For my 25th birthday this year, the ever farsighted boyfriend gifted me a puppy. A pug female puppy, specifically. She’s a darling, all bouncy and bubbly, so with typical genius and originality, I decided to call her Bubbles. Bubbles became Bubs, Buble (as in Michael Buble) and finally, Bubbies (pronounced, you know, boob-ies). It made sense, she’s a bitch and has eight of those. I have an inexplicable thing for pervy nicknames. For example, I have a friend who we call ‘Thong-i’, an unauthorized wordplay on his very respectable real name. You’ve grasped my ingenuity, I hope.
Anyway, B has been nothing short of a godsend. She’s been successful at getting me up from bed at 5-6 a.m everyday (I’d mentioned in an ancient post that early risers rule the world). She’s (tentatively) made me lose about 10 kilos of stubborn unwelcome fat just by making me clean up poop and pee every hour I spend awake. Everyday, it’s the same. It’s like literal Groundhog Day here. Her initial basic expenditures profoundly made me aware that money is not everything. I’d still wake up alive tomorrow even if there’s nothing left in my wallet except ATM receipts I keep as mementos to remind me of the good ol’ days. She’s also very adept at grooming me to be a tiger mom. I am so proud. She doesn’t quite know how to fart (pugs are infamous for farts) at command yet but she knows the come, sit, stand, stay, down, off, house, roll, speak, house, potty, shake hand and go-to-your-toys commands. My housemate has threatened to call PETA if I teach the newly turned 3 month old any more tricks. She’s under too much pressure!!, it seems. Bleh, dogs are made to obey – they are ‘followers’, as my newly acquired expertise tells me . Which brings me to the last but most significant contribution of Miss Bubbies; I can now fully and unrepentantly justify my time spent on the internet. I have so many pug related pages bookmarked, saved, pinned…I can now understand Ph.d level dog psychology and can unofficially be your dog’s shrink. Hooray!
If you’re wondering why I have the time for all of this, not least the documentation here, I’ll tell you. I am running away. From life, responsibilities and priorities and everything else that don’t make sense anymore. My birthday didn’t just bring in another baggage of age-anxieties this time. I also got a fresh dose of existential crisis I had thought left behind when I turned twenty. As Britt Hayes ably puts it: ‘Our 20s are a time when we’re figuring ourselves out, and naturally it creates this insufferable vortex of “me me me,” similar to adolescence, but with drinking and more journals’.
I wonder why it is so hard to figure out what I want to do with my life. Well, actually, I do kind of know what I want to do with my life – only it involves a humongous amount of talent, money, divine intervention or all of the above, none of which I can yield. I’ve also wondered if it’s easier for someone even as afflicted as Eminem – you know, people with obvious talent. They know what they’re good at and because life is life and everyone needs a little struggling, their only challenge is to find someone or someway to channelize that talent and use it to feed them – physically and metaphysically. Nothing is said about talentless people like me. Am I resigned to a life of daily drudgery or will I find my métier? Is my type designed to be the pegs scrubbed and shaped by life’s trials to fit into the round holes? I hope not.
I am going through a cynical phase, yes…but I am still clinging on to the frayed rope of optimism I was born with (I am very unrealistic that way) and I’m hoping that somehow, somewhere there’s an amorphous cavity I can fit my slightly irregular self into. I’d really like to find my place in the world. But until that time and my inspiration comes, I’m happy keeping myself confined to my bubble of blues, with my …you’ve seen this coming…brown (fawn, actually) Bubbles.
So yup, mild obsession with my dog is a result of all of the above. Plus a pensive pose like this.
idiotropic escape 