14 | May | 2011 | Read it to absorb my awesomeness

I’m beyond exhaustion. I’m dog sitting for my brother and his girlfriend’s big Doberman pinscher who has an anxiety disorder. I’m afraid to leave him alone when I go to work for fear he might try to kill himself.

This dog and I have a lot in common. We both have anxious, nervous habits. His habit is licking all the fur and skin off his hind leg, my habit is picking at my cuticle’s.

I came here yesterday to my bro’s house after a long day of work. I sit down, slide back in the lazyboy, turn on the tube and hear licking and smacking sounds coming from Gunnar laying over on the couch. He was going at it with his leg.

“No lick Gunnar, no lick!”

He looks up and around, sniffs the air, then went back down to masticate his leg some more.

“Gunnar, NO LICK!”

I slept here last night. I locked Gunnar in his room so he wouldn’t follow me up the stairs and into bed with me. I got all nestled between the cover’s, hugging one of the most comfortable pillows ever, and that’s when it happened. I attacked my cuticle’s.

“Stop it Melanie, you’ll never fall asleep if you keep this up!”

I switch positions, hide my hands under a pillow and a few minutes later – pick, pick, pick.

“Stop it Melanie! Don’t make me get the mittens.”

It’s a horrible habit and sadly it kept me up last night. I do it without realizing I’m doing it. Each night I tell myself it’s the last time, the very last time it’s going to happen, but sure enough I find it happening again and again. You think I’m crazy, don’t you?

Writing in a blog for this long, secret’s start slipping out. My cuticle problem is a big one.

So, I get out of work yesterday, tired. Come back here and pet Gunnar, and then pet him some more. His face was in my face, so I keep petting him incessantly. Aside from his nervous leg picking, Gunnar is attention deprived. Normally there are two other dog’s living here (they went away with my brother for a few days), and they get all the attention (hence, why Gunnar is here and they aren’t).

I thought that if I pet him a lot, he would be less depressed and stop picking at his leg. I even let him sleep in the bed with me last night, not that I had much of a choice. As soon as I shut off the lights and the tv, Gunnar bolted up the stairs to the bedroom. Eagerly he jumped on the bed and circled around before plopping down in the center of the mattress. I squeezed in next to him. I was reminded of when I shared a bed with Steph in Savannah. I figured that I was so tired, I wouldn’t have any problems sleeping. I was wrong. It was a big mental disorder showdown. Me with my cuticle’s, Gunnar with his leg. Pick, pick, pick, the two of us went at it. Pick, pick, pick.

I wondered if my brother and his girlfriend had a pair of mittens lying around, but I didn’t want to look because it was highly unlikely, and I didn’t want to see any weird sex stuff they forgot to put away.

When Gunnar finally stopped his picking and licking, he “relaxed.” He was resting like a dog with Parkinson’s disease. Constant shaking and jolting, leg kicking, heavy breathing. I had to go downstairs to sleep on the couch.

I couldn’t sleep. I was worried about Gunnar coming to find me. I was worried about him falling down the stairs because of his bad hips. And I felt guilty for leaving an already depressed animal alone. So I stayed up picking. I buried my hands under the couch cushions, shut my eyes with a determined face set on sleeping. Nope, didn’t work.

After about two hours of sleep, I wake up to hear Gunnar whining from upstairs.

“What? What is it?” I fall back to sleep.

He whines some more. I get up and look up the stairs at Gunnar whose little rear-end is shaking side to side from his little stub tail wagging.

“Ohhh, who’s a good boy? Are you a good boy? Do you have to go outside?”

Gunnar just stood there with his nub wagging. He was afraid to climb down the stairs because of his hips. I go up to get him.

“Come on Gunnar, just one step at a time. Come on boy.”

He runs back into the bedroom, then back out to the hall, then back into the bedroom. I notice something white and fluffy sitting on the bedroom floor. Upon closer examination, I saw that it came from the inside of my brother’s favorite blanket.

“Gunnar what did you doooo!?”

I couldn’t worry about the blanket, I had a dog to get downstairs. I wondered if I could fashion a pulley system to hoist Gunnar out of the window and safely lower him to the ground. I seen it done in movie’s and tv show’s that involved tree houses.

I tried picking him up instead, but he was way too heavy. And I was worried about breaking his visibly bony ribcage. I wondered if my brother had a sled that I could put Gunnar on so I could slide him down the stairs.

“Come on Gunnar, come on down. Let’s go potty.” I start walking down hoping he would take my lead. Eventually he followed me down, being very courageous on his part.

I laid back down on the couch and closed my eyes. Gunnar heavily jumped on top of me and started playing with his tug-of-war rope. He was chewing the rope to shreds, getting drool soaked strands of fiber everywhere. Sleeping was fruitless and so I got up and started writing.

I’m laying in bed now, in my own bedroom – thank god. I’m so tired, and a little hungry. I’m always hungry.

Two days ago I was at my brother’s place, famished (as always), rummaging through his cabinets looking for food. I found a bag full of some kind of grain – I think it was corn meal. I wondered what kind of food it would make if I mixed it with hot water and put parmesan cheese over it.

It resembled porridge. I don’t know what porridge is, but I know this stuff looked like it. I ate it for dinner and honestly it was pretty darn good. I made it the next day for breakfast. I boiled the water, added lemon pepper, garlic salt, garlic powder, onion powder, butter, a sprinkle of parmesan cheese and bam! It was delicious. I ate it with an english muffin.