I'm the Man

I understand that I should be compelled by a sense of civic duty and personal political purpose to write something witty and scathing about the Supreme Court vs. Affordable Care Act thing or the even funnier story about the frenzy of misreporting that accompanied the ruling's publication, but I kind of can't. It's not that I'm precluded by any kind of gag order or professional conflict of interest. Despite what you might think, I am not currently nor have I ever been a justice of any rank on the Supreme Court of the United States. Back in '07 there were some rumblings that maybe I was Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but they gained little public traction. My ex-wife did employ some unusual shaming techniques.

No, instead of constitutional law, media criticism or the art of horseshit political spin,* I've got something else preoccupying my thoughts at the moment. Basically, it's this: I don't have a lot of ambition.

Odds are you knew that. Not because I've said it before (although given the volume of output over the better part of the last decade and my contrarian reflex abhorrance to originality, it's a near statistical certainty), but because I've never once directed any of you to read anything I'd written anywhere else. This format is an ideal combination of nonexistant standards of quality and zero requirements for output or self-promotion, all of which suit my lifestyle preferences organized around novelty individually-wrapped processed snack foods and virtual athleticism. Blogger was invented and instantly, I'd peaked.

Beyond the career angle, I've also never had any ambition to be in charge of anything or anyone. It's less magnanimous egalitarianism and more just an overwhelming wave of pre-emptive exhaustion I drown in when I consider the level of interest I'd have to maintain in order to order any aspect of anyone else's existence. I'm not a libertarian because I believe in road paving and that somebody should be in charge, I just really would prefer it not to be me.

This stance is problematic in the face of procreation, which I have knowingly done three separate times in my life. I chose to stick around after each instance, partly out of an unimaginative interpretation of the responsibilities of paternity, partly out of revenge against the life choices indulged in by my own parents and the rest of their Baby Boomer brethren and partly because of my complete financial dependence on my wife (at the time). It was full-on fatherhood or freeway underpass, those were my choices. I like plumbing and mattresses and hot food warmed by something other than a magnifying glass or an armpit. Those things sometimes come with the pricetag of full determinative power over the life of (initially) otherwise helpless human people. Don't think I didn't waver.

My quest to avoid responsibility also fell down in the area of pet ownership. I know it's less politically correct to think of oneself as a pet "owner" in 2012 and more of a "companion" or "partner," but I find it difficult to un-wed myself from the concept of ownership when I have receipts.

Pets are a responsibility, but honestly if you do it right, not really much of one. We were/are dog people and I figured out fairly early on that if the food and water bowl stay filled and you're fairly responsive on the door when they scratch, they more or less entertain themselves, especially if you have two. If you have two, you don't even have to throw a ball.

The real problem comes in after you've had that dog for a good long while, say 12-ish years, as a randomly unround number. Then all those non-decisions you haven't had to make while Poochy was sleeping in the sun or barking at the neighbors or muzzle-deep up their own assholes are suddenly cashed in after a couple of bad days and a visit to the vet. When things get rough for old dogs, the vet even stops being particularly helpful and just wants to know what you--yes, You, only ever You--want to do in the best interest of what used to be your congenially self-maintaining animal lodger.

Now I'm the physician, I'm the hospice-care worker, I'm the judge, I'm the parent, I'm Jesus, I'm Jesus' Dad. I'm everything all at once. And she's hurt and she's uncomfortable, but she's still got the brown eyes, her tail still thumps, she doesn't know what the catheter is for, she's just happy to be out of the house. And, of all things, she can see/smell/feel the strain that's breaking your heart and she, of all creatures, is trying to comfort you. I don't want to be here, I don't want to say, I don't want to be asked anything else. I don't want to watch the injection go in or listen to her snore her last snore and I defnitely, most definitely, do not want to sit cross-legged on a linoleum floor in a little room, unable to take my hand from her head above her staring, unseeing brown eyes that will never again close.

It's too much to ask of me, constitutionally speaking. And if I'm being honest, I asked it of myself when I agreed to take on a pet in the first place, as we all do, whether we've thought it through to that logical, horrible endpoint or not. And if I'm being honest, I'll likely do it again.





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*wherein every occurrence simultaneously means wholly one thing and its exact, mutually-exclusive opposite in the same media instant.