fresh.simple.true.

I have a confession to make.

I haven’t been entirely truthful. With myself, I mean. What I’ve said to all of you, about aging, about weight, about embracing all of that and rocking it and loving it, all that has been true. But when I’ve said those things to myself, I’ve lied.

Until now.

I weigh 150 pounds. I weighed myself this morning, and have been in a fit all day over it. That number; that fucking number–it’s been driving me batSHIT! But just hours later, I think I’ve worked it out. (I’m a Virgo.) Try to follow me, because this is important for me to say, and although I could fill books with this stuff, I’ll try to keep it manageable.

When I was 13, I went out with a friend one night and hung around the movie theater. Some boys arrived; they were kind of tough boys, not like the ones I knew in my neighborhood. They all wanted to get with (and in 1973, that meant they wanted to hug her or kiss her) my friend, and nobody wanted to “get with” me.

“How the hell can that be?” I remember thinking to myself. “She’s not as pretty as I am; she’s kind of chubby; she’s got acne scars and frizzy hair. Why would someone choose her over me?”

I never forgot that night, and until recently, I never did understand why they chose my friend over me. It’s funny what we take away from our childhood experiences, isn’t it? My friend, my frizzy-haired, acne-scarred, kinda plumpy friend owned her body. You could just tell by looking at her. She was completely comfortable in her skin–in her flesh–and I, though petite next to her, was still decades away from getting the pink slip on my own body.

I took these photos today to show my husband just how much weight I’ve gained in the past few years. Thirty pounds. Thirty fucking pounds. Some of it is age; some of it is the meds I have to take for my back problems; some of it is the hormones I have to take so I can fucking sleep at night and not go apeshit on people during the day. And, let’s be real: some of it is Nutella and Hershey dark chocolate kisses.

I took these photos expecting to be repulsed by them. But on the contrary, I adore the way my body looks. I’ve never, never ever, looked like a woman. I’ve always been skinny and bony and angular, and even when I got breast implants in 1992 (I had them taken out three years later because I didn’t like men staring at me), I never felt sexy. The implants weren’t mine; they weren’t part of my body or my experience; they were just put there by someone who assured me that they were all that was missing.

Wow, was he off by a mile or what?

I love what Jessa in “Girls” said recently: “I’m going to look 50 when I’m 30…because I’m going to be so full of experiences.”

I don’t know if Lena Dunham meant that to be a literal statement by her character, but I love thinking of it literally. This (I say, while I’m holding my belly), this is a body full of experiences. This is a life well lived! This belly held my daughter while I was pregnant; it’s a pillow for my husband’s head, or my dogs’ napping bodies. This belly has my favorite tattoo on it: “this is who we are.”

This is who we are. How often do I need to look down and read that and remind myself why I got it in the first place.

I have gained weight. And I’ve gained experience. And I’ve gained friends. And talent and inspiration and love and respect too.

So am I just replacing one body-image stereotype for another? I don’t think so. When I was young I often had no idea what I was doing, or what I wanted to do. There were a lot of empty spaces, waiting for all the things that I’ve spent my adult years gathering [see above]. I’m full now. I’m full and I’m more (but not fully) complete. I’m softer. I’m sexier. I’m more confident. I’m happier. Yeah, I’m older, but I’m wiser. And anyone who knows me can totally be assured: I’ll never really grow up.

Maybe just…out.

Ok, I have to tell you this story. It’s the cutest story ever (and even if you have to be me to think that, I don’t care, I’m going to tell it!).

Home studio. Dogs at home. Ok, you get the set up. About 6-8 months ago, Jack started doing this…thing, out of the blue. When I’d start to prepare for a shoot, going and turning on the power strips, adjusting the soft boxes, etc., Jack suddenly started sitting in the middle of the studio. (Actually, it started when I brought home that famous leather ottoman.) He’d just jump up there, and sit and wait for me to do my light check. He’d actually sit, or lay down, and wait until I got off a few frames, adjusted my light, etc. Only when I started to turn off the power strips did he get down off the ottoman and sit at my feet, waiting for, apparently, his pay 🙂

Without my even asking, Jack became my lighting stand-in, and he does this for me without fail, without my ever having to ask him, without ever even showing him how to do it. I’ve told Mr. Susan this story a bazillion times, but only last week did he actually see it happen.

I wanted to take the profile kissing shots of John and I before he left town, so I basically made the set and asked John to sit down on one of the apple boxes while I adjusted the light. While I was doing this, I noticed Jack circling John. He’d sit down, then get up; he was nervous or anxious; you could tell something just wasn’t sitting right with Jack. I laid the 2nd box down on its side and Jack jumped up there immediately and looked at the camera. He was actually freaking out a bit that John had seemingly taken his job! So I got off a few frames, turned the light off and he jumped down, and we went and got a treat. It was the first time that John had seen Jack do that (and honestly, I think that Mr. Susan thought I had probably exaggerated the story), but it was incredible.

In the photo below you can see him kind of wriggling on the box (he takes his job very seriously and he really is the best studio dog!) and actually, after I started to take a few shots, he got up and gave John a kiss on the mouth. LOL.

My dogs never fail to blow my mind; and come to think of it, neither does John.

That’s what I have today. It’s not a new feeling; I’ve had it before, and I’m sure I’ll have it again. But the circumstances for this sadness are new to me. I don’t know what to do with this sadness, except let it be and learn from it. The lesson I learned today is that sometimes, you have to feel like a shitheel before you feel better.

As most of you know, we took in a little dog last week. She’s a Rat Terrier who came from the Seal Beach Animal Care shelter (which is no-kill). You can find the backstory on my Facebook page, because honestly, it’s too exhausting for me to relive in the retelling.

Yesterday I had to return Spider to the rescue. Wait. That’s not right: I decided to return her. If you’re thinking bad things about me, no worries: they can’t be any worse than I think of myself today.

She’s a wonderful dog. She’s already house-trained, and despite the nearly crippling fear she had in the shelter, she adapted within less than a week to having a home and loved laying by the fire at night. A few times she even crept up to sit on my lap. She let me pick her up (something she would never allow at the shelter) and give her kisses.

But she didn’t fit with my guys. There was fighting. I’ve seen dog fights; hell, there have been plenty in my house. But this was scary fighting because it terrified T and Jack.

You know the story of T and Jack right. I didn’t just rescue them. They rescued me. After my third dog in less than a year, my mija, my Gracie, died, I came upon these two and brought them home “for company” till I felt better. (That’s what my rescue friend said when she helped pile them into my car.) I didn’t want them. I didn’t like them. Their histories were unbearably sad (T was three when I got him and I was his first home. Jack was SIX. He spent the first 3 years of his life breeding in a puppy mill and then spent another three in the rescue circuit. Jack was SIX before he had a permanent home. And it was me.

To say I love them, to say we’ve bonded, is a vast and ridiculous understatement. Every day, everything I do for them is out of a love and a desire to make those bad years disappear. But there are still signs; lingering fears that pop up now and then that even after all this smothering love, they can’t shake.

I am always clear that my guys come first. When I started to fall for the little one, I felt a smidge guilty. But when the fights started, I was crushed. When I saw T run away and pee himself, I knew what I had to do. I had to return her.

Please don’t take away from this that Spider is a bad dog. She’s a great dog. Maybe here, with some time and training everyone could be made to get along. But, and I’m sure many will find this to be selfish, I feel that I owe my dogs more than “getting along.” It took us over four years to develop a routine in which they felt safe and secure, where they could be as happy as they could be. I should have known that another dog would break that routine, but we’ve fostered before, for short periods, and didn’t have fights. So Spider was probably the boss in her house. T and Jack have never been the boss anywhere but here. In fact, they’ve been the opposite. Would a trainer have worked? Maybe. But here’s my question (and it’s a toughie): how much do I frighten my dog before he’s ok? How many times does he have to run to the back room, or wet himself, because he’s frightened, in his home? To me, the answer is “not one.”

Ok, I’m rambling. I’m making excuses. I’m rationalizing. These are the things I tell myself when I wake up in the morning and put on this coat of sadness. Guilt. Regret. Whatever you want to call it, it’s raw and it’s shitty.

Here’s a picture of Spider. She is a great dog and will give you lots of love if you give her a little space, time and patience. If you know someone who’s thinking of getting a dog, tell them to go see her. And remember too that what you see in the shelter isn’t a dog’s true personality. So if she appears distant or skittish it’s because she’s frightened.

She’s at the Seal Beach Animal Care Center, 1700 Adolfo Lopez Dr., Seal Beach CA 90740. Telephone: 562-430-4993. Email: contact@sbacc.org.

While Mr. Susan and I were out shopping this morning, I picked up a couple of squeaky toys for the Vatos. Pickle (his real name is RT or just T) doesn’t like squeaky toys–well, he likes the toy part but not the squeaky part, so he just nibbles the fur off of them like they were a fuzzy piece of corn on the cob. He’ll start with the nose and eyes, and eventually just shred the thing until it’s a 4″ square piece of cloth that becomes his Favorite Thing In The World.

Jack loves squeaky toys, but he doesn’t really squeak them (and by “doesn’t really” I mean “practically never.” He’s squeaked a toy maybe three or four times since we adopted him nearly four years ago. What he does like is to pull the stuffing out; he goes crazy for that, but I always have to tear a piece of seam and show him the stuffing inside. Then, he goes batshit with it and doesn’t stop until it’s completely eviscerated. But after that, he loses all interest and then T takes over to do that nom thing he does .

They do have strange ways of playing, and that’s because when we adopted them together (four years ago this September 14), they didn’t know how to play. I’ve rescued so many dogs in my life, and I’ve seen all kinds of phobias but I’ve never come across a dog who didn’t know how to play or one who was actually afraid of a toy. Balls and toys were Hugely Frightening Things to Stay Away From at All Costs.

T is now a ball monster. The terrier in him finally overcame his fear and shyness, and you can’t say any word that even remotely sounds like “play” or “ball” without setting him off (this consists of him jumping all of you and looking at you the way only a terrier who wants to play ball can look. We keep the balls in a particular drawer and once he hears the handle on that drawer jingle, well, it’s over: you have to play ball, you just have to. He won’t let you not play ball.

Before today, like I said, he’s squeaked a toy maybe four times that I’ve seen, and all those times it’s been when nobody’s been in the room with him. Once, we heard him in the middle of the night, and we just lay there in the darkness, pretending we were asleep, and listened to what must have been some sort of investigation on his part 🙂 A couple of squeaks, and that was it.

So, those of you who have followed the Vatos’ story since we adopted them know this: and it really is the short version. Some of their issues still linger; they probably won’t ever completely go away. But in this video, you’ll see a truly amazing thing: Jack playing with one of the new squeakies the way a “normal” dog would: you know, squeaking it! I can’t tell you how happy it makes my heart to see him roll onto his back and hold the baby between his paws; or to grab it and bound through the living room while he makes it squeak over and over and over. And check it: he’s been doing it all day!

Today’s the first day I took any video with my DSLR, and man, did I pick a good day.

Jack’s story (and T’s) and video shows you what a huge impact you can make on a living, sentient behing by adopting. I can’t even begin to understand what Jack’s been through (3 years as a breeder in a puppy mill, and 3 more years in the adoption circuit) or what T has had to endure (3 years being bounced in and out of homes and the animal shelter), but I do know that when I look at these faces, I have to ask myself: Who in the world could say, “no, I don’t want you”?