I finished writing the Rowdy and Mr. Mutt children’s book and have been doing a lot of sketching, trying to learn to draw so I can do the drawings for the book. I’m finally getting a handle on what the two of them look like in comic form.
While I ruminate on yesterday
and worry about tomorrow,
my dog chases off a crow
and wags his tail with satisfaction.
On Saturday morning, Marvin was shopping online for some new clothes. Those socks look nice, he thought, and that shirt will look cool with my new jacket. Then a wave of fatigue hit him and he leaned back in his chair. He felt like the website was leading him around like a cow by its nose ring. Buy these socks. “Buy this shirt. It’ll look good with the jacket you bought yesterday.” It was all so performative, like a costume for a play. But he wasn’t an actor going on stage, just a dude going to his 9 to 5. None of it was him. He felt empty, like a poser feigning being ‘Marvin’.
He emptied the shopping cart and turned off his computer, then went into the kitchen and brewed a pot of coffee. When it was ready, he poured himself a cup and added some cream. As he watched the cream swirl around the spoon he stirred, an epiphany hit him. Everything in his life, from this morning coffee in front of him, to the toothpaste he used at night before bed, was driven by seeking dopamine. Bright smile, happy face, meant hot girlfriend. Dopamine. Was there anything that he did that didn’t involve it? He wondered about his friendships. Were those driven by it too? How could they not be? He thought. He called the ones who made him happy, dopamine, and dodged the ones who didn’t, which led to relief, a sort of backhanded dopamine.
He took a big sip of his coffee, steam rising around his face. No wonder coffee was so addictive. Like mainlining dopamine. Just like sex, another powerful source. Was he really that superficial? Led around by a chemical in his brain? He thought he was deeper than that. But what if my thoughts aren’t even my own? He wondered and put his coffee down. But that couldn’t be. At least some of his thoughts were his own or else he wouldn’t be thinking what he was. Marvin somehow found relief in that.
The wave of fatigue was pushed back by the caffeine, but he still felt like an empty shell on a beach wishing the tide would come in and take him out to sea. He sensed a creeping hollowness inside his mind and it made his skin crawl, like nails on a chalkboard. He was saved by his dog, Hagler, who came over and leaned against his thigh, saying he wanted to be petted. Marvin decided to do him one better and reached for his leash to go for a walk.
The following morning, Marvin was lying in bed, listening to the gentle patter of the rain against the window. He was in no rush to get out of bed. It was raining outside and he was warm under his covers. But then he found himself sliding out of bed and heading toward the bathroom before he’d actually decided to do so, and it happened so quickly that his mind lay claim to the decision. As he stood at the sink brushing his teeth, he stared back at his eyes in the mirror and knew otherwise.
He tried to dismiss the thought by assuming he was just on morning autopilot, but it felt different than that, more like someone else was in the driver’s seat. No, not someone, but something undefinable. And then that empty feeling started creeping up on him again. He shook his head and spat out the toothpaste.
When it happened again the next morning, he started to question his free will. If it wasn’t him who decided when he got out of bed, then who or what did? When he got to work, it was still on his mind, bugging him. Whenever he took some small action like scratching his ear, he’d ask himself, was that me? So he looked up his experience online and found it had a name. It was called the ‘Libet Experiment’ and it was a documented thing. It said we were playing catch up with our body’s decisions by a half second or more. So much for free will, he thought. Why wasn’t everyone talking about this? Probably because it wasn’t in the best interest of whatever was making the decisions.
He only experienced it in the mornings when his mind was still quiet from sleep. The rest of the day it was business as usual. He was in the driver’s seat, but he sensed that might just be an illusion because the pace of the day was faster and hid the lag.
When he drove home that evening, he was thinking about how the dopamine seeking acted as a cover for a lack of free will. He was seriously spooked out by the thought when Hagler met him at the front door with his leash in his mouth. Marvin stared at the dog, wondering who made Hagler’s decisions for him. Was it the same entity that got him out of bed in the mornings? he wondered. Maybe they were both just two different costumes of the same entity.
Hagler sat and dropped the leash on the floor. He stared back at Marvin and Marvin knew they were going for a walk. Not later, but right now. Marvin shook his head. Maybe Hagler was running the show. Well, if that was the case, Marvin knew at least he’d get his exercise and eat plenty of biscuits.
“
Fleegle sits next to me on the couch, watching my every bite. “You know, the proper way to eat pizza is with your hands, not on a plate with a fork,” he says.
“And how would you know this?”
He jerks his nose at the television screen. “That’s how everyone on your television eats it. Maybe you missed that lesson. You think I just sleep, but sometimes I watch too.”
“Eating it by hand when it’s hot is a quick way to burn the roof of my mouth and ruin the whole pizza experience.”
“How’s that Parmesan taste?” Drool dangles from his lower lip. “Aren’t you glad you put on extra like I told you to?”
“Most of it has fallen off onto the plate.”
He licks his lips. “Yes, I’ve noticed. You’re lucky to have such a good plate cleaner handy.”
“Put more Parmesan cheese on it, Raud,” Fleegle says as I grate a block of it over the two slices of pizza on my plate. “Don’t hold back. Parmesan really completes the flavor. Go on, keep grating.”
“You’re drooling again,” I say.
Fleegle eyes the block of cheese. “That’s a smart move, buying that fresh block of Parmesan. It’s the best, far better than that sawdust in the green tube.”
“You would know. You stole the tube off the counter.”
“It’s not stealing when you leave it out free for the taking, though the cardboard was almost better tasting than the cheese like substance inside it.”
“But it sure did soak up the drool.”
He nose bumps my leg. “You drool too, you know.”
“I do not.”
“Yes, you do. Go look at your pillow. You must dream of Parmesan in your sleep. I know I do, but the fresh stuff, not the tube stuff.”
A mold box takes shape. Today I will be using the green goo to make the mold instead of the blue because it’s more flexible. The backs of the ears are tapered in such a way that I’ll need that flex to get it out of the mold without cracking them.
Fleegle stares at the baking pizza through the little window on the oven door. “It’s done, Raud, you can take it out now.”
“It’s not done. I just put it in.” I glance at the digital timer. “It still has twelve minutes and eight seconds, seven, six to go before it’s done baking.”
Fleegle looks skeptically at the timer. “That timer runs on batteries, doesn’t it? I don’t trust batteries.”
“It’s working. I can see the milliseconds flash by.”
“When it comes to baking pizza, milliseconds don’t flash by, they crawl, they slither, they creep, they don’t move at all. Is it done yet?”
“Thinking about it like that will only make it seem like it’s taking longer than it is. Why don’t you go outside and check for squirrels.”
“Squirrels, you said squirrels,” he says and bolts for the open patio door, but slides to a stop halfway there and looks over his shoulder at me.
“Don’t worry, I won’t start without you,” I say and glance at the timer. “You have eleven minutes and forty-seven seconds to chase squirrels.”
“If I catch one, can we have squirrel pizza?”
“Maybe on your half,” I say, hoping this won’t be the one and only time he actually catches one.
We pull into a parking spot in front of the take and bake pizza place.
Fleegle sniffs at the inch wide gap at the top of the passenger window. “I can smell it from here. I can smell pizza through brick walls. Why ever eat kibble when there’s pizza?”
“You’re drooling.” I open my door. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll be waiting, and drooling.”
“Don’t I know it.”
I return minutes later, saran wrapped pizza in hand. “Stay in your seat, please,” I say as I slide the pizza onto the dashboard in front of me and get behind the wheel.
Sitting next to a puddle of drool, Fleegle stares intently at the pizza as if with his gaze alone he could levitate it into his mouth. He leans toward it as far as he can, vigorously sniffing the air while barely keeping his butt on his seat.
He sees me watching him, ready to guard the pizza from his sudden attack. “What? I’m just checking for straw. I want to make sure you got the right pizza and not the horses’.”
I end the call to the take-and-bake and set my phone on my desk.
Fleegle runs over and nose bumps my leg. “Pizza? You said pizza on the phone, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did.”
He runs to the door leading to the garage. “Come on, let’s go.”
I remain seated. “Hold your horses. They need to make the pizza before we go pick it up. There isn’t any rush.”
His butt leads him through spinning a circle. “What do you mean there’s no rush?” He spins another circle. “We need to go pick it up before someone else gets it. Like someone who isn’t busy holding their horses. Where are these horses anyway? Am I going to have to share my pizza with them?”
“Hey, chunky monkey, how’s it going?” I say to Fleegle as he joins me on the couch to watch television.
“I’m not as chunky as you,” he says. “Look at your big couch potato belly. Pressing that remote must give you quite the workout. Changing the channel is like a hundred pound bench press for your thumb. And lifting that spoonful of ice cream all the way to your mouth, well that must be like running a marathon for your arm. Very impressive.”
“Shush, watch the show.”
“The show is just there to occupy your eyes while your mouth does all the work, like your jaw is on a Stairmaster.” He sniffs the edge of the bowl. “I’m on to you.”
“How do you mean?”
“You only buy chocolate ice cream so you don’t have to share with me.”
“It’s not my fault dogs can’t eat chocolate.”
“You tell me it’s bad for me every time you fill your bowl and leave mine empty. What’s wrong with getting vanilla or strawberry for a change? I like vanilla and strawberry.”
“I happen to like chocolate more than vanilla and strawberry.”
“No, you happen to like not sharing.” He jumps off the couch and leaves the room, then returns with a very slimy tennis ball he was chewing on earlier and drops the filthy thing in my lap, globs of slobber and all.
I scrunch up my face. “What’s this?”
“I’m teaching you by example.” He nudges the gooey mess with his nose, smearing dog spit and mud across my jeans. “I’m sharing my ball.”
In my bedroom, I pull off my shirt and put on a different one.
Fleegle sits on the bed watching. “Why that shirt? What’s wrong with the first one?”
“I don’t feel like wearing it.”
“But you feel like wearing that one. And those pants?”
“What’s wrong with these pants?”
He snorts. “Nothing.”
Now he’s got me second guessing my pants.
“I’m sure they’re fine,” he says. “I’m just trying to understand what it means to wear clothes based on how you feel. If something good happens that makes you feel really happy, do you have to go home and put on your happy clothes?”
“You could if you wanted. What do you do when you’re happy?”
“I’m always happy, that’s why I only have one suit of fur.”
