每周令我开心的五件事（01/20/2020）

• 听完了“Alexander Hamilton"，虽然听的过程中有艰难时刻，因为大段篇幅讲政治，实在也是考验我的耐心。然后就把音乐剧的歌找出来听，看看别人对这本书的高度评价，慢慢地也就听完了。虽然有的章节是囫囵吞枣的。

• 开始看"The fiddle in the Subway"，我觉得我是迷上这个作者了，写的每篇文章都非常好，叙事，描写和对话恰到好处。

• 听完了老金的"On Writing"，他自己朗读的。是他讲的，一本好的小说要有叙事，描写和对话。自己要一直带着工具箱，里面有词汇和语法。

• 应小人的要求，做了一块巨大的cookie，然后她就掰啊掰啊。
  
  
  
  

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• 收到Kevin的短信，表示对饺子味道的肯定。我也说了，希望小人能stretch自己，跳出自己的舒适区，做到真正的学习。他说会的。自从停了小提琴以来，她的专注力似乎是得到了提高。希望她能很快地或者尽量多地进入FLOW的阶段。

2020的第一个长周末

周六

她有两个生日聚会要去。11点50的样子送她去第一个聚会，开始下雪。车开得很慢。中午我就不停地吃零食，他去考试，下午我一个人在家，外面下雪，舒服极了。

上午我给她做了一份沙拉：菠菜，毛豆和brussel sprout及三文鱼和鸡蛋。给他煎了两个鸡蛋，因为他要考试。结果他走得慌慌张张地。果然回来的时候没有买mocha cake。其实我也不是要cake，便宜一点的面包也可以的。人多么地自私。我大笑三声。

下午我做了南瓜蛋糕和烧卖。

晚上她去吃火锅。我切了corn beef，热了热wrap。我自己吃的稀饭，牛油果。

晚上我没有看书，一口气把mind hunter的第二季看完了。来了例假。人懒得动。

周日

上午给她煎了个鸡蛋。

给她带的饭盒跟周六的相似。

中午给他做了炸酱面。我自己稀饭和bagel。讲到那个麻球，他还真的把麻球那到他那边去。想到感情真的是破裂了。没有办法缝合。

下午做了cookie，coconut flour plus coca powder plus a little flex seed meal。口感不错。反正不甜。

晚上我做了红烧肉，青菜和萝卜汤。看着她吃饭还是很勉强。

周一

上午给她煎鸡蛋。

午饭吃的是烤鱼，我放了好多蔬菜。鱼一下子就被瓜分光了。蔬菜里第一次尝试了turnip，还不错，可以代替土豆。

她下午继续画画。

晚上吃的豆腐wateress汤加饺子，给Kevin带了一点，不知道符不符合他的口味。吃饭的时候我想说说话，就把下午看的那本书里说了出来。说到那个电话销售的故事。他的理解是，男人都是好人，不好意思得罪人，而女的都是穷凶极恶的。

本来我还是有幻想，期盼能够复原，毕竟是有血缘关系的家庭。现在我放弃了。我觉得很多东西不能勉强。因为没有必要。不是有了血缘关系，就一定能做到相亲相爱的。

日子飞逝。转眼就是一月20号了。看到中国又开始又疫情，并且在我写的这个当，已经在美国发现了第一列。

每周令我开心的五件事（01/13/2020）

• 周一一早他就写来非常nasty的微信，我努力让自己不受此影响，读那篇长文，里面说到，"Perhaps we could all be a little more like Jo Camerson: joyful, compassionate, unperturbed by all the nasty, roiling feelings that turn us, from time to time, into goblins."
• 顺藤摸瓜，找到Twenty-five books That Shaped America，在豆瓣里做了两个豆列，看到最后这么一段话，很喜欢：Find that gold. Go mine it, pan for it, seek it out. Embrace what you find. Listen to what it tells you. Learn its lessons. Set your own standard for excellence and greatness. Don't take someone else's word for it. Not even mine. Me? I'll leave you to it. I've got a book to read."
• 周五去查经的时候，晓滨看到我特别高兴，我很感动。
• 周六预报下雪，在清冷的20多度的周六早上，我坚持跑了5英里，感觉脚是最冷的。
• 周六下午他们都不在家，我一个人做了狗狗的cookie和南瓜蛋糕，在雪里开车接送聪去她朋友的生日会，安全到家。

这一周事实上很难熬，因为吃饭都是闷头吃饭的。周三晚上我找话题说了几句。觉得没有啥意思，周四晚上他就说他的弟弟迟早会来美国念书的。我就到楼下想问问清楚，究竟是立刻马上来呢还是有个时间期限。他在家工作，给所有人都带来了情绪上的不快，周日中午吃饭的时候，说他2月之后就基本上住在外面了。周末回来。

The dog poem that made Johnny Carson cry

He never came to me when I would call

Unless I had a tennis ball,

Or he felt like it,

But mostly he didn't come at all.

When he was young

He never learned to heel

Or sit or stay,

He did things his way.

Discipline was not his bag

But when you were with him things sure didn't drag.

He'd dig up a rosebush just to spite me,

And when I'd grab him, he'd turn and bite me.

He bit lots of folks from day to day,

The delivery boy was his favorite prey.

The gas man wouldn't read our meter,

He said we owned a real man-eater.

He set the house on fire

But the story's long to tell.

Suffice it to say that he survived

And the house survived as well.

On the evening walks, and Gloria took him,

He was always first out the door.

The Old One and I brought up the rear

Because our bones were sore.

He would charge up the street with Mom hanging on,

What a beautiful pair they were!

And if it was still light and the tourists were out,

They created a bit of a stir.

But every once in a while, he would stop in his tracks

And with a frown on his face look around.

It was just to make sure that the Old One was there

And would follow him where he was bound.

We are early-to-bedders at our house -- I guess I'm the first to retire.

And as I'd leave the room he'd look at me

And get up from his place by the fire.

He knew where the tennis balls were upstairs,

And I'd give him one for a while.

He would push it under the bed with his nose

And I'd fish it out with a smile.

And before very long He'd tire of the ball

And be asleep in his corner In no time at all.

And there were nights when I'd feel him Climb upon our bed

And lie between us,

And I'd pat his head.

And there were nights when I'd feel this stare

And I'd wake up and he'd be sitting there

And I reach out my hand and stroke his hair.

And sometimes I'd feel him sigh and I think I know the reason why.

He would wake up at night

And he would have this fear

Of the dark, of life, of lots of things,

And he'd be glad to have me near.

And now he's dead.

And there are nights when I think I feel him

Climb upon our bed and lie between us,

And I pat his head.

And there are nights when I think I feel that stare

And I reach out my hand to stroke his hair,

But he's not there.

Oh, how I wish that wasn't so,

I'll always love a dog named Beau.

每周令我开心的五件事（01/06/2020）

1/6/2020

• 读了一篇微信文，其中说到要在5个方面保护好，提升好自己：(Live, Love and Learn)

1. 身体
2. 认知：技能，只是和思维模式
3. 情绪情感：深呼吸；创造心流；活在当下
4. 关系/社交：接受多元文化，提高同理心，主动扩展/主动进攻，互惠原则
5. 精神上

• 周末天气太宜人了，就这件事本身就非常令人开心
• 继续跑步周末的两个早晨，周日早晨明显感到脚步沉重很多。
• 跟聪一起去了纽约，看了我们都很喜欢的作者的小型展览（那一个多小时真是感觉时间流逝又停滞的感觉）

         回来之后，我周一给她写了一段短信：
I just want to take a moment to say the NYC trip last Saturday was really great. It definitely tops my weekly 5 things making me happy last week. The one hour spent in the exhibition of Salinger seemed so surreal as I feel that I was totally emerged myself in the history with an intelligent and curious mind. The fact that we could not take phtots forced me to read the words more diligently and be mindful at (that) moment and be present. 

I would always treasure the moments we tried to decode Keith Haring's drawing, the moment we took the picture of the crowds hovering over "Starry, Starry Night", the confusion we had looking at the stripes on the red board and so much more.

I am also happy that NYPL has given you the inspiration and re-motivated you to be a writer. I thank NYPL for that. And I do appreciate all libraries for all the books and histories.

So I don't think I should be too greedy to ask you to meet my standards in terms of eating food "normally". I think my alertness is just switched on automatically.

Just want to share some thoughts.

• 和聪一起在图书馆里呆了半个小时，在她去上数学课之前。她的数学测验有了进步。在去纽约的大巴上问她究竟是什么影响了她，促进了她，是否能够复制？

每周令我开心的五件事（12/30/2019）

12/30

一过节就给疏忽了。好在节日里也记录点东西。

• 又恢复了晨跑，我不给自己压力，有机会就跑。能跑5英里就跑5英里，假期了跑了四次。这个周六跑了一次。
• 参加了团契的聚会，一起迎来下一个十年。没有想到比尔愿意去团契的聚会。
• 参加了周五的团契，碰到了晓岚，聊了两句，觉得实际上自己现在经历的苦，别人都节能经历过。
• 看了《小妇人》电影，和团契的姐妹们。很喜欢电影的拍摄，虽然并不是非常欣赏它稍稍夸装的成分。
• 在"Belonging"的那本书里找到了很多的共鸣，居然还有热水袋。

The Difference Between Amateurs and Professionals

Why is it that some people seem to be hugely successful and do so much, while the vast majority of us struggle to tread water?

The answer is complicated and likely multifaceted.

One aspect is mindset—specifically, the difference between amateurs and professionals.

Most of us are just amateurs.

What’s the difference? Actually, there are many differences:

• Amateurs stop when they achieve something. Professionals understand that the initial achievement is just the beginning.
• Amateurs have a goal. Professionals have a process.
• Amateurs think they are good at everything. Professionals understand their circles of competence.
• Amateurs see feedback and coaching as someone criticizing them as a person. Professionals know they have weak spots and seek out thoughtful criticism.
• Amateurs value isolated performance. Think about the receiver who catches the ball once on a difficult throw. Professionals value consistency. Can I catch the ball in the same situation 9 times out of 10?
• Amateurs give up at the first sign of trouble and assume they’re failures. Professionals see failure as part of the path to growth and mastery.
• Amateurs don’t have any idea what improves the odds of achieving good outcomes. Professionals do.
• Amateurs show up to practice to have fun. Professionals realize that what happens in practice happens in games.
• Amateurs focus on identifying their weaknesses and improving them. Professionals focus on their strengths and on finding people who are strong where they are weak.
• Amateurs think knowledge is power. Professionals pass on wisdom and advice.
• Amateurs focus on being right. Professionals focus on getting the best outcome.
• Amateurs focus on first-level thinking. Professionals focus on second-order thinking.
• Amateurs think good outcomes are the result of their brilliance. Professionals understand when good outcomes are the result of luck.
• Amateurs focus on the short term. Professionals focus on the long term.
• Amateurs focus on tearing other people down. Professionals focus on making everyone better.
• Amateurs make decisions in committees so there is no one person responsible if things go wrong. Professionals make decisions as individuals and accept responsibility.
• Amateurs blame others. Professionals accept responsibility.
• Amateurs show up inconsistently. Professionals show up every day.
• Amateurs go faster. Professionals go further.
• Amateurs go with the first idea that comes into their head. Professionals realize the first idea is rarely the best idea.
• Amateurs think in ways that can’t be invalidated. Professionals don’t.
• Amateurs think in absolutes. Professionals think in probabilities.
• Amateurs think the probability of them having the best idea is high. Professionals know the probability of that is low.
• Amateurs think reality is what they want to see. Professionals know reality is what’s true.
• Amateurs think disagreements are threats. Professionals see them as an opportunity to learn.

There are a host of other differences, but they can effectively be boiled down to two things: fear and reality.

Amateurs believe that the world should work the way they want it to. Professionals realize that they have to work with the world as they find it. Amateurs are scared — scared to be vulnerable and honest with themselves. Professionals feel like they are capable of handling almost anything.

Luck aside, which approach do you think is going to yield better results?

Food for Thought:

• In what circumstances do you find yourself behaving like an amateur instead of as a professional?
• What’s holding you back? Are you hanging around people who are amateurs when you should be hanging around professionals?

赛博学习法（转）

赛博学习法是一种动态的学习过程，在这个过程中你（不是你的老师，也不是某些教科书的作者）会掌握控制权，成为你自己教育的“引航员”。

这种方法的第一步是对话：你会针对正在学习的材料，提出一系列具体的问题。慢慢地，通过信息的整理和再整理，以及在新材料与你学过的知识之间建立新的联系，你将真正理解材料。

赛博学习法：十二个问题

当尖子生们在学习某一个科目的时候，不管有意无意，他们都会问同样的十二个问题。这些问题是赛博学习法的基础。接下来，我们将花整整十二个章节的时间，讨论每一个问题。

问题1：我阅读这篇文章的目的是什么？

在阅读之前，你必须知道为什么要阅读，这样你在阅读的过程中，就会知道自己应该留心什么。

问题2：关于这个话题，我已经知道些什么？

在你看完标题但还没有开始阅读正文之前，作为热身，你应该花几分钟的时间快速写下关于对应话题所有你知道的事情。

问题3：这篇文章的主要内容是什么？

开始仔细阅读之前，你需要通过略读文章来知道文章的要点梗概。

问题4：作者接下来要说什么？

你可以尝试一边阅读，一边预测作者接下来要讲些什么内容，让自己先他（或她）一步。

问题5：“专业问题”是什么？

每一个科目都会有一套自己的问题，必须牢记这些问题。

问题6：针对这些信息，我能提出什么问题？

当你在阅读的时候，你必须意识到你能从材料中提炼出什么问题。

问题7：这篇文章里哪些是重要信息？

你必须分辨哪些信息是重要的，值得你把它们写进你的笔记里面，主要的判断依据是你的阅读目的（问题1）。 问题8：针对这些信息，我要如何进行改述和总结？

在你选择、记录重要信息的过程中，你应该用你自己的话，尽可能简短地来表达作者的意思。

问题9：我应该如何组织这些信息？

记完笔记之后，仔细看看你的笔记，看看文章是如何组织信息的，同时，也想想你是否能够创造合理的新信息组或者信息关联。

问题10：我如何用图表来说明这些信息？

再一次通读笔记，你现在的目标应该是将尽可能多地将信息转化成符号或者图片。

问题11：对我而言，这些信息的记忆点是什么？

现在你已经对文章的信息进行了处理，而且也开始理解这些信息，你需要一些技巧来帮助你，确保你能够记住考试所需要的信息。

问题12：这些信息如何才能与我已知的知识结合起来？

当你阅读笔记时，你应该看看新信息怎样才能够与你已经知道的知识结合起来——不是只关于这个话题，而是关于其他所有方面。

相关要点：

● 根据你的目的，有一些问题可能比其他问题重要。

● 不管你是从教科书或者其他阅读材料中学习，还是在教室里通过老师学习，这十二个问题都能发挥作用。

● 问问题的顺序并不是绝对的。有些问题其实是有重合的，有些问题你可以一起提出来，还有些问题你会不止一次问到。

● 准备一些草稿纸。你的大脑信息处理能力其实是有限的，所以你需要将你的想法写下来。

● 不管是十二个赛博学习问题，还是你提出的其他问题，这些问题并不是同等重要的。根据你正在学的材料以及你的阅读目的，有些问题你可以直接跳过，而有些问题必须仔细研究回答。

● 有时候你并不能回答自己提出的问题；但重要的是你尝试回答的过程。

● 十二个赛博学习问题的顺序只是大致顺序；有些重复，有些甚至可以合并。当你掌握了问问题的过程之后，同时对信息进行改述（问题8）、组织（问题9）、图表化（问题10）以及记忆点的生成（问题11），对你来说其实是一件很容易的事。

● 你可能需要根据具体科目来调整十二个赛博学习问题。

● 尽管十二个赛博学习问题构成了一个完整的学习过程，但你仍需不断重复问这些问题。在同一份材料中，你提问赛博学习问题的次数并没有限制，就如同下面这个图表所展示的一样，赛博学习法是一个动态的、持续进行的过程。

Something About Harry: Gene Weingarten on Why Old Dogs Are the Best Dogs

Not long before his death, Harry and I headed out for a walk that proved eventful. He was nearly 13, old for a big dog. Walks were no longer the slap-happy Iditarods of his youth, frenzies of purposeless pulling in which we would cast madly off in all directions, fighting for command. Nor were they the exuberant archaeological expeditions of his middle years, when every other tree or hydrant or blade of grass held tantalizing secrets about his neighbors. In his old age, Harry had transformed his walk into a simple process of elimination -- a dutiful, utilitarian, head-down trudge. When finished, he would shuffle home to his ratty old bed, which graced our living room because Harry could no longer ascend the stairs. 

On these walks, Harry seemed oblivious to his surroundings, absorbed in the arduous responsibility of placing foot before foot before foot before foot. But this time, on the edge of a small urban park, he stopped to watch something. A man was throwing a Frisbee to his dog. The dog, about Harry's size, was tracking the flight expertly, as Harry had once done, anticipating hooks and slices by watching the pitch and roll and yaw of the disc, as Harry had done, then catching it with a joyful, punctuating leap, as Harry had once done, too.

Improbably, unprecedentedly, Harry sat. For 10 minutes, he watched the fling and catch, fling and catch, his face contented, his eyes alight, his tail a-twitch. Our walk home was almost . . . jaunty.

Some years ago, the Style section invited readers to come up with a midlife list of goals for an underachiever. The first-runner-up prize went to:

"Win the admiration of my dog."

It's no big deal to love a dog; they make it so easy for you. They find you brilliant, even if you are a witling. You fascinate them, even if you are as dull as a butter knife. They are fond of you, even if you are a genocidal maniac. Hitler loved his dogs, and they loved him.

Consider the wagging tail, the most basic semaphore in dog/human communication. When offered in greeting, it is a dog's way of telling you he is pleased with your company. It cannot be faked. It is hardwired, heart to tail, and its purpose is to make you happy. How many millions of dogs and how many millions of people had to love one another over how many millennia for that trait to have survived?

As they age, dogs change, always for the better. Puppies are incomparably cute and incomparably entertaining, and, best of all, they smell exactly like puppies. At middle age, a dog has settled into the knuckleheaded matrix of behavior we find so appealing -- his unquestioning loyalty, his irrepressible willingness to please, his infectious happiness. His unequivocal love. But it is not until a dog gets old that his most important virtues ripen and coalesce. 

Old dogs can be cloudy-eyed and grouchy, gray of muzzle, graceless of gait, odd of habit, hard of hearing, pimply, wheezy, lazy and lumpy. But to anyone who has ever known an old dog, these things are of little consequence. Old dogs are vulnerable. They show exorbitant gratitude and limitless trust. They are without artifice. They are funny in new and unexpected ways. But, above all, they seem at peace. This last quality is almost indefinable; if you want to play it safe, you can call it serenity. I call it wisdom.

Kafka wrote that the meaning of life is that it ends. He meant that our lives are shaped and shaded by the existential terror of knowing that all is finite. This anxiety informs poetry, literature, the monuments we build, the wars we wage, the ways we love and hate and procreate — all of it. 

Kafka was talking, of course, about people. Among animals, only humans are said to be self-aware enough to comprehend the passage of time and the grim truth of mortality. How then, to explain old Harry at the edge of that park, gray and lame, just days from the end, experiencing what can only be called wistfulness and nostalgia? 

I have lived with eight dogs, watched six of them grow old and infirm with grace and dignity, and die with what seemed to be acceptance. I have seen old dogs grieve at the loss of their friends. I have come to believe that as they age, dogs comprehend the passage of time, and, if not the inevitability of death, certainly the relentlessness of the onset of their frailties. They understand that what's gone is gone.

What dogs do not have is an abstract sense of fear, or a feeling of injustice or entitlement. They do not see themselves, as we do, as tragic heroes, battling ceaselessly against the merciless onslaught of time. Unlike us, old dogs lack the audacity to mythologize their lives. You've got to love them for that.

At the pet store, we chose Harry over two other puppies because, when wrestling with my children in the get-acquainted enclosure, Harry drew the most blood. We wanted a feisty pup, and we got one.

It is instructive to watch what happens in a tug of war between a child and a young dog who is equally pigheaded, but stronger. Neither gives an inch, which means that, over dozens of days, the child is dragged hundreds of feet on his behind.

The product of a Kansas puppy mill, son of a bitch named Taffy Sioux, Harry had been sold to us as a yellow Labrador retriever. I suppose it was technically true, but only in the sense that Tic Tacs are technically "food." Harry's lineage was suspect. He wasn't the square-headed, shiny, elegant type of Labrador you can envision in the wilds of Canada hunting for ducks. He was the shape of a baked potato, with the color and luster of an interoffice envelope. You could envision him in the wilds of suburban Toledo, hunting for nuggets of dried food in a carpet.

His full name was Harry S Truman, and once he'd reached middle age, he had indeed developed the unassuming soul of a haberdasher. We sometimes called him Tru, which fit his loyalty but was in other ways a misnomer: Harry was a bit of an eccentric, a few bubbles off plumb. Though he had never experienced an electrical shock, whenever he encountered a wire on the floor — say, a power cord leading from a laptop to a wall socket — Harry would stop and refuse to proceed. To him, this barrier was as impassable as the Himalayas. He'd stand there, waiting for someone to move it. 

Also, he was afraid of wind.

Harry was not the smartest dog I'd ever owned, but he was not the stupidest, either. That distinction will always belong to Augie, a sweet female collie who was not, to put it tactfully, Lassie.

Augie was infused with love for my then-toddler daughter and worshipfully watched her at play. At the swing set in our backyard. Augie positioned herself in such a manner that, on every upswing, my daughter's shoes would whack her in the face. Clearly the dog knew this was not ideal, but she had no idea how to make the punishment stop.

When my wife went into a convenience store one day, she tied Augie to a large empty metal garbage can outside. When she came out, Augie was gone. My wife found her by following a trail of people doubled over in laughter, having witnessed the spectacle of a big dog running for her life, being pursued by a loud, booming, killer garbage can. The can chased her until she dropped from exhaustion. 

Augie the collie lived to be 13 without ever, so far as I could see, formulating a coherent thought.

Harry was a lot smarter. He lacked the wiliness and cunning of some dogs, I did watch one day as he figured out a basic principle of physics. He was playing with a water bottle in our back yard — it was one of those five-gallon cylindrical plastic jugs from the top of a water cooler. At one point, it rolled down a hill, which surprised and delighted him. He retrieved it, brought it back up and tried to make it go down again. It wouldn't. I watched him nudge it around until he discovered that for the bottle to roll, its long axis had to be perpendicular to the slope of the hill. You could see the understanding dawn on his face; it was Archimedes in his bath, Helen Keller at the water spigot.

That was probably the intellectual achievement of Harry's life, tarnished only slightly by the fact that he spent the next two hours insipidly entranced, rolling the bottle down and hauling it back up. He did not come inside until it grew too dark for him to see.

That was probably the intellectual achievement of Harry's life, tarnished only slightly by the fact that he spent the next two hours insipidly entranced, rolling that bottle down and hauling it back up. He did not come inside until it grew too dark for him to see.

I think one problem with trying to assess the intelligence of a dog is that, with typical human chauvinism, we insist on applying our logic to their brains. This is a mistake.

Take Harry Truman and his relationship to the letter carrier. At mailtime, our haberdasher discovered within him the dark capacity to annihilate a city. He'd run to the front door, growling and snarling, and yank the mail in through the slot with his teeth in an effort to reach the beast beyond, and, if possible, kill him. To us, this seemed not only a ridiculous expenditure of energy and a futile spasm of hatred, but, above all, a lesson forever unlearned.

But think about harry's logic. Over nearly thirteen years, on approximately four thousand occasions, he had confronted a stranger who was attempting to gain entrance to our home. Each time, because of Harry's intelligence, the would-be evildoer was driven away. What's not to understand, or admire?

I believe I know exactly when Harry became an old dog. He was about 9 years old. It happened at 10:15 on the evening of June 21, 2001, the day my family moved from the suburbs to the city. The move took longer than we'd anticipated. Inexcusably, Harry had been left alone in the vacated house — eerie, echoing, empty of furniture and of all belongings except Harry and his bed — for eight hours. When I arrived to pick him up, he was beyond frantic.

He met me at the door and embraced me around the waist in a way that is not immediately reconcilable with the musculature and skeleton of a dog's front legs. I could not extricate myself from his grasp. We walked out of that house like a slow-dancing couple, and Harry did not let go until I opened the car door.

He wasn't barking at me in reprimand, as he once might have done. He hadn't fouled the house in spite. That night, Harry was simply scared and vulnerable, impossibly sweet and needy and grateful. He had lost something of himself, but he had gained something more touching and more valuable. He had entered old age.

Some people who seem unmoved by the deaths of tens of thousands through war or natural disaster will nonetheless summon outrage over the mistreatment of animals, and they will grieve inconsolably over the loss of the family dog. People who find this behavior distasteful are often the ones without pets. It is hard to understand, in the abstract, the degree to which a companion animal, particularly after a long life, becomes a part of you. 

I believe I've figured out what this is all about. It is not as noble as I'd like it to be, but it is not anything of which to be ashamed, either.

In our dogs, we see ourselves. Dogs exhibit almost all of our emotions; if you think a dog cannot register envy or pity or pride or melancholia, you have never lived with one for any length of time. What dogs lack is our ability to dissimulate. They wear their emotions nakedly, and so, in watching them, we see ourselves as we would be if we were stripped of posture and pretense. Their innocence is enormously appealing. 

When we watch a dog progress from puppyhood to old age, we are watching our own lives in microcosm. Our dogs become old, frail, crotchety and vulnerable, just as Grandma did, just as we surely will, come the day. When we grieve for them, we grieve for ourselves.

The meaning of life is that it ends.




In the year after our move, Harry began to age visibly, and he did it the way most dogs do. First his muzzle began to whiten, and then the white slowly crept backward to swallow his entire head. Pink nose, white head, tan flanks — he looked like a stubby kitchen match. As he became more sedentary, he thickened a bit, too.

I remember reading an article once about people who raised dogs for food in Asia. A dog rancher was indignantly defending his profession, saying that he used only "basic yellow dogs." As I looked down at Harry, asleep as usual, all I could think of was: meat.

But Harry's physical decline was accompanied by what I will call, at the risk of ridicule, a spiritual awakening. 

A dog's greatest intelligence is said to be his innate ability to anticipate and comprehend human feelings and actions. It's supposedly a Darwinian adaptation — dogs need our alliance in order to survive. In earlier years, Harry had never shown any particular gift for empathy, but as the breadth of his interests dwindled, and his world contracted, he seemed to watch us more closely. 

My wife, who is a lawyer, also acts in community theater. One day, she was in the house rehearsing a monologue for an upcoming audition. The lines were from Marsha Norman's two-person play "'Night, Mother," about a housewife who is attempting to talk her adult daughter out of suicide. Thelma is a weak and bewildered woman trying to change her daughter's mind while coming to terms with her own failings as a mother and with her paralyzing fear of being left alone. Her lines are excruciating.

My wife had to stop in mid-monologue. Harry was too distraught. He could understand not one word she was saying, but he figured out that Mom was as sad as he'd ever seen her. He was whimpering, pawing at her knee, licking her hand, trying as best he could to make things better. You don't need a brain to have a heart.

As a young dog, Harry petitioned for affection the way young dogs do aggressively, barreling in headfirst for a pat or a chunk under the chin. But in these later years he perfected what I call the old dog's hug. Old dogs back up to you, leaning in with an insistent wiggle until they cannot be ignored, coaxing a knead on the behind. I've never figured out what that is all about, but I've come to love it.

Harry was always miserably frightened of thunderstorms, but as he aged and his hearing waned, as if in a benign collusion of natural forces, this terror subsided. He became a calmer dog in general, if a far more eccentric one.

On walks, he would no longer bother to scout and circle for a place to relieve himself. He would simply do it in mid-plod, like a horse, leaving the difficult logistics of drive-by cleanup to me. Sometimes, while crossing a busy street, with cars whizzing by, he would plop down to scratch his ear. Sometimes, he would forget where he was and why he was there. To the amusement of passersby, I would have to hunker down beside him and say, "Harry, we're on a walk, and we're going home now. Home is this way, okay?" 

On these dutiful walks, Harry ignored almost everything he passed. The most notable exception was an old, barrel-chested female pit bull named Honey, whom he loved. This was surprising, both because other dogs had long ago ceased to interest Harry at all, and because even back when they did, Harry's tastes were for the guys. Though he was neutered, Harry's sexual preference was pretty evident.

But when we met Honey on walks, Harry perked up. Honey was younger by five years and heartier by a mile, but she liked Harry and slowed her gait when he was around. They waddled together for blocks, eyes forward, hardly interacting but content in each other's company. Harry reminded me of an old gay man who, at the end of his life, returns to his wife to end their time together on a porch swing under an embroidered lap shawl. I will forever be grateful to Honey for sweetening Harry's last days. Here is the first portrait in this book.

I work mostly at home, which means that during the weekdays Harry and I shared an otherwise empty house. Mostly, he slept; mostly I wrote and paced, and my pacing often took me past his lump on the floor. I would always mutter, almost unconsciously, "Hey, Harry," and he would always respond in the same fashion: His body would move not at all, but his tail would thud, exactly once, against the floor.

I didn't really know how important that ritual was until there was no thud anymore.




One night at 3 a.m., a smoke detector in our house began to bleep in that water-torture way, signaling that it needed a new battery. It was mildly annoying, but to Harry it appeared to be a sign of the Apocalypse. He began pacing and panting, and actually tried climbing our stairwell to hide under our bed. His rheumy legs buckled; we caught him before he fell.

So I mounted a ladder, disconnected the bleeping thing, and took out the spent battery. Then my wife spent two hours talking Harry down into a semi-sane condition. She slept on the floor by his side.

It turned out to be Harry's final eccentricity. When he awoke the next morning, he could no longer use his hind legs at all, and we carried him off to the vet for the last time. 

Harry had timed his departure thoughtfully. Had he waited a few more hours, my daughter would have been unable to hug him and tell him what a good boy he had been. She had known and loved Harry more than half of her life, and I believe this was not incidental to her choice of career. She was leaving, that next morning, for her first day of veterinary school.

For nearly a week after Harry's death, my wife and I shared a knowledge that we left unspoken, even to each other. It was simply too heart-wrenching to say out loud. As he lay on the gurney and the doctor began to push the poison into his vein, Harry had lifted up his head and kissed us goodbye.