and held it to a boy’s throat like a sword. Unlace my shoes in that alley and lift me gently onto the bins. The bright morning sun is coming and coming and the holiday children have their yellow buckets ready. Do you remember what it felt like to dig a hole all day with a tiny spade just to watch it fill with sea? I want it like that – like water feeling its way over an edge. Like two bright-red anemones in a rock-pool, tentacles waving ecstatically. Like the gorse has caught fire across the moors and you are the ghost of a fisherman, who always hated land.

There is a certain place called Baaras, which produces a root of the same name. its color is like to that of flame, and towards the evenings it sends out a certain ray like lightning. It is not easily taken by such as would do it, but recedes from their hands, nor will yield itself to be taken quietly, until either the urine of a woman, or her menstrual blood, be poured upon it; nay, even then it is certain death to those that touch it, unless any one take and hang the root itself down from his hand, and so carry it away. It may also be taken another way, without danger, which is this: they dig a trench quite round about it, till the hidden part of the root be very small, they then tie a dog to it, and when the dog tries hard to follow him that tied him, this root is easily plucked up, but the dog dies immediately, as if it were instead of the man that would take the plant away; nor after this need any one be afraid of taking it into their hands. Yet, after all this pains in getting, it is only valuable on account of one virtue it hath, that if it be only brought to sick persons, it quickly drives away those called demons, which are no other than the spirits of the wicked, that enter into men that are alive and kill them, unless they can obtain some help against them.

By obligation Pamela read me “The Posting,” a warning to would-be owners that pure Border collies are essentially smarter than your average local elected official and slippier than Cool Hand Luke. They can jump six-foot fences, dig under walls, open doors and gates and in an emergency, hot-wire any automobile manufactured before 1998.

Writer Gina Trapani has pointed out three prime spots to turn off our brains and take a break from our connected lives: • Commute. A moving train or subway car is the perfect time to write, doodle, read, or just stare out the window. (If you commute by car, audiobooks are a great way to safely tune out.) A commute happens twice a day, and it nicely separates our work life from our home life. • Exercise. Using our body relaxes our mind, and when our mind gets relaxed, it opens up to having new thoughts. Jump on the treadmill and let your mind go. If you’re like me and you hate exercise, get a dog—dogs won’t let you get away with missing a day. • Nature. Go to a park. Take a hike. Dig in your garden. Get outside in the fresh air. Disconnect from anything and everything electronic. It’s very important to separate your work from the rest of your life.

Monday, November 29 Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. —Psalm 119:105 (ESV) Here you go!” my twenty-two-year-old son, John, said cheerfully, handing me a stack of hundred-dollar bills. Since he began working he has also begun paying me rent. He prefers to pay in cash, I think because it is concrete evidence he is contributing to the family. We both enjoy the monthly ritual. This has been a long, long time coming. There were the years in which John’s anxiety triggered rages, then the years when he was depressed and didn’t leave the house except to walk the dog or go to therapy. There were long stretches of time when there seemed to be no path forward. Through those I learned that my inability to see how life could improve meant only one thing: that I couldn’t see the way through. Oddly, in retrospect, I can’t see the path we took, either. I think that’s because John’s progress was so incremental, each step forward so infinitely small as to be almost unnoticeable. It may also have something to do with the fact that the “lamp to my feet” that lit my path was much like the handheld oil lamps of biblical times, casting only enough light to illuminate my next stumbling step. Yet now my son is gainfully employed, a taxpaying citizen. He does not earn a lot, but he works hard and his boss likes him. Someday, I think, he will probably be able to afford his own apartment. I’m not worried about when that happens. There are those who might argue John “should” be doing X or Y or Z. For me, those “shoulds” don’t matter: I’ve learned we can’t move forward from where we wish we were. We can only move forward from where we are now. Lord, let Your word illuminate my next step. And then the one after. And the one after that. —Julia Attaway Digging Deeper: Psalm 44:18

There are two ways to approach the role of new stepdad: You can go the friendly route—soft-pedal, build some trust. Don’t worry, I’m not trying to replace your dad. Or you can seize the opportunity to lead that totalitarian regime you’ve always dreamed of. I am your parent! You will respect me! Clyde opted for the latter. He immediately instated something he called Heavy Chore Day—aka, Saturday. Like Sunday Mass, attendance was mandatory but HCD lasted much longer. The whole family was up and working by 0800 and the workday lasted eight hours. Duties were segregated between men’s work (in the yard) and women’s work (in the house). If there were any holdover friends from a Friday night sleepover, they were welcome to stay, “but if you’re here, you need to contribute.” Our friends quickly learned to request early pickup times. Clyde’s vibe was all drill sergeant. “Police the lawn for anything that ain’t grass or dog shit. Shovel the dog shit. After you mow, edge the perimeter.” Half the jobs didn’t even make sense: “Move this pile of rocks to the other end of the yard. Dig a hole over here, cart the dirt in the wheelbarrow over there and make a dirt hill.

Iadmire dogs because they have life figured out. They are here to love and be loved, and that’s pretty much it. There are side jobs they attend to with gusto—eating, napping, barking at squirrels, maybe digging some holes in the yard—but loving others and being loved in return is the main gig, and they know it. They ignore most everything that gets us upset and remain laser-focused on why we’re all here. They’re role models, honestly, and they remind me of what’s important.

As I start up the steep hillside, I hear a man screaming. It’s Reck, shrieking in the darkness somewhere. Brag has him. “GOOD BOY!” I shout, scrambling up the dusty trail on all fours. But there’s no need to go any farther because Brag is bringing Reck to me. They appear in a surreal cloud of flash-light-beam illuminating dust. Brag is dragging the man by his lower leg, thrashing his head like a shark, digging his paws into the dusty earth.

Price Waterhouse boasted a great variety of clients, a mix of interesting start-ups and established companies, all selling everything imaginable-lumber, water, power, food. While auditing these companies, digging into their guts, taking them apart and putting them back together, I was also learning how they survived, or didn't. How they sold things, or didn't. How they got into trouble, how they got out. I took careful notes about what made companies tick, what made them fail.

Thus began perhaps France’s darkest hour. In desperation, in 1802 Rochambeau brought in packs of bloodhounds trained in Cuba to eat human flesh and unleashed them on the battlefield. But the dogs were “ignorant of color prejudice” and ate French soldiers as well. Rochambeau ordered slaves burned alive, drowned in sacks, or shot after digging their own graves. He became legendary for his brutality. But the slaves did not surrender, and by November of 1803 the rebel forces had driven what remained of Napoleon’s soldiers out of the country. Over 80 percent of the French army sent there died on the island.

He was the biggest fool pup I ever saw, chuck full of life and spirits, always going at racing speed, generally into mischief; breaking his neck nearly over some small matter; breaking his heart if his master did not notice him, chewing up clothing, hats, and boots, digging up garden stuff that he could not eat, mistaking every leg of every chair and table for a lamp-post, going direct from wallow in the pigstye to frolic in the baby’s cradle, getting kicked in the ribs by horses and tossed by cows, but still the same hilarious, rollicking, endlessly good-natured, energetic fool pup, and given by common consent the fit and lasting name of “Silly Billy.

Beside my chair, our dog’s paws drag at the sand; these are the first holes she has ever dug, and now digging is her vocation. My kids giggle at her industriousness, though it’s clear that they are ready to no longer be sandy, to return to the house for showers and games and ice cream. As they begin rolling up their towels, folding up their chairs, I pull my phone out of my pocket and search for a poem I saved long ago: “What the Living Do,” by Marie Howe. I first encountered it when I was twenty-two, an age when I’d barely known grief, and was so moved by Howe’s words that I kept the poem to reread and eventually bought all of her books. Addressed to her brother John, who died of complications from AIDS, “What the Living Do” has always seemed to me a perfect expression of love, and loss, and what it means to survive. It’s been a few years since I last thought of it, but now that I need it, it’s waiting for me, as the best poems do.

Comedy is all about digging a fucking hole... And digging yourself up out of this hole..." - Artie Lange P.S.: Lesson Learn