Daily Archives: April 15, 2011

death and taxes and puppy love

3 Replies

mags ©alexashersears

My ambition in life is to someday be the person my dog thinks I am. - Emily Maugham

Three years ago today, I woke up to find Mags, my English bully, couldn’t breathe. As we rushed her to the vet, I thought to myself, April 15th. Death and taxes.

It was one of those days when life slaps you in the face with decisions that you don’t ever want to make. Never, never, ever. It was a long, awful day that stretched out into the night. I don’t think about regularly, but it creeps up on me every so often. Like today.

Or, in the last weeks, as I was helping with a benefit to help this awesome family that is fighting to keep their beloved rescued French bulldog, Stitch.

And the release of a new book by my friend Monica, an author and beyond incredible advocate for autism research, who writes about her late dog Hallie in a beautiful new anthology called Cherished: 21 Writers on Animals They Have Loved and Lost. (Monica joins Anne Lamott, Jane Smiley and others in sharing their stories, with royalties going to the Best Friend’s Animal Society.)

I’ve had Mags on the brain.

I grew up with some wonderful dogs, but Mags was the only one who was all mine. I adopted her while I was in college and had her the whole of my twenties. She was the most fantastic dog I have ever known – from LA to NY and beyond she was always by my side. But she generally could be found snoring at my feet as I wrote.

Oh, how quiet the house was without that snoring. I bought a white noise machine.

Almost a year later, when I got Tru, I realized any other dog I ever have will be mine through marriage and children. I regret those things didn’t happen when Mags was alive because she adored babies. She adored everyone. Except other dogs. She wanted to kill most other dogs. No one’s perfect.

When they gave me her ashes, I went right over to the Jonathan Adler store on Melrose and bought a PROZAC jar to keep them in.

That smushy-faced, roly-poly pup, who snored like a foghorn, was an anti-depressant in furball form.

That pup left her mark on a lot of people in her ten years. Above my desk I have a picture my friend’s four-year-old made when she told him Mags had died. It was the most awesome thing in the world. So was she.

xo a.

Purgeday Thursday: This and That

Leave a reply

Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.

- Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

You know when there’s a Monday holiday and you go to get mail and realize there isn’t any? I’m kind of feeling like that w this post. It’s Purgeday Thursday and, even though I’m not on a holiday, there’s not much purging to post.

At the moment, I am finishing a calligraphy order that has freshly inked envelopes, hundreds of envelopes, drying here, there, and everywhere. It’s like some sort of Christo installation with paper covering all surfaces from my office spilling out into my dining room. Tomorrow, once everything is dry, I should be able to find my desk again.

Back on the Purge-front, one thing I have been really trying hard to do is not buy things that I normally justify as making my workspace more functional in some way, like this or this or this.

Instead, I am repurposing things I own, as Beth encourages, and have yet to touch that Container Store discount coupon – though it is as enticing as that precious ring was to Gollum. So far, so good. (I haven’t shredded the coupon just yet – you know, in case an organizational emergency should arise.)

For active files I could have bought this because I liked it, instead I had an old IKEA mag rack and put it to use. Putting it up requires screws and mollies and, even though you didn’t ask, I thought I’d share my favorite lazy clever way to hang things using Post-It’s. Well, not the little yellow stickies but this brilliant label roll they make that has tons of uses. I originally used it for file tabs and quick labeling.

One day, I was going to hang something that needed nails in two spots when I realized this stuff was really multi-functional. (I have no idea why it annoys me so much when an item is prepped with two hangers but it does – even though I assume the whole point is to keep the thing from falling off the wall).

Here’s how I used it to hang the mag rack. (Forgive the pics - but I decided to photograph it as I was hanging it and just grabbed the phone.)

I am happy to say that this whole genius plan of Morgan’s has helped me tackle the annoying little things that I’d been putting off for ages.

The818.com

And I am hoping that next week I will finally have figured out a system for filing receipts that can actually be defined as filing. Like desk drawers, decorative boxes can give the false impression of actually being organized. xo a.