Chihuahua murder
And other thoughts you have when your baby cries a lot
My sister Grace and I have a mystical connection, across oceans and time, with books. We’re very often reading the exact same book at the exact same moment, without having ever talked about to each other about that book before. We live in different countries, on different continents, but this frequent serendipitous occurrence always makes me feel close to her. She and Antoine video-called me and Lucinda the other morning, and when I asked them what they were reading, I held up Sheila Heti’s Alphabetical Diaries, and Grace exclaimed, “That! We’re reading that too!” I shouldn’t have been surprised; this unspoken, shared reading diet is a feature of our long-distance relationship. We’re on the same literary wavelength; even if we haven’t seen each other in months, our minds are meeting with the same thoughts on the same pages.
Our neighbors three houses over have seven chihuahuas. Yes, seven. They, like all chihuahuas, are composed of equal parts rage and anxiety, and bark at all hours of the day and night. We are not particularly fond of these little creatures. It was our German shepherd’s lifelong wish to be turned loose in their backyard and just go to town on those dogs. Darkly, I wish I had let her, just to see what would have happened. Pyrrha was a hunter, a natural born killer, having dispatched squirrels and chickens and other small fauna in her day, and I’m sure it would have been… memorable.
All this to say, the seven chihuahuas are alive and well. The chihuahuas show no signs of expiration—and indeed, chihuahuas can live something like fifteen ungodly years.
There has, however, been a recent development: A marauding pair has taken to escaping their fence on a weekly basis. A scruffy long-haired blonde one and his/her smoother tan companion can be seen terrorizing the neighborhood, darting back and forth between backyards and across streets, looking for mischief. On a recent jaunt, they chased, bit, and generally harassed our other neighbor’s placid, slow-moving French bulldog in her own backyard, and this morning I saw them three blocks away, on the hill at the park, having a jolly time racing in the rain. The day before, we watched with a wry grin as they were chased back home by one of their owners through the easement behind our garden.
I harbor a sinister hope that perhaps this will be how they meet their end, but no, they always make it back home, back in their prison for a day or two, all the while plotting their next escape. The non-evil part of me is happy for them, for their exuberant freedom as they chase rabbits and kittens and try not to get hit by a car. Despite their overall assholery, I smile whenever I see them. They are abundantly happy pests, kings of the suburban streets.
Things that make colicky newborn life better
Going outside, even if it doesn’t help, even if she is still wailing so loud she drowns out the birdsong
Vacuuming while she cries in the Solly wrap. The rest of my life is chaos, but my floors are so clean
Lucinda’s appreciation for the art of surprise; she has on and off days, and you never know what it’s going to be
New albums from Adrienne Lenker and Waxahatchee
Meals from generous friends
Lightweight paperbacks, including Room Temperature, a pitch-perfect gift from Celeste, which arrived in the mail and which I have been reading slowly, savoring his wild vocabulary
Maddy standing close to me while Lucy screamed in my arms and looking me in the eye and saying, “You’re doing a good job”
Not trying to fix it but to accept it, to measure the days and think about the weeks ahead that will not be like this
Felix lowering his little hands from his ears and then saying sweetly, “She’s calming down,” when there’s a brief break in the crying
Currently Reading
Frank: Sonnets, Diane Seuss
Room Temperature, Nicholson Baker
The Glutton, A.K. Blakemore
Thin Skin, Jenn Shapland
Getting Lost, Annie Ernaux
Such a good writer