When Samson was a puppy he loved going to dog parks—he’d get the big dogs to chase him, then roll over and do the tiny-dog rip-out-your-belly attack, so that he’d inevitably come home caked with dirt and slobber.

In the last few years he hasn’t been nearly as social. When we visit a dog park, he mostly keeps to himself. First he makes a full round of the park, methodically sniffing and marking each landmark, and then he plops himself down next to me and waits until I’m ready to leave. Occasionally he’ll spot something interesting and trot off to check it out, but soon enough he’s back at my side.

Can dogs be autistic? Sam’s definitely abnormal. Sometimes I wonder what made him the way he is. It’s probably something from the first year of his life, before someone picked him up off the street and brought him to the shelter. We’ll never know.

Now that the weather’s cooling off, I brought him to a new dog park for the first time in several months. And for once, he seemed genuinely interested in the other dogs. Several times he threw himself into the pack with gusto and really tried hard to be social. I don’t think he understands quite how to play with other dogs, but it was adorable to watch him make the effort.

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QUESTION: You have a small-but heavy box (twenty pounds, say) and an uncovered paper cup of hot coffee to carry through a parking garage and up a flight of stairs. Along the way you will pass through two heavy combination-locked doors, the first of which opens away from you and the second towards you, and one lighter key-locked door. You are already carrying a laptop bag on one shoulder and a purse on the other. Should you

        (A) cradle the box on one arm and carry the coffee with the opposite hand, or

        (B) balance the coffee on top of the box so you can carry it with both hands?

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Shrug. Shrug shrug shrug. What a strange-sounding word. Shhhrrrrrrrrug.

This isn’t a allegorical commentary on some apathetic state of mind I find myself in; I’m talking about the word itself. It must be a Germanic sort of concoction. I mean, look at all those consonants. And it probably describes the sound you’d get if you punched a guy in just the right spot. Definitely Germanic.

Do people whose native language is, say, Spanish have trouble pronouncing the word “shrug”? Does the ‘h’ make it easier than “street,” “sprinkler,” “Spanish”?

You can only shrug your shoulders; it’s a very specific word. You can’t shrug you knees, your face, or your cat. Some people also use it as a noun to describe a sort of wrap worn around the shoulders. Shrug. That makes it sound ugly, I think. I’d say “wrap” or “scarf.” Still tough and earthy-sounding, but, you know, less so.

I read a post on McSweeney’s today about Atlas Shrugged. I’ve never read the book, but the paragraph about “the collective weight of an entire Tot Lot’s worth of Elmo balls” sounds like a climactic reference. The shrugging is in the title of the book, after all. But what does happen when Atlas, who holds the whole world on his shoulders, shrugs? A shrug is an up-and-down movement, yes? Does this throw the world to the ground, so that Atlas can finally stand, unburdened of the rest of humanity’s troubles? Or does it only adjust the load a bit so he can bear it more comfortably? I’d guess the former, but I’m working from ignorance here.

Anyway, when I then read this post and lit upon another reference to this goofy word, well, clearly the universe wanted me to blog about it.

Shrug shrug shrug shrug shrug.

I don’t watch many movies, but I did see Inception. Disappointment city.

The visual effects were stunning, to be sure, but the plot was uninspiring. Huge corporations fighting to corner the energy market? Seriously? The only character I cared about was Ariadne, in spite of her INTENSELY SYMBOLIC name. I guess I was supposed to be invested in Cobb and Mal’s relationship, but Cobb was mentally unstable and (his projection of) Mal was (1) trying to kill everyone and (2) imaginary. I didn’t even cry at the end, and I cry in EVERY MOVIE. All of them. No, I take that back. I don’t think I’ve ever cried during Monty Python and the Holy Grail. But all the others.

The movie went to so much trouble to set up these neat rules for dreams that I’d hoped it would be full of intriguing logic puzzles, but instead it was full of holes and nonsense.

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Dear Young People,

Maybe you have never been taught how to use a library, and maybe this is not your fault, but you should know that libraries are not like the internet. There are no links, and no spiders. If you put a book back on the wrong shelf, it is lost. For years, maybe. If it’s a popular book, the library might have to buy a new one. You might as well have burned it.

So if you can’t be bothered to reshelve a book properly, leave it on the floor. No, seriously. Drop it. Part of the library staff’s job is reshelving books, and they’re much better at it than you are. They’ll appreciate your respect for the system.

Condescendingly,
A Nitpicky Old Fart Who Just Wasted Fifteen Minutes of Her Life Because of One of You

At least I think it was one of you. If it was someone who should have known better, that’s sadder still. There’s an order to things, damnit! Especially in libraries.

So it’s been a month. I’m sure you’re all thrilled to finally hear that I didn’t die in a fiery plane crash. In fact, I had a pleasant, if short, trip to Nashville to see my brother graduate and then a lovely week in Vancouver with John to celebrate the last few days before he turned his life over to the Man.

Yes, my fiancé is now working full-time for a huge worldwide (but relatively non-evil, IMO) corporation. It would be tragic if it didn’t pay so damn well. Still, I haven’t seen him much lately. They put him up in a hotel in town for the first week of training and flew him out of state for the second week.

I’ve started my own summer job this past week—an unpaid internship at a place downtown—so that’s kept me busy. The job’s only vaguely related to law, which is fine by me. I’m planning to find a standard summer job clerking at a small firm for the second half of the summer, but I might as well diversify a bit for now, right?

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I board the first of four flights tomorrow afternoon. It’s not a big plane, but at least it’s a short-ish flight and I’ll have a window seat (in the exit row, no less). The weather looks pretty promising, too, which is always nice.

I’ve managed to stay distracted over the last week—sitting for four finals will do that. But now finals are done, and I’m left working on my totally uninspired Space Law paper and, of course, thinking about airplanes.

My entire body is a ball of tension that starts with a knot in my stomach and branches out to every muscle. And of course thinking about feeling sick only makes it worse. The best solution I’ve found—and I know it sounds stupid—is to smile. I look at Samson, think the words “my dog is cute,” and force a smile. And it works! For a moment, I relax a little.

If only I could bring Sammy with me for cuteness support. Maybe I’ll load some pictures of him onto my phone, so I can be the weirdo apparently praying to my dog as the plane lifts off.

So that settles it—only funny podcasts for the plane ride. My current favorites are Jordan, Jesse, Go! and Stop Podcasting Yourself. I would bring some You Look Nice Today, but I’ve listened to every episode of that show so many times that I can almost recite them.

Wish me luck! Once I get through the first flight, the rest should be easier.

I’ve managed to avoid thinking about my upcoming airplane flights (three weeks!) most days, but I do sometimes dream about planes. The experience, fortunately, is usually pleasant.

Last night, for instance, I dreamt that I got on my plane to Nashville and found, to my relief, that it was much larger than I’d expected. So large, in fact, that it had a jumbotron-equipped lounge and a full-size Starbucks in the back. I would have liked to head back there during the flight and enjoy something decaffeinated (caffeine exacerbates the anxiety thing), but the plane only got airborne for a minute or two before it landed again and began driving the rest of the way to Tennessee.

This has been a common pattern in my airplane dreams lately: huge luxury planes that don’t fly much. I’ve dreamt about a plane with hotel rooms, a plane with a buffet, and a plane with office space. And whatever the type of plane, if it gets into the air at all, it scoots along about ten feet off the ground, dodging bridges and trees. Now THAT’S what flying should be, eh?

At first I thought the warning near the end of this paragraph was serious, and then I thought it was a little goofy, and now I sense a hint of sarcasm. Must . . . categorize . . .

Thanks to a war between European brewing companies, it’s never been easier to catch a healthy beer buzz. Or get yourself totally sloshed. In November BrewDog, a Scottish microbrewery started three years ago, released a new brand, dubbed Tactical Nuclear Penguin. The beer set a new record by weighing in at a scary 32% alcohol-by-volume, over six times the strength of familiar domestic brands like Budweiser. As explained on a cheeky video on the company’s website (warning: the clip contains simulated penguin sex), the brewery was able to attain such a high alcohol content for its product by freezing the beer at a local ice cream factory, at temperatures as low as -6 degrees, for 21 days. Alcohol freezes at lower temperatures than water, and removing water from the solution increased the alcohol concentration.

You can read the entire article here.

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* Oh, and that’s SARcasMOMeter, like thermometer, hygrometer, sphygmomanometer.

Over the last few months I’ve stepped my Lexapro dosage down to 5 mg per day, which is less than the 10-mg test dose doctors first prescribe to make sure you don’t have a bad reaction.

I think, though, that I’m going to have to ratchet it back up to at least ten. I’ve been getting dizzy spells about every other day in the last week or two, and I feel like I’m extremely sensitive to anxiety triggers. Right now, for instance, I’m in Space Law listening to a presentation about all the disasters that have occurred on space missions. It’s interesting, to be sure, but I feel like I’m about to pass out. I know I won’t actually faint, but, as always, it’s unnerving.

As far as I can tell, this regression is mostly due to my having to get on four planes about a month from now. I’m flying to Nashville to see my brother graduate, then to Canada with John for vacation. Consciously I feel semi-okay with the plane thing, enough that I’m pretty sure I can go through with it, but apparently my subconscious has other ideas.

I hope that upping my meds will make me feel okay again. Once I get through the first two flights (on small-ish planes) I know I’ll be okay for the second two. Between now and then, though, I might be pretty miserable.

If anybody knows of any good resources that can help me to do some cognitive-behavioral-therapy-type stuff on myself, please share. Maybe I’ll go hang out at the airport a couple times, watch the planes take off. Rationally I understand that planes are extremely safe, but there’s something physical that goes on in my brain that triggers an anxiety reaction when I even half-think about a plane. Arrrrrrrgh.