Dogs: dogs' fan daily tips

Your pet sucks

short and sweet

Dogs Park

You can say the sun is shining if you really want to
I can see the moon and it seems so clear
You can take the road that takes you to the stars now
I can take a road that'll see me through

- Nick Drake, Road

It took me over 3 hours to get myself out of the apartment today, but even with the shower, a second cup of coffee, answering a couple of e-mails and talking on the phone, I had no idea where I was going once I finely locked the door behind me and took the garbage bag as far as the dumpster. It's a holiday, a vacation again, one day of like-a-weekend in the middle of the week. It was late noon when I took off, I have cool plans for the evening and night, and I just had to pass the next 6 hours or so.

Getting out, without a direction like that, reminded me for a moment those first few times I got out of this apartment and headed for the beach, how scary it was to have a day to myself and how insignificant it feel to experience something, like the pure joy of sunshine or a beautiful building by myself without sharing the experience with anyone, and how full of wonder I had been at how much this solitude walking intensify the experience rather then diminish it cause there's no one there but me to share it with.

I'm a different person now, going out of my apartment building I'm confused not by the solitude but from the opportunity, form the places I want to go to and things I want to see, by coffee places and parks and different beach areas, by art galleries and museums, I don't quite know what sensation I want to have, what experiences I want to go through, what adventures. I walk through the streets of Florentine still debating between the small park and the beach and deciding eventually on the park, I want to disappear for a couple of hours, to be here and not be here - presence and vacant at the same time, that sweet urban sensation of fading into the background and sinking in anonymity, that park looks like a good place to start.

I put on the headphones and listen to an audio book, my hands taking the sketchbook and a pen out and I'm starting a new drawing, I don't even experience that hesitance of a blank page, that fear of failing to create a perfect image, I just trace the outlines of a hair of a nude model I'm drawing from some old photography book, I sit at a bench in the afternoon sun and I sink into my drawing, patterns and words and two drawing of the same model on each side of the page, she's very beautiful in the photograph but on my page she look old and deformed, my hand's a little shaky, more then usual, it take me half of her face and all of her hair before I manage to study it.

About 45 minute later after the Audio book jumps from one trek to the other, I lift my head and realize I've been sitting in the Dogs arena - a large are with sand instead of grass and some wooden blocks for the gods to climb and play on, I look ahead to see some people in and out that area walking their dogs, those subtle glances of ownership that runs between the dogs and the people and between the people and themselves. A couple of women, holding hands, dress very well with casual but well made designer cloths holding hands and looking at their two identical boxers, a men with a baseball cup walking along a golden retriever.

I'm thinking about my sister, now in Jerusalem, coming here everyday to walk her dog, and I know with a small twitch in my heart the reason I came to this park today is cause she told me a few days ago when I met her and my parents at the beach that this is where she usually take her dogs when she walk him. I know she's now in Jerusalem and that I wouldn't meet her, but still the idea of her is still, for me, in that park.

I go back to my drawing, writing a titles and painting it gold then working on a pattern behind it, which always makes my mind go blank, the sun's slowly setting behind the buildings and there's not really enough light it go on drawing but I can't stop, I don't even think about stopping cause I just go so out of any verbal thought and into my drawing I forget everything else. That is until a few dogs that fight and chase one another rumble their way toward me, one's jumping on me scattering sand and drool over my sketchbook and pants. I lift my head and see that the arena just filled up with 10 or 20 different dogs all playing and chasing one another. I fold in the sketchbook and pans and I start to walk home.

The Audio book file finish and on the way back I listen to Nick Drake's "Pink Moon". I walk slowly waiting for a guy I saw from the corner of the eye to pass me cause I want to see what book he's carrying. I didn't eat at all today and by the time I get home I feel light headed and focused, clean, like I don't need anything - not food or company or conversation, like I'm totally happy just to have this day to myself, I know that apart of it is having plans for the evening, and yet I feel that accomplished feeling of managing it pass 3 hours outside in happiness without the aid of the Internet or any other communication.

I put my mom's soup, the one I hoped not it eat, in a pan and wait for it to defrost and warm up, I ad a lot of salt even before I taste it but it still taste blunt when I eat it while sitting on the new improvised couch and reading a few pages from a book.

ATTENTION ALL DOGS!