I'm not doing NaNoWriMo this year

...and that's that.

For the past few weeks I've thought long and hard about what to do for National Novel Writing Month. I did it last year with great success, as you know. I banged out about 1500 words a day and finished well past the 50,000-word minimum. On the heels of that success, it behooves me to follow up with another project.

But sink me if I can think of one.

And it's not just the lack of inspiration, either. I'm just busy. Honestly busy.

You know all the other times I said I was busy on this blog? Too busy to write? I was whistling Dixie. I have been hustling these past few weeks. The administration and grading of midterm exams has taken up a lot of my time. I just got the last batch put into the university computer system a few minutes ago, in fact. But there's also household chores, beer-brewing (still need to tell you about the second batch) and whatnot. Miss H and I didn't even get to ride the O-Train like we wanted to last weekend. And even though we joined a gym last Wednesday, we've only been once. For three days we were recovering from soreness, the weekend was hectic and this Monday just finished us off—swamped us. Miss H has laundry to do, groceries to buy and a ton of frozen breakfast burritos to make, while I have dishes to wash, Charlie's litter box to clean, and those aforementioned midterms to input (not in that order). Our apartment's a cluttered, dusty mess. Aside from the usual clothes, trinkets, loose change, receipts, scribbled notes and cordage, there's also three half-filled parcels waiting to be taped up and sent off home. We need to get this place whipped into shape, 'cause I still haven't baptized it with the requisite cocktail party.

Oh, and I did I mention the deluge of condensation that's collecting out on the veranda? Or that my favorite great uncle died two days ago of acute pancreatitis?

Yeah. The world's gone nuts.

My current works-in-progress are taking up my attention as well. I feel like Mugunghwa (the 52,000-word novel I wrote last November) is almost ready. I like it, finally. It looks good. Should be ready for e-publishing by the end of 2013. As for Novel #1, a few tweaks will set it to rights. Then I can start shopping it to publishers in 2014.

So no NaNo this year.

What I will do, however, just to keep pace with Miss H (who is doing it, and more power to her), is start up Novel #4.

Yeah, yeah. I know. Novel #3 is only sixty-eight percent complete. Sue me. I know exactly where it's going. I planned this shit out. I know right where Novel #3 will end, and where Novel #4 will begin. This was Miss H's suggestion, actually. And it's brilliant. Why not start my fourth novel, the third volume of my magnum opus? I might as well get the drop on it. I can easily mow down 50,000 words of it by the end of November. Something tells me it's going to be more fun to write than the previous two. Every book in the series will be more fun to write than the last. And, hopefully, more fun to read.

But I'll let you be the judge of that.

Hachikō, Shibuya Crossing, and Pepper Lunch

Day Three of Tokyo, concluded:

Here's a heartwarming little tale for you:

Hachikō was an Akita dog born on a farm near the city of Ōdate in 1923. His name had the word "Hachi," or "eight," in it, meaning he was the eighth in the litter, and the suffix "kō," which here means "prince" or "duke."

Hachikō, the latter years.
From Wikimedia Commons.

A year after the dog's birth, a fellow named Hidesaburō Ueno, a professor with the University of Tokyo's agricultural department, took it in as a pet.

The pair of them, Hachikō and Professor Ueno, began a daily routine. Ueno would head off to work in the mornings and return to Shibuya Station in the evenings. Hachikō would always await his owner at the station, and return home with him. They kept this up for about two years.

One day in 1925, Professor Ueno suffered a cerebral hemorrhage at work and died at his desk, never to return to Shibuya.

Got your handkerchief ready? Good. You'll need it.

Every day for the next nine years, Hachikō went to Shibuya Station and waited for his master to return. Without fail, he would appear at the moment the professor's old train arrived, plunk himself down, and sit patiently. Every day. That's at least 3,285 days, just so you know.

At first, the other passengers and the station staff were hostile to the dog. But then he began to attract attention. Soon, a newspaper article was published about him. Something about the Akita's pointless but heartrendingly loyal conduct touched the hearts of Tokyoites. People started to bring Hachikō food and treats to sustain him while he waited.

In 1932, a former student of Ueno's, who had some expertise with Akitas, followed Hachikō to Ueno's former home when the dog returned there after another fruitless day of waiting. There, the student learned the dog's history. Intrigued, the industrious young man conducted a census of purebred Akitas still remaining in Japan, and to his astonishment he found there were only thirty left—one of which was the faithful Hachikō. Over the next few months the student published many articles in the Asahi Shimbun newspaper about Hachikō's unswerving behavior. Soon the dog became a nationwide celebrity. He struck a cultural chord with the Japanese, you see. His fidelity and filial piety to his master's memory was seen as an ideal toward which all citizens should strive. Schoolmasters used the dog as an example to their students, and children began to refer to the Akita as chūken Hachikō: "Faithful Dog Hachikō." He became a national icon of loyalty, even coming to be associated with the emperor.

Hachikō himself died in March of 1935, and was found on a street near Shibuya Station. His autopsy revealed that he had terminal cancer and worms. There were four yakitori skewers in his stomach, too, but they had not contributed to his death or impaired him in any way.

His stuffed and mounted remains are kept at the National Science Museum of Japan, in Tokyo. His monument is in the Aoyama Cemetery in the Minato district of that same city. But that wasn't what I was interested in when I climbed on a subway train to Shibuya on the evening of August 2. I wanted to see Hachikō's statue.

The original statue was put up in 1934, a year before the dog's death. Hachikō himself was present at its unveiling. The metal sculpture was subsumed by the Japanese war machine in the 1940s, but a second was erected in 1948, and still stands today. It is currently Tokyo's most popular meeting spot for the young and the restless. Dozens of twenty-something Tokyoites, dressed in the latest fashions, may be seen standing around his statue, clicking away on smartphones and waiting for their posses to show up.

Each year on April 8, there is a solemn ceremony of remembrance; hundreds of dog lovers attend and stand reverently by the faithful pooch's likeness, heads bowed. Perhaps the most touching memorial came in 1994, though. That year the Nippon Cultural Broadcasting company was able to piece together an old record they'd found and retrieve from it a recording of Hachikō barking. On Saturday, May 28, millions of listeners across the nation tuned in to hear ol' Hachi "speak."

Brings a tear to your eye, doesn't it? Excuse me for a moment... [whoonk]

Okay, I'm back. It was August 2. I had seen and paid my respects to Hachikō. Now I wanted to step a few feet farther away from Shibuya Station and catch a glimpse of what has certainly been used for every single Japanese travelogue, documentary and tourism commercial since the Dawn of Time:

...Shibuya Crossing.

You all know it. You've all seen it, even if only on TV. Every time people think of Tokyo, or see it on the telly, they see this scene: a gazillion people crossing the street between Shibuya Station and the trendy, glitzy shopping and party district nearby.

Now I can honestly admit that, yeah, it is really that crowded. All the time. Every 45 seconds or so the light turns red, the traffic dissipates, and hundreds of people swarm onto the pedestrian crossing in a pulsating phalanx. It was an absolute madhouse. Every 45 seconds.

Tokyo's big, did I mention that?

Then it was time for dinner. I scouted around for a bit and finally found this place under the railroad tracks.

It's called "Pepper Lunch" (as you can clearly see from the photo) and it's a teppan-style diner. A teppan is a large metal griddle used to fry up meaty dishes, you see. Some places cook the food for you, and with others, you cook it yourself. 

Not my photo. This is from a website called Japan in Melbourne.
Apparently they have Pepper Lunches in Australia, too...

With Pepper Lunch, there's a strict protocol. You walk in, turn right, insert some money into a machine, then punch in what entrees and drinks you want. I ordered some steak with corn on the side and a draft beer. The machine spat out a ticket, which I gave to the lady behind the counter. Before long, a tall mug of cold beer and a teppan full of only-just-beginning-to-turn-brown steak arrived in front of me. (I was too busy cooking to take pictures...sorry, you'll just have to imagine the sight and smell.) The teppan was still broiling hot, so I finished cooking my steak and tucked in. It was gorgeous. The side dishes were mashed potatoes and salad, and they really complemented the steak dinner and beer. I waddled out of that place, happy as a clam.

And that was that: Day Three of Tokyo, done.

I mentioned that Tokyo was big. But you'll hear how truly big it is in two days, when I tell you about TOKYO TOWER. Before that, though it's ZŌJŌ-JI. My fourth and final day in Tokyo starts tomorrow! Don't miss it!

left behind: Harriet's eulogy

In every damn movie I ever saw some wiseacre walks into the station house or up to the campfire or out of the boardroom and says "I've got good news and bad news. The good news is..."

I get sick of the jackass always treating his audience to mood whiplash by throwing out a hope spot and then negating the nugget of good cheer with some apocalyptically bad tidings a moment later.

So here's the bad news:

My dog died.

Yes, my dog. Harriet. The lovable Chow-Shepherd cross I've had since I was thirteen years old.

We were together for twelve years, that mutt and I. She was thirteen when she died (I'm going to use the word "died" instead of a euphemism like "passed on" or "pegged out" or "kicked," and you may thank George Carlin for it).

When I met her, she was squished into the corner of an enclosure at the old animal shelter down on Zuni Road. That was 1999, the year when everybody was still in a flap about something called "Y2K," the year The Matrix came out in theaters, the year Bill Clinton was acquitted of being a large and unfaithful ham, the year Nunavut (Canada's third territory) was created, the year Joe DiMaggio died, the year Napster debuted, the year the Columbine shooting took place, the year the euro was established, and the year that my brother and I first went to see a movie unescorted (Star Wars, Episode I if you want to know).

I found it to be an odd picture: the cutest dog in the world was being oppressed by the ugliest, in the same cage, no less. Harriet, who used to look like this (she's the brown one):

...and who had an expression on her muzzle akin to this...

...was being bullied by this thing. I can't even describe it. I went to Google and typed in "ugly dog" and nothing the cybersphere threw at me could even come close to encompassing this animal's unsightliness. Seriously, this was an ugly dog. Gray skin, like an anemic walrus. Woolly white fur that was flaking off in bundles. Stubby legs, a tubular body, a hideous, angular head, and a mean look in its sunken eyes. If Harriet even looked as though she was about to budge out of her corner, Old Butt-Ugly would let out a blood-curdling growl. Harriet would freeze in place and give a plaintive stare to whomever walked by the cage at that point.

And, at some point, I happened to walk by.

They say dogs can't talk, but it would've been harder for Harriet to say "Get me out of here!" any more clearly, even if she'd opened up her mouth and yelled the words in a Flatbush twang.

It was the Bambi eyes that did it, though. Harriet gave me one look out of those dark, somber, tear-jerking eyes and my heart was gone. I had to have that dog. I had to save her from Whizzo the Crazy Ugly Dog-Thing. She had to be mine. I had to be hers.

So we brought her home.

She was an unusual dog. Unique, maybe, is the term. You can't say "all pets are unique," because that flouts the very definition of the word "unique." But Harriet was, all the same. She didn't like to run or play fetch like most dogs did. She was a tug-of-war kind of girl. She loved rope toys and pig's ears and other things you could chew on. She had some bad habits at first, too. She liked to bark and she liked to dig. I can't tell you how many times I had to get up in the dark of night and go yell at her to quit barking. She dug so many holes under the perimeter fence that I began to wonder if her previous owners hadn't been Mexican immigrants.

(I'll pause a moment while you boo and hiss at that awful joke.)

We never had to go far to look for her when she escaped the yard. She always came back. It was filling in the holes that was the problem. They were many and they were deep, and if they weren't properly filled in and barricaded, she'd re-excavate them the next night. I used anything I could find: scraps of plywood, walkway tiles, rocks, whatever we had lying around. It drove me to distraction.

But finally, after repeated lessons, coaxing, persuasion, and some harsh disciplinary action, Harriet was trained. She didn't dig out anymore, and she shut up barking (almost completely). She was a healthy, amiable pup, and though she had some annoying habits (like jumping up and putting her paws on people's stomachs) she had some whimsically cute ones, too. On hot days (it frequently got up to 105 and higher in the summer) she liked to dip her front paws into her water bowl. With all her fur, it was all she could do to keep cool, short of me brushing her. I even sheared her completely sometimes, right down to the skin. She looked ridiculous (like a sheep or a poodle) but she was cool for a while.

She never forgot about me, even when I left her for months—even years. I saw her every Christmas and summer for three and a half years while I attended college. She never failed to greet me at the door or the gate, chasing her tail, hopping about like a mad thing, sniffing me all over to take in some of the exotic scents I'd picked up in my absence.

Then came the big one: Korea. I was gone for a whole year, and then some. For all that time the most I saw of her was the pictures I had brought with me, and some which my parents sent me electronically. She had some adventures of her own while I was gone. An ear infection affected her balance so much that she went around with her head tilted at a crazy angle. Fortunately it was cured quickly.

She wasn't the same dog she'd been when she left. Her muzzle was grayer. Her movements were slower. She had less tolerance to cold. She didn't chase after thrown toys anymore, didn't play tug-of-war with as much enthusiasm. Two more years went by, and she had become...old. Undeniably old. Even I could see that she wasn't the doe-eyed puppy dog she'd been when I brought her home. She was stiff, bent. She spent most of her time sleeping. She hardly ever barked anymore, unless my parents' new dog, Dash, stirred her up.

And soon it was time to make the Hardest Choice. At some point I had to ask myself whether her quality of life truly justified her continued existence. And ultimately I decided it didn't. She was in constant pain. Cataracts clouded her eyes, forcing her to look side-on at anything she wished to examine closely; she could no longer find dropped treats in the dark. Her arthritis was so paralyzing that she could no longer bend her rear legs; and sitting and laying down were painful, torturous, lengthy concepts for her.

I couldn't stand seeing her that way. Not my dog. Not the excitable pooch who used to spin in circles so fast she became a blur. Not the mutt who used to take naps in snowdrifts in Wyoming. Not the jealous girl who'd leaped headlong into the lake after Molly just to keep her from getting the stick first. Not the digger, the barker, the paw-dipper. Not my Harriet.

So I took her to the vet to have her put down.

I can't tell you how often I considered scooping her up, scrambling out of the vet's office, throwing her into the back of my Jeep, and just running away with her somewhere. About once every two seconds, probably.

I even thought of trying to end her life myself, but I knew in my heart that I didn't have it in me to load a gun and point it at her. What if I missed? What if I didn't kill her with the first shot? What would go through her mind in her last few seconds of her life? Would she wonder why her master, the boy she'd grown up with, betrayed her? Hated her?

I couldn't bear the thought.

I think it was the hardest thing I've ever had to do: to sit on the floor of the vet's office with Harriet while the poison went into her veins, and she let out one final sigh and went limp in my arms.

I'll spare you the details. You can guess the rest.

I buried her myself. I insisted on it. It seemed the least I could do. She wasn't the first dog I'd ever owned, but I'd known her the longest, and loved her the most. This was the dog I'd spent twelve years of my life—half of my entire existence—getting to know. The same dog I'd patiently trained to sit, to stay, to shake. The same one who used to dig out of the paddock and go running all over creation while I, heart in my throat, searched and called for her. The same one I couldn't stand to brush, because she had the coat of a musk ox and I always got enough fur off her to stuff a mattress with. The same stocky, fluffy, bull-nosed girl who'd come up behind me when I was sitting on the back porch and poke her head under my arm. The same one I'd dreamed of entering in the Iditarod one day, she had so much fur. The one I hoped to take flying sometime. The one I wanted to come to Alaska with me and live out her retirement chasing moose off my property.

So the veterinary staff wrapped her forlorn little body (she seemed so much smaller now, in death) in a black plastic body bag and handed her to me. I put her in the back of my Jeep, closed the door, and leaned my head against it for a moment, trying to get a hold of myself. Miss H, much more honest with her feelings, laid a hand on my arm. It helped so much. I could never find words to thank her for being there, nor what she did to help me along. I squared my shoulders and drove us home. I backed the Jeep into the horse paddock (next to the big one-acre paddock where Harriet had run in olden times). I selected a quiet spot between the yucca plant and the old corral. With Miss H helping, we dug a three-foot hole in the hard-packed sand and grit. Miss H went in the house to let me pay my last respects. I lifted Harriet out of the Jeep, laid her in the hole, arranging her legs and head as comfortably as I could through the black plastic. I hesitated a moment longer, then put the first shovel-load of dirt on her.

After that, things were easier, a little.

I filled in the hole. I put a chunky clump of dirt on top, as a sort of marker. Just so I could find the spot again if I wanted to. I poured some water over the hole, to help tamp down the loose earth and make sure no one disturbed her. Then I put the tools back in the shed, closed the rear door of the Jeep, parked it by the garage, and closed the paddock gate.

That was September 2, 2011.

I haven't visited her grave since.

I think I might be able to sometime soon.

how to name a fish

[SPECIAL NOTE: For best results, read this post while listening to "Karn Evil 9: 1st Impression, Part 2" by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. Preferably quite loud.]

We can't all be exceptional. The word "exceptional" means "rare, unusual, or extraordinary." You can't be extraordinary without the ordinary, rare without the common, unusual without the usual. The point is to attempt to be exceptional.
It's tricky to do in this day and age, I grant you. We've become a civilization that sympathizes with mediocrity rather than scorning it. We're content with the ordinary rather than the extraordinary. We accept banality if it'll make a little money, entertain us for a while, or both.
But you have to keep up the fight. You mustn't quit. Don't give up. Don't accept mediocrity. Expunge trendiness. Eschew popularity. Be extraordinary. Be unusual. Be weird. Get out on the fringes and dance. It doesn't take much. All it takes is the ability to think outside the box, the self-assurance to step over the ridicule, and a little imagination. That's the root cause of all this mediocrity anyway: lack of imagination. Nobody puts any thought or effort into anything anymore. That's why we have stuff like reality TV.
So put some effort into what you create. Think about it. Imagine first. Dream a little. And whatever you do, dream big. Perform those minute actions which defy conformity, banality. Undermine 'em. Knock 'em back into next week.
How, you ask? Simple.

The first step would be to NOT name your dog "Buddy."

Have you any notion of how many dogs in the history of the Universe have been named "Buddy"? Probably enough to fill up Qualcomm Stadium. Five dogs deep. To demonstrate, my father has owned about seven English Springer Spaniels in his adult lifetime. All of them were regulation liver-and-white. And all of them were named "Buddy." I'll admit that Pop was mighty fond of that first "Buddy." But even among working men, nostalgia has its limits. I look around. I watch dog-training shows. I visit friends' houses. And I invariably encounter a pack of dogs with trite monikers. Too many Buddies. Too many Spikes. Too many Princesses, Dukes, Butches, Wolves (Wolfs?), Astros, Rovers and Zekes. It's only the blue-ribbon competitions where unique dog names really get to shine. Unfortunately, hardly any of us can name our mutts "McBryde's Big Bottle of Irish Sunshine" or "Her Ladyship's Southern Tuscany Escapade." My opinion of people would be greatly heightened, however, if they'd get out there and dream up some new and better dog names. And when I say "new and better" I'm not talking about inventing new ones, like "Kronor" or "Thaksoonf" or "Margagchstha." I'm sure that you think you're being creative way down deep inside, but the rest of us think you're a flake of granola. Or worse, a Trekkie.

I merely mean to suggest that you employ "unusual" appellations to your pets. Names that are familiar and pronounceable, but uncommonly seen. Names found in a neglected corner of the Name Universe, if you will.

Me, I'm gonna name my dog "Remington." "Remy" for short. (That's so he doesn't break the ironclad Two-Syllable-Maximum Rule of Canine Appellations.) Yeah, Remington. That's if he's a German shepherd or some other large working breed. A border collie might sustain the name "Winchester" better (Winch for short). If he's a basset hound—which is a distinct possibility—I reckon "Browning" would be fitting.

Now, if I have two dogs, my choices become somewhat more limited, but not completely. "Smith" and "Wesson" would be good names for a couple of beagles (Ruger if there's just the one). Be they a pair of elkhounds, perhaps "Heckler" and "Koch" would suit. Any set of otterhounds or collies could merit the labels of "Parker" and "Hale." "Mossberg" would do for a Alaskan malamute. A husky, though, would have to be "Colt." Martin, Grumman, Curtiss, Lockheed, Boeing, Northrop, Vultee, Vought, Gloster, Blackburn, Hawker, and Bristol might be pretty good dog names too.

Concerning the cats... I'm not a cat guy. At least, I never used to be. That was before Mom went and picked up the cutest darn little gray tabby kitten from the pound a few years ago. Now he's the cutest darn gray tabby cat you'll ever see. I mean, everything: nice and sleek, soft fur, big green eyes, black lips, white paws, and what's more, he's useful. Archie actually works for his keep, too. Any kangaroo rat or finch that strays inside the garage—or within eight inches of the garage door—is destined for a hideous death. By the next morning they've been reduced to severed tails, a few forlorn feathers, and one distasteful internal organ, piled neatly on the garage door rug in humble sacrifice. But even beyond that, Archie's nice. Always runs up to you, meows gently, rubs up against your leg. The only payment he demands is a good scratchin'.
So maybe two dogs and two or three cats would do the trick. But what to name the cats? What's original anymore? "Muffin" has been used way, way too much. And it's a stereotypical cat-lady name anyhow. Paws, Mitsy, Fluffy, Boots (first name Puss-in), and Pooty-pie are all cliché.
I shall dub the first cat Igor, after Igor Sikorsky, the inventor of the practical helicopter. I shall label the second J.R., after J.R. Oppenheimer, the inventor of the practical atomic bomb. I shall christen the third Maurice, after Maurice Vermersch, the inventor of the practical Belgian waffle. Or maybe I'll call him the Lorax. He speaks for the trees. Oh wait, that's taken. Shazbot.

What does that leave? Birds? Nah, I'll pass. My brother had a cockatiel in high school named Oliver. I taught him to speak. I always used to greet him when I came in the door: "Hey, bird!" Soon, Oliver had copied my inflection and even some of my enunciation, almost perfectly. There was just one problem. He doubled the volume. Tripled it sometimes. "Hey, bird!" I'd say. "HEY, BIRD!" Oliver would scream. That got old REAL fast. So did Oliver's habit of shrieking whenever his beloved master was out of sight. And humping my socks.

Snakes? Nah. Snakes have no love. They can't look into your eyes with that simple, unconditional adulation that dogs have mastered. They can't shake your hand, either. Rats? Maybe. Trouble is, the name "Templeton" is already taken, too. Tarantulas? Hmmm. Cute? Check. Fuzzy? Check. Interesting? Indeed. Vivifying to be around? Not really. This being California, I'm not allowed to have hedgehogs or ferrets. More's the pity.
So that pretty much leaves fish. The tradition in my family has always been to give the fish a name that's longer than the fish itself. My first was named "Wakefield." There followed a kingly line, a royal succession of icthyoid sovereignty. All were assassinated by my brother's fish. (He gave them the plague.) I can't remember any of their names, except for Mergatroid. I miss Mergatroid. He was cool.

I reckon there's only one way I can go as far as fish names are concerned. If I have one fish, I'll call him Jethro Tull. If I have two fish, I'll call 'em Simon and Garfunkel. If I have three fish, I'll call them— (Oh, surely you know what's coming, don't you?) —Emerson, Lake, and Palmer.

Joke's on you, pal.