Phoebe at the Vet

A hound update, of course. Phoebe made her first visit to the vet yesterday. She seemed to enjoy the ride in the car more than I thought she would. Daphne went along for the ride and stayed low in the back of the car in case there were enemies about. The vet looked Phoebe over inside and out and found no problems. She's a prefectly healthy dog.

After the vet, she discovered the study, a room she hadn't been in yet, and I had to ask her not to eat one of my books, but she didn't seem to mind when I traded her a nylabone for the book. She's still following Daphne around, still unsure about the humans, but very very curious.

Tagged: greyhounds, pets

Posting a Short Story

I've gotten some email from people who've been reading my short stories since I started this blog (thanks, by the way), and so I figured I'd go ahead and post another one.

They're hosted on the main Coyote Mercury site in the library section. Most of the stories are a few years old and were once included in an online literary magazine called TheSoundofWhat?, which is now, sadly, defunct.

Anyways, here's the latest old story: "This Thing of Darkness," a South Austin tale concerning a giant fungus and some neighbors who fight.

Incidentally, all of the stories can be found in the Selections from the Hard Drive section of the sidebar. Enjoy, and thanks again for reading.

Tagged: writng

More Fun with LibraryThing

I seem to be blogging about books and dogs more than anything else, but since the title of this blog is taken from a dog in my book, I guess it fits. I clearly spend too much time thinking about books though, but I guess I wouldn't read and write them if I didn't love them. Of course, when thinking about books I often find myself looking for new ones to read and that's where LibraryThing once again proves its usefulness: book suggestions.

When I click on the suggestions button, it goes through and compares my libarary to others with similar libraries and lists 61 (why 61 I don't know...maybe it thinks I don't have time for more) books that I don't have, but apparently should. Some I already have, some I've read, some I'm interested in. I struck out the ones that I either own, once owned, or have borrowed and read, or some combination of the three. Surprisingly, many of these are books that I have been wanting to read...

1. Ulysses by James Joyce
2. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
3. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Penguin Popular Classics) by James Joyce
4. The Mayor of Casterbridge (Penguin Classics) by Thomas Hardy
5. Tess of the Durbervilles by Thomas Hardy
6. Sister Carrie (Oxford World's Classics) by Theodore Dreiser
7. Shirley (Wordsworth Collection) by Charlotte Bronte
8. Oliver Twist (Penguin Popular Classics) by Charles Dickens
9. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
10. The Handmaid's Tale : A Novel by Margaret Atwood
11. A Journal of the Plague Year : Being Observations or Memorials of the Most Remarkable Occurrences, As Well (Penguin Clas by Daniel Defoe
12. Aspects of the Novel by E. M. Forster
13. Great expectations by Charles Dickens
14. The Mill On The Floss by George Eliot
15. Postcards by Annie Proulx
16. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
17. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn : Revised Edition (Penguin Classics) by Mark Twain
18. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
19. Mansfield Park (Penguin Popular Classics) by Jane Austen
20. The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
21. Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco
22. Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
23. Romola (Penguin Classics) by George Eliot
24. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
25. The Vicar of Wakefield (Penguin English Library) by Oliver Goldsmith
26. Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
27. The Telling by Ursula K. Le Guin
28. The Left Hand of Darkness (Remembering Tomorrow) by Ursula K. Le Guin
29. Ender's game by Orson Scott Card
30. The waste land and other poems by T. S. Eliot
31. The Portrait of a Lady (Penguin Popular Classics) by Henry James
32. A Wizard of Earthsea (The Earthsea Cycle, Book 1) by Ursula K. Le Guin
33. Possession : A Romance (Vintage International) by A.S. Byatt
34. Bleak House by Charles Dickens
35. The English patient : a novel by Michael Ondaatje
36. Literary theory : an introduction by Terry Eagleton
37. The jungle by Upton Sinclair
38. The World According to Garp by John Irving
39. Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance : an inquiry into values by Robert M. Pirsig
40. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
41. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
42. A passage to India by E. M. Forster
43. Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell
44. Orlando: A Biography (Penguin Popular Classics) by Virginia Woolf
45. MLA handbook for writers of research papers by Joseph Gibaldi
46. Le Morte D'Arthur, Vol 1 by Thomas, Sir Malory
47. The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
48. Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
49. The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien
50. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
51. Far from the Madding Crowd (Signet Classics (Paperback)) by Thomas Hardy
52. Daniel Deronda (Penguin Classics) by George Eliot
53. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
54. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
55. Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Everyman's Library (Cloth)) by Choderlos De Laclos
56. Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
57. A room with a view by E. M. Forster
58. Othello (Folger Shakespeare Library) by William Shakespeare
59. Of Human Bondage (Bantam Classic) by W. Somerset Maugham
60. Midnight in the garden of good and evil : a Savannah story by John Berendt
61. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving


Feel free to offer other reading suggestions in the comments section. I'm pretty open in my tastes.

Tagged: books, web

Hound Update

Okay so Phoebe seems to have adjusted to the idea that the humans will be gone for the better part of each day. I am happy to report a lack of destruction for the past two days, and she seems genuinely excited to see us when we get home. She even barked at me when I walked in (a very high-pitched bark that sounds odd coming from a dog of her size), which was startling since greyhounds aren't known for barking. She apparently learned the skill from a doberman in her foster home.

She's still shy when we approach; obviously she's not used to being treated well by people, but then mistreatment is the life to which most racing greyhounds are accustomed. I love the dogs and watching them run together in the backyard is great fun, because they truly love to run, but the greyhound racing business just turns my stomach. I can't imagine mistreating these beautiful animals. Dogs are great. People suck.

Tagged: greyhounds, pets

LibraryThing

Recently, I stumbled upon LibraryThing, a very cool site/web-based book cataloging application, which is still in its beta phase but developing new features on what seems to be a daily basis. It's become a near obsession. Who knew how much fun pulling books off the shelves and entering ISBN numbers could be? I don't generally go out seeking massive data-entry projects, but this is a pleasure. Perhaps because it gives me the opportunity to pick up my books and look at them and think to myself things like:

"I really need to read this one."

"Wow, I forgot how cool this book is."

"Why the hell do I have this book?!?"

Over the years, I've gotten rid of probably as many books as I own since I frequently vacillate between wanting to own every book I read (and keep them even when I know I'll never read them again) and wanting to own fewer possessions. Sometimes I think I'd like to have a giant room filled with books on all subjects, and at other times I think it would be cool to have all my books digitized and only have a small stack of DVD-ROMs.

I suppose it comes down to the question of a book's worth. Is it the content? Is it the object? Or is it both? I would like to think it's mainly the content, but then a house without books would seem such a lonely place.

That's really the coolest thing about Library Thing: As I enter books, I feel like I'm visting old friends.

Tagged: books, web

Phoebe, Still a Puppy

Phoebe seems to be adjusting well to her new life. She has discovered the couch and even wags her tail when we come near her, but she is still afraid to look at us. She comes to the door to greet us, but runs away when we notice her. She watches us constantly and with great interest. It seems she wants to like us, but is still afraid of people.

Yesterday was her first day at home without the humans, and she had great fun tearing up some paper, eating some blinds, and stuffing her leash under the couch cushions. It looked like the work of two dogs, so I suspect Daphne also participated since she has a record of paper shredding. For now, we'll call Daphne an unindicted co-conspirator.

Phoebe does posess the greyhound quality of being a packrat, collecting bones and fluffy toys and taking them back to decorate her place. Yesterday, in addition to pieces of paper and the blinds, she managed to collect every dog toy in the house and bring them back to her place.

When I let Phoebe out, she likes to run around the backyard and once even rooed and then barked at the neighbor's lab. She's almost two and now that she's off the track, she is probably beginning her real puppyhood, which means lots of exploring, testing the chewability of various objects around the house, and continuing to follow Daphne around like...well, like a puppy. A very large puppy.

Tagged: greyhounds, pets

Maybe I'll Get that PhD...

I've recently learned that I am a sucker as are all of us who have spent hours, thousands of dollars, and even the Best Years of Our Lives toiling towards degrees at institutions of higher learning. We were conned by the marketing cabal known as Big Education into believing that their product, "higher learning", is the only form of education.

Who knew that life experience could be converted into the degree of your choice at such fine institutions as Belford University and Rochville University? For a modest fee, the enterprising student can even give his GPA a boost. Why did I spend all those evenings worrying about studying? (Oh, misspent youth!)

Of course these institutions are accredited, Rochville by both the prestigious UCOEA and the lesser-known BOUA, both of whom seem to share the same web designer.

If academic qualification isn't your thing (not everyone was cut out for school after all), a career in the ministry could be very rewarding. Just visit the Universal Life Church to become an ordained minister.

I think few people will ever again say that the Rev. Dr. James Brush, MA, MFA, MBA, MLIS, MEd, JD, PhD is not both a gentleman and a scholar and fully qualified for any position in the Bush Administration.

Tagged: web, general

We Be the Master Now

When we got our first dog, Zephyr, she was a self-feeder who ate only when she felt like it, usually every other day. When we got Daphne, Zephyr began eating every time there was food around, and Daphne knew that she was not to eat until Zephyr had eaten all of her food and whatever of Daphne's she could steal while we (the food police) weren't watching. Daphne, until yesterday, was never terribly interested in food one way or the other, which made it easy for Zephyr to help herself to Daphne's dinner.

When Phoebe came on the scene, however, Daphne suddenly started eating her own food and then investigating Phoebe's. We never thought Daphne would ever exhibit any alpha behavior, but recently she was heard mumbling something along the lines of, "We has the precious, and we be the master now." Zephyr would be proud.

Tagged: greyhounds, pets

New Hound in Town

This is Greyhound Phoebe. She came to us yesterday from Greyhound Pets of America - Central Texas, and has spent the past 24 hours relaxing on her place by the back door and observing our habits. She is a spook, which means that she is afraid of many things, particularly people. She does not seem to be afraid of Daphne (see the picture beneath my profile) or Morrison.

Phoebe will be two on November 8. We haven't weighed her yet, but she appears to be about 65 pounds. She is a racer who was forced into early retirement after twice being defeated at a racetrack in Corpus Christi. Her racing name was "Rayna Ann Walker" but for the past six weeks in foster care, has been called "Geena." She is a sweet girl who loves to eat. She likes chewing on fluffy toys and seems to enjoy exploring the backyard.

She was fostered with several cats and appears to be as ambivalent towards them as Morrison is to her as can be seen in this photo (although he does try to get on her place).
Daphne is marginally interested but mainly when they're outside. In the next few days, she will probably begin exploring and interacting a bit more, and I'll keep you posted.

Tagged: greyhounds, pets

Dream Ships

(an old poem...)

The broken ships lay torn under black cliffs
Nailed to shore by Sea’s relentless hammer
Dead Gull silhouette floats in glowing phosphor
Blown about by Gale’s unending power

Water shudders under Sky’s turbulent embrace
Gray battles Grey at Horizon’s obscured line
No life on the Shore of Ghosts, no life here
Except me, the phantom-dreaming me

I stand alone and watch this scene buried in dark night
My breath the only life among the wrecks
Trembling under waves, my feet give way
The deck shakes, rocks—I try to look around

Feet carry me across upended planks
A funeral shroud of sailcloth clings to Mast’s broken arm
No recent death appears in this ancient scene
Everything here has always existed before me

I ask, “Why bring me here? Does this pertain to me?”
From Childhood’s nighttime terrors to Adulthood’s fever dreams
I’ve walked these planks all my life, a thousand times,
Asking only, “Where am I? What does this mean?”

Tagged: writing

Big Ugly Billboards

Driving around Austin, it's easy to notice that Mopac is relatively pleasant even when it's choked with traffic, while driving I-35 is nearly unbearable even when traffic is light. Mopac is pretty in part because it is mostly free of billboards, and I think this lack of aggressive signage makes for a more relaxing overall drive. You don't feel like anyone is shouting at you on Mopac.

The disruption of this visual silence is for me why billboards are inherently tacky and always mar what would be an otherwise more pleasant landscape, even in the heart of a city. Cute little messages from "God" or "Billboard" don't help either. In a way, though, billboards become a kind of totem of the divine as it appears in a highly materialistic society such as ours: we look to them on high for guidance as they shine brightly in the heavens, but when compared with a highway devoid of billboards (that increasingly can only exist in the imagination) they are revealed (and reveal commercialism) to be empty substitutes for the divine or trees or anything else of real worth as Fitzgerald so aptly implied in The Great Gatsby.

This comes to mind as over the past few weeks, I've noticed a billboard spring to life in a neighborhood near my own. It towers over the landscape calling attention to itself, and though it is currently blank since the owners are in a dispute with a local home owners association over it, it is an eyesore and a sad reminder of how little aesthetics are valued when there is coin to be made.

I am pleased to learn that a group of local homeowners is trying to fight The Man on this one and even have the help of at least one county official.

Tagged: austin, politics

Beer, Mass Culture and God

"Beer is proof that God loves us."
-Benjamin Franklin

Beer. It's really very simple. Hops, barley malt, water, yeast. You can add some grains or any number of other things to create unique flavors, but the essence of beer is simple. Yeast eat sugar, producing two basic by-products: alcohol and carbon dioxide. Beer, or more broadly put fermented sugar water, is one of the oldest creations of the human race. Nearly every civilization from the Egyptians to the Aztecs to the English have brewed beer. One can travel the world over (or visit a good well-stocked pub) and sample beers from different cultures and climates, each with its own unique taste and character. Australia's hearty lagers can be just the thing after a hard day in the sun, while Mexico's lagers go with a nice easy day at the beach. The British stouts warm a winter evening and the Caribbean's milk stouts offer a touch of sweetness after a spicy meal. Germany's famous bocks and hefe-wiezzens should be savored for their rich complexity, as might a fine wine.

There are two basic styles of beer: lager and ale. Lagers tend to be lighter in body and have a cleaner flavor. They are cold fermented at lower temperatures and are usually light in color. Ales, fermented at room temperature and occasionally served at room temperature, have a much more complex flavor and range in color from light amber to black. Both are excellent styles and a matter of personal preference analogous to the differences between red and white wine. I personally prefer English ales to any other style. There is a third beer style, unfortunately. This is the swill produced by the major American breweries. You know who they are. Their beer is a perverse replica of the pilsner style of lager originating in eastern Europe in much the same way that Frankenstein's monster was a twisted version of a human being.

Too often, when offered a beer, I am treated to a flavorless concoction consisting of slightly metallic tasting carbonated water mixed with alcohol. The sad truth is that this is not beer. This is an alcohol delivery device, not a fine drink to be savored and appreciated for its flavor or character. Perhaps, a handful of hops was held near the wort while it boiled and dissolved sugars, but certainly no hops were lovingly thrown into the mix. Prior to 1920 and prohibition, American beer was just as interesting and unique as the beer of any other country. We had variety and regional flavor. During prohibition, only the larger breweries survived by shifting production to non-alcoholic products. In 1933, prohibition ended and the major breweries proceeded to market a lighter style of beer that would appeal to both women and men. Over the years, beer came to mean a watery beverage, often brewed with rice or corn, that carried alcohol into the body without carrying flavor across the tongue. This is franken-beer made by corporations that love profit more than beer. I have spoken with many people who say they don't like beer, but have only ever sampled the twisted products of these breweries. I was one of them until I tasted a true beer, a certain Irish stout that looks like coffee. I then realized that I had never previously tried beer; I had only tried franken-beer.

The mass market ad campaigns have taught many people too well that beer with flavor is bad or as one brewery put it, "skunky." To combat skunkiness, this brewery put born on dates on all of its bottles. But when is a beer born? Is it born when the hops are thrown into the boiling wort as my religious friends might say, or do we take the more secular view that a beer is born when the bottle leaves the brewery? I say that too often American beer is in fact stillborn, or perhaps is not even born at all, no more deserving of the language of birth than a machine. Beer is born when there is love. Love for originality and uniqueness. Not love of money.

Referring back to Ben Franklin's quote and thinking of the popularity of American macro-brews, one cannot help but wonder if perhaps God no longer loves us. Perhaps we are being punished for following the trendy ads rather than our taste buds. I believe that this phenomenon, which occurs in other industries (think hamburger chains), is the end result of mass culture. Are we doomed to a steady diet of blandness and nothing?

Tagged: general

Killing Pablo

Note: This is a review I posted one night in 2003 while playing with amazon.

After reading Mark Bowden's Blackhawk Down, I wanted more of Mark Bowden's gritty, exciting style. My only qualm with that book was the lack of sociopolitical background. Killing Pablo delivers that in spades. This book goes beyond the excitement of the chase and delves into the cultural forces that allow men like Pablo Escobar to exist in the first place. It is not a pretty picture, and it raises many questions for those of us living comfortable lives in the United States. What is our responsibility for keeping the world 'safe' and how much of the world's ills are of our own creation?

This book causes one to really ponder the moral implications of our government's actions, and at its heart is the timeless question of when does one act and when does one hold still. By the end of the book, I agreed that Escobar had to be killed, but I was left asking that ancient and uneasy question: Do the ends justify the means?

Powerful, well-written, significant. I couldn't put this one down. By the end of reading it, my house was a wreck, and I had a stack of work that I was behind on simply because I couldn't stop reading, even though the book's cover gives away the ending. I had to know how it came to that.

Tagged: books, reviews

Empires of Time

Note: This is a review I posted one night in 2003 while playing with amazon.

Anthony Aveni's Empires of Time is a fascinating portrait of the rhythms and roles of time-keeping in a variety of cultures including the Aztec, Inca, Maya, and ancient Chinese. This is a thrilling exploration of a topic we all too often don't bother to consder.

Tagged: books, reviews

A Walk in the Woods

Note: This is a review I posted one night in 2003 while playing with amazon.

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson is quite possibly the funniest book I have ever read. Bryson's opening chapters covering his fear of bears had me laughing so hard, that I actually cried. A must read for not just a great laugh, but an impassioned exploration of our country's natural wonders.

When I read it, I often found myself moved to hit the local trails for my own walks in the woods.

Tagged: books, reviews

A Natural State

Note: This is a review I posted one night in 2003 while playing with amazon.

Stephen Harrigan's A Natural State, a collection of essays originating in Texas Monthly does an exceptional job of taking the reader through the natural wonders of Texas, from the beaches to the deserts, and finally to the Hill Country's Enchanted Rock.

By the end of the book, I had no other choice than to hop in my own car and hit the Texas highways and rediscover this natural state for myself.

Tagged: books, reviews

Valis

Note: This is a review I posted one night in 2003 while playing with amazon.

Philip K. Dick's Valis is at once sublime and unsettling. From the schizophrenic changes from third to first person point of view ("I am writing this in the third person to gain much-needed objectivity", the narrator reminds himself as much as the reader) through the brilliant "Tractates: Cryptica Scriptura" that comprise the appendix, we see a work that goes beyond mere science fiction and attempts to wrestle with the insane story of life itself.

This is a novel that seeks no less than the ultimate answers to life's biggest questions. Philip Dick in attempting to make sense of his own life gives us a work that is at once thrilling, empassioned, beautiful, funny, and sad.

This is truly one of the greatest (and least appreciated) works of American literature. I can't say it gave me all the answers, but it raised many questions and new ideas as well as inspiring me in my own writing. Isn't that what great literature is about? Thank you, PKD, wherever you are.

Tagged: books, reviews

Thousands of Pages of Potter and Loving It

I've been putting away one Harry Potter book per film release for the past few years and enjoying each book more than the last. About a month ago, in anticipation of the release of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, I began reading the mammoth tome that describes Harry's fourth year at Hogwarts. What immediately struck me was the substantially darker tone and the transformation of Dumbledore into a character less like Santa Claus and more like Gandalf. The book was well-done and thankfully (relatively) free of Quidditch. The book, of course, ends dark and the next book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (because this time I couldn't wait another year or more) picks up right where it left off - Harry's situation progressing from bad to worse.

I sped through the fifth book enjoying more than anything else the way Rowling grows her characters. The series opens dealing with kids, but by the end of Order of the Phoenix, Harry and company are on the fast road to adulthood, firmly believing they are already there, but still making the kind of rash and impulsive decisions that we all make as teenagers. Of course, none of us have the kinds of problems that Harry has nor the means of solving them. Still this provides a layer of depth to Rowling's writing that I was not at all expecting when I picked up the first book and read it over the course of several hours on a Thanksgiving afternoon. She does a fine job turning Harry into a confused, angry, and possibly dangerous young man who wants nothing more than to be normal but who must shoulder a burden far beyond what anyone would want a kid to have to handle.

It is not just Harry's maturation process that makes the series so interesting to me, however, but rather his relationships with and discoveries about the older wizards who seem increasingly human the older Harry gets. This is a natural phenomenon that kids experience as they grow older and their parents, teachers and other adults around them lose some of their grandeur, and once again Rowling handles it well. Especially fine is her portrayal of Severus Snape, the spooky potions professor we all love to hate. This guy clearly despises Harry and never misses an opportunity to viciously run him down, and yet just as Harry and his friends, time and again know he's surely evil, he does something that saves Harry's neck and yet still finds time to sneer at Harry just as cruelly as before.

Rowling's ability to undercut expectations is, for me, a large part of why these books are so fun. The early books are enchanting, mysterious, yet rather predictable. They all end with Dumbledore patiently explaining The Moral of the Story to Harry and what he should have learned, but as Harry and his friends grow up, the universe in which they live expands, becoming increasingly complicated, nuanced, and more dangerous to the point that not even Dumbledore can adequately explain everything to Harry other than Dumbledore's own mistakes and failures. Dumbledore, Sirius Black, Mrs. Weasely, Hagrid, Harry's dead father, all of the adults to whom he has looked up through his life in the wizarding world emerge tarnished, slightly smaller, yet infinitely more human. And of course none of them are able to provide all of the advice and answers to the big questions that Harry so desperately wants and needs. Rowling's ability to capture this painful aspect of growing up so poignantly and believably is, more than anything else, why I immediately began reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince as soon as I finished book five.

Tagged: books, reviews

Switching Crooks

October is often a bleak month starting with OU's annual defeat of UT. Then it gets worse, usually culminating in Republicans winning a bunch of elections. I've been more optimistic, though, since UT beat OU. Now the Astros are in the playoffs. Delay has been indicted. The Bush administration is floundering as it awaits - hopefully - indictments. People are finally waking up to Republican corruption. Could this be the end of evil?!? Could we see a bright new dawn of Democratic corruption? One can only hope...

Tagged: politics

Friday Afternoon

The weather today is relatively nice, though a bit hot for mid-October. I guess I should get used to that as it seems it's just going to get hotter as we continue to cook the planet to a nice crisp. Imagine all that Alaskan coastline that could someday be prime property for beach homes...

Still, a round of golf might be in order this weekend, a chance to test out the new putter in the vain hope that my putting problems have all been my old putter and not pilot-error. Taking up golf has been a pleasure and a challenge (and a growing obsession) that I've very much enjoyed. I hadn't ever realized that it's an insanely mental game. The difficulty is that there's too much time to think about what you've got to do. I wonder if someone were trying to tackle me as I was about to shoot, would I make better shots by just letting my muscles do the work without being second-guessed by my mind? I suppose that's my favorite thing about golf, other than being outside: it forces me to clear my mind, which of course is very rejuvenating and a fine way to spend a weekend morning.

Watching UT paste Colorado should also be nice, if a bit dull.

Ok, so this is not a Post of Great Significance. It's mainly an attempt to post via email to see how this goes.

Tagged: austin

A Great Dog

We lost Zephyr to cancer a month ago today, and that's kind of what's on my mind. The house is quieter as our cat and other dog don't make nearly as much noise since they don't tend to follow anyone around the way Zephyr did.

We got her 8 years ago at the Town Lake Animal Shelter in Austin, and she proved to be a loyal companion and a wonderful friend. She was a greyhound/whippet mix possesed of the greyhound's natural friendliness and sensitivity combined with the courage of a whippet. She would actually bark at the doorbell while our purebred greyhound always runs away.

I've always felt that one of life's cruelest injustices is the fact that we live so long while they live such a short time. She may have been "only a dog," but the heart does not discriminate when a friend is lost. Still, there are so many great memories of hill country hikes and shenanigans around the house that it's hard not to smile when I think about her.

Tagged: greyhounds, pets

Coyote Mercury: The Blog

OK. So this is the Coyote Mercury blog, based in Austin, Texas. I don't yet have a purpose for blogging except that this seems an amusing way for an obsessive writer to have some fun and maybe even pick up a few new readers.

The names of the blog and my main website are derived from a character in my first novel, A Place Without a Postcard. The character is surprisingly enough a coyote named Mercury who may actually be just a plain old dog, or - possibly - God.

Enough for now. I should get back to learning how this blog stuff works.

Tagged: blogging