Park

dearest readers, it's andy here —

i have been taking jeff to a new dog park recently — just the past two weeks or so — and it is an interesting experience. the dog park — for those who do not know — has its own politics, which includes both the humans and the canines. i am the new guy in town/park, and so I think I have my place, i entered very socially, chatting everybody up, friendly, but I quickly discovered that it is a very tight community there — at 6:30am — and so i don't think people are so much wary of me as a bit confused by my eagerness to join the group. i'm not really sure what else to do — i'm there early in the morning with my dog, jeff, with other dogs running around, it seems logical that i would socialize with the other parents, like one might at a playground on duty with ones own child. (I do not consider my dog a child — wouldn't want a child, do want a dog — but it's that kind of scene, i'm just trying to break in.)

luckily, jeff is good natured and good tempered, and he is easy with the other dogs and with the humans. he really is just a very nice dog, friendly and polite, courteous. he is not the most popular dog at the park (like me), I don't think, but he has a following among some of the other dogs, and he likes to play — a lot — that seems to be the reason he is there and so he finds mates that he can run and tussle — sham battle — with, and he's liking it. it is also wearing him out, which is good, so he sleeps even more of the day away, and he is somewhat easier on the leash during the afternoon walk, which is welcomed. we are probably each doing equally well at the dog park, and I hope things will improve (especially for me), as the last two days have felt difficult there socially, with a group that i am only beginning to get to know, however eagerly. that said, i can be a very sociable person (and at times the opposite), and so I think it is no wonder that i made a splash with a couple of others when i first started coming by the park a couple of weeks ago. but i may pull back a bit now, hang more with the dogs than the humans, and take it a bit slower. they are clearly an established group, i am new, and the expectation appears to be that i not overextend myself, i will try to follow the rules. but jeff is good, makes no trouble, and is generally well liked, which i can't say for all of the other dogs (and probably humans).

i was probably too social or overt at first — but sometimes that's my way, it's another way to compensate for nerves, the other way being to clam up and not say a word — but I'm not sure why anyone would really find that annoying, charming if anything. there is one woman in the group who is so strikingly cold — emotionally frigid — it's intense to witness, i don't think I have ever encountered someone so cold in my entire life, she is icy. i sometimes like an ice queen — but only if they are tall and charismatic in their frigidity — and this woman is ordinary and short, and I basically hate her at this point. she is cold, and of course she won't talk to me, but she has sometimes not even returned a hello that I have slung her way, which is just rude, though it has happened with a few other of the parents at the playground, as well.

i have definitely gained about 15 lbs now in the last 6 weeks or so and look terrible. i am off to my frozen fruit diet with coffee and cream, and will keep to a bag of frozen fruit a day with coffee and cream at least through black friday, then possibly switch it up unless I am having tremendously good luck with the frozen fruit diet, in which case i will stick with the fruit and delay moving in a different direction toward the end of the diet, which hopefully will conclude on january 1st with me at 140 lbs which is a little below my usual, but should ensure that I nicely fit into my small slims without a problem.

love andy p