Appalachia Year

Moby!

B's best friend Crys is over a lot, often with her golden retriever. It's nice to have a big, panting, affectionate dog around, sweeping magazines off of the coffee table with his overzealous tail. Ever since my little dog went to pee on the Big Rug in the Sky in June, I've had a kind of hollow in my gut. Crys says that she works too much and that I'm always welcome to take Moby out for runs or car rides when she's not around. I really might take her up on it.

I had people from my cohort over to work on a project tonight and it reminded me that my friends, and my friends' friends, can't be generalized to represent society. I always forget that. The guy in my group was wide-eyed every time Moby came in the room and would loudly editorialize about how gross it is to have pets, and "why not just have birds and bears and raccoons in the house." I couldn't even be tactful about how absurd that was. Thinking the girl in my group would be similarly bewildered, I was shocked when she casually added that, "animal companionship sort of gives me the creeps."

Uncomfortable, I steered us back to our research project. But for the next hour or so, every time they talked, I'd just think, "Aliens."