THAT DAY

I read two books illustrated by Maurice Sendak: "The Griffin and the Minor Canon" by Frank Stockton, and "Dear Mili", a lost tale by Grimm.

Stockton is obsessed with eating people--hmm, WORTHY people--hmm, MORAL dilemmas about eating worthy people! "The Lady Or The Tiger", his best-known story, has it: will his lover give him to the Lady or the Tiger? And will the GRIFFIN eat the canon (priest) he admires, or save him despite his own appetite, just to spite the townspeople? That story bothers me--the Griffin's meant to be allegorical, but I identify with him more than the humans. And his character's inconsistent. If he's been eating only the best humans for centuries, surely he can't complain if the townspeople adopt a defense of becoming contemptible: it's industrial melanism of the soul! Very Darwinian.

Something in this tale, and indeed in "Dear Mili" too, fits Sendak's peculiar preferences. A preoccupation with death? Fears of being devoured? I can't describe it exactly, but... HIGGLEDY PIGGLEDY POP! (Sorry, that's not quite nonsense. It's a third Sendak book about eating & death).

Uh-oh, late for my anorexia support group. I zoom across town, but still miss part of it. Two newcomers: Mary Beth, a beautiful therapist fresh from Los Angeles... ("oh, that's where she came from" I thought, realizing that her guilt-free beauty had to be from a different culture than San Francisco, where role- and rule-bending, not beauty, is the fashion; I'd suspected either LA or France...). And Amy, a nervous swan-necked girl with a father who "didn't bother" to visit when he came here (across the country) on business...

I feel uncomfortable, in a bell jar--the only guy in a roomful of women. After group, the others all clump in pairs and trios and talk, while I hover alone. No one includes me, and I hover, feeling rejected, mistrusted for being male, whether or not it's true. At last I walk out feeling awful. Some support group...

At home, find a small impromptu party: Lily and her boyfriend and Alder all eating together, and Vito drops in with his gorgeous girlfriend Catherine... She tries to talk with me while I cook, but I'm shy with her--hurts to be around such beauty when I'm single and know I'll never win anyone like her. Bitter envy toward Vito. Hide as soon as I can in my room, and read to escape my despair. Sleep early. What's point of staying up?

THAT NIGHT

I'm house-sitting for a friend. Well, really dog-sitting. Griffin's a huge white longhaired wolfdog with an aura like a sleepy hawk. Independent, but she needs some attention and exercise, hates being cooped up. She's especially bored today--wants out. Gnaws at her chain-leash, comes up to me, wants to go NOW... I begin petting her. After a while I get turned on and start fondling her. Even though she's not in heat, I'm hard just from feeling all that warm luxuriant fur.

I hold her close and start humping. My cock slips into the soft elastic fold of skin between her haunch and belly, where the fur is fine. It's been so long since my cock has touched anyone that even this feels overwhelming, so hot and soft. I gasp "Oh, Griffin!" and abruptly come, all over her belly and thigh. She seems to consider it just playing, petting.

And me? I... I want even more. I want to come inside Griffin.

I let go of her for a minute, and she wanders idly across the room, seems indifferent to the whole business. Out the door. Oops. She meets a little tiny yappy dog from across the street, called Sorry-oo. They run up a mountain behind the house, and disappear at the peak, inside the bell of a gigantic golden horn! Or is it a CLOCK?

I whistle and call "GRIFFIN!" but she doesn't come out. My voice is cracked and sounds strange, almost yodeling, with thick furry accent like a woman from Texas--maybe Janis Joplin or Michelle Shocked. Little Sorry-oo trots back out of the horn-clock-pass, but doesn't come down, and soon re-enters. Griffin doesn't even peek out. She wants to be free, I realize at last. That, not sex, is her concern. Griffin wants to be up in the wild. She didn't like that chain.

What am I going to tell her owner when she comes home? "Sorry, I lost your dog. I was trying to fuck her and she got away..."

Later, people gradually fill the house. Busy and cheerful, they seem to belong there. They seem to hold me in some respect. This surprises me. A woman asks me where the rubber stamps are, and I show her. She thanks me profusely as she does collage art with ink and stamps. I feel better: useful, valued.

And the weird thing is... I know that my attempt to fuck Griffin--or maybe losing her--somehow caused these people to show up and praise me! Sleazy though my story sounds... was I right to let her escape?

NOTES ON WAKING

• House-sitting = an acquaintance mentioned she's house-sitting and enjoying it.
• Care for the dog = my body! Though tired depressed and anorexic, I still cooked dinner despite the crowd in the kitchen.
• Fucking a bitch = 1: I had a sore wrist, and massaged myself to undo the tension. My body seems to like that as much as sex. 2: I bitterly assumed the women in my anorexia group were biased against me. "Fuck those bitches"? 3: Pun on "coming"? Just coming to the anorexia group at all counts for something, in my fight against self-deprivation!
• Dog runs free, climbs peak = I walked a bit on the hill in Alta Park, as well as went to anorexia group. Let myself out for a walk!
• Pass = Golden Gate? A bridge on spiritual path that has danger of self-destruction linked to it--falling may mean falling ILL...
• The Golden Horn = in "Davy" by Edgar Pangborn, Davy grows up in grim post-nuclear times, but finding a trumpet under tragic circumstances changes his life. It means coming of age and entering a wider world, as well as music.
• Clock = racing the clock, crossing town to that anorexia group. Did I delay setting out cuz I didn't want to go, preferred to sulk alone?
• The little dog Sorry-oo = In Tove Jansson's book Moominland Midwinter, Sorry-oo is a timid introverted dog who wants to be wild and tries to join a wolf-pack, and can't--just too small and tame.
• A party to praise my inept bestiality? = embracing my animal side at ALL, even ineptly, brings some benefits. Increased self-respect!
• Also... my body doesn't MIND some nice playful sex, but it's lower priority than I think. What my body wants is freedom to roam, and to live inside the Golden Horn.

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