May 6, 2019
A woman of great restraint is my landlady. Like this morning on our walk. A neighbor stops to exclaim. My lovely coat, my supple spine, my elegant swan-like neck. (Mmm. Swan. I could go for some swan. Like chicken with undertones of minnow and algae. But I digress.) My landlady nods and smiles and doesn’t say, “yeah, real elegant, you should see him sleeping on his back in the compost heap.” She doesn’t say, “I can get about 15 dogs’ worth of lovely coat out of the vacuum cleaner.” Anyway, restraint is what she shows to my snout. I don’t know what she says behind my supple spine.
