Walking in the spring in Portland, Odi is settling in well, general back pain/mental health update.

[juushika]

Beautiful changeable spring weather, today. Took a walk while waiting on an install—I left to gray skies (rich as velvet, the perfect backdrop for all the verdant spring gardens) cut through with swathes of yellow sun that reflected off the pages of my book (Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, a month or two too early but still impeccable). I had planned to walk the height of the peninsula, but found myself walking the width towards downtown St. Johns instead, and the fewest drops of rain began to fall from the sky. I figured I might as well stop for a coffee and some reading time; as soon as I found a seat with drink in hand it began to pour outside, a slate blue sheet of it, soaking and solid. I read a chapter and left to pale gray skies and the beginning of sun, not a drop of rain but the street corners still flooded, listening to Vocaloid on my headphones. I came back to Odi in the kennel, wagging his tail; he whined and I ignored him and went upstairs, because that's what training is. On my flist were two damnportlanders posts, one bitching about bad bicyclists and one searching for people in samurai armor.

There is no city like this one, and few places that I would rather live.

Odi is settling in well, by the way! The first day was exhausting, but now that the OMG EVERY SINGLE THING SHINY NEW has passed things are settling into a more manageable routine. He's still a puppy, mind—goodness but he is such a puppy. The mind of a young dog amazes me. They don't yet know how to filter things: this effects me, this I can ignore. His first ringing phone, his first bicyclist, his first cat were all overwhelming, so direct and relevant in his dog brain. Jamie—my family's dog—doesn't seem to notice these things at all, anymore, televisions and passing cars; Odin's only just starting to filter them. His energy is halfway boundless. His intelligence is impressive—watching him go from constant hand-biting to reacting to "no" to, now more often than not, opening his mouth and lifting it towards a tempting hand or pant-leg and then turning it away so deliberately that you can almost hear his interior monologue of "wanna but not suppos' to." We can tell when he's getting tired not because he settles down but because he gets more rambunctious and less obedient. He's taking to crate training with aplomb, has only had two accidents, both caught mid-stream and occurring in his first few days here. and has pretty much picked up on "good," "no," and variations of "get it" and "bring it." His favorite game, other than chew the rawhide until has been reconstituted with dog slobber, is to carry a toy back and forth between Dee and me when we're at either ends of the downstairs hallway.

I haven't been doing horribly well, lately—my back just won't get better, and I guess I should stop expecting it will, but that's .. sort of soul-destroying, in the way these things are. I think it's fair to say I've been depressed, leaning towards the major depression side instead of the dysthymia side, complete with fucked up sleep and eating patterns and a shameful inability to do difficult things like clean my room or shower. It's a blessing that Odi is Dee's dog—not that I haven't been interacting with him, not that I don't try to be at least a little useful (mostly by playing with him, so she isn't quite so constantly interrupted and consumed by the dog), but that I can sometimes go upstairs and it can be just me and my cat, quiet and alone. But while a dog is no miracle—while there aren't miracles—I think there are fewer things in the world which are so full of pure joy and energy as a 4-month-old puppy.