12-24-98 Th 10:48 PM
Check the importance of the dog.  It's Christmas Eve.  An important night for my dad.  I'm not sure why.  I joke that he must have been Saint Nicholas in a former life, trying to be light when I feel heavy.  Dozens and dozens and dozens upon dozens of carefully wrapped gifts with ribbons and bows lie thick round a fat tree piled high with ornaments.  What Dickensian ghosts does he ward off with this display?  And am I too cold-hearted to simply appreciate his generosity?  Bernice has been digging out piles of old photo albums triggering crazy memories.  I hadn't thought of our first dog, Dandy in years.  After my parents were divorced, I used to pray and pray for a year at least that I would wake up and it would all have been a bad dream and everything would go back.  When the dog came I prayed everything would go back to the way it was except the dog.  It occurs to me now that the dog was a bribe, a distraction, a sleight-of-hand.  Whatever.  I back off with whatevers.  I woke up thinking of Jim and Aar and Tink.  Lame names.  I need to pinpoint an exact date.  I need to lose about fifteen pounds.  Hark!  The Herald Angels Sing!  What else?  My father has hung proudly on the wall a picture of him and President Reagan framed along with a letter with Reagan's signature, or a facsimile thereof, presented to my father upon his retirement.  The moon was not on the breast of the new-fallen snow, giving dullness of midnight to objects below.  My farts reek.  My brother sleeps in the bed across from me here.  I brought no gift for anyone.  What else was I remembering?  When my father was a shaggy vice cop.  Badgers vs. wolverines.