Counting Wild Dogs and Sad Sack Zebras Instead of Sheep

This late night insomnia is kicking my ass.

It's 1 a.m. I've got a full day of nursing homes starting somewhere around 6:30 tomorrow morning and I'm not good when I don't sleep.

Lately, as soon as my tired head hits the pillow, I wake up. I think about my house down the street and how it's falling apart before I can get it sold. I think about how long I can go on piecing together part-time jobs while what I really want to do is hole up somewhere and write. Then I worry about what I'll write and how I keep writing parts of books and never pushing them through to completion. I even worry about the legacy I'm leaving for my children. It's damned pitiful, this sorry-for-myself, late night, festival of angst.

I worry that one more interesting thought will never again occur to me or that I'm getting Alzheimers because I can't pull my memories together into a complete, interesting story. I think I may never be the next Eudora Welty or Bailey White.

Yawn. I have little patience with this kind of sad sack attitude.

There are better things to wonder about in my life.

I submit for your consideration- this:



In my weekend wanderings with my brother, while we are skulking around our old neighbors' backyards, leaning around the sides of decaying buildings to photograph our old house, we find this zebra.

It is sitting right behind our neighbor's garage, obviously placed with intent because of the rocks that frame the little tableau. Where it is, no one will see it, at least, not intentionally.

This zebra is about four feet away from the spot where the neighbor's kept their wild dog, Schnitzle, chained to his doghouse. I got too close to Schnitzle one time and the hyperactive, black furry monster lunged for me. I jumped back and in my haste impaled my leg on a rusty fence support. To this day, I have a triangular scar just behind my knee.

And now, there's a zebra watching over the long gone Schnitzle pad.

This can only mean one thing. Schnitzle is dead and buried under that Zebra. Has to be. That's why the black and white jackass looks so sad. If you had Schnitzle chewing your tail for all eternity, you'd adopt that zebra's facial expression.

I should know. I think the zebra feels a lot like I did after that fence episode- kind of ashamed for getting itself into such a mess and like it needs to keep its distance but can't on account of its stuck living in Schnitzle land.