F
Sometimes, gentle reader, words are meaningless, especially sentences… No, I most certainly am not proposing to lower the tone of my bloguette by discussing lyrics of questionable merit; one explores the notion of how eyes meeting across a room communicate something even more profound than dialogue (however brilliantly written)
On a pleasant afternoon in May 2004, such was my first encounter with F. His dark penetrating eyes met mine and it was… one is tempted to say love at first sight, for those who believe in such a thing: truth be told, it was more of an animal lust. His stature failed to impress me at first- F is shorter than average, and he is a lot hairier than what I normally go for- yet there was something about his devoted stare, and something in the way he dogged my footsteps in the hope of a little attention, that immediately won my affection.
Of course, initially it was R that I had gone out to visit, because he was renting out a spare room in his utterly fabulous house in a leafy suburb of
We were both –figuratively- eating out of F’s hands before the afternoon ended, just as he was –literally- eating from ours. Needless to say, I immediately agreed to move in, with the primary objective of getting better acquainted with F, who proved to be no less charming than I had first anticipated. Every morning he accompanied me on solitary runs to the top of Mount Eden crater, not only listening, but obeying, my every whimsical command. At the same time, he tried his best to exert a positive influence on me, in particular sharing appreciation for the simple pleasures in life: for example, his own favourite pastime, which was to have a plastic toy thrown with great force across the crater, which he unfailingly fetched, returning to slobber over said object… with his mouth.
Obviously the ‘thrill’ of this game was in the chase itself, because once F had played with the object for a short while he grew bored and wanted to start over again - chasing after the little plastic object, catching it and bringing it back again to drool over... only to get bored with it… the same routine over and over again, an interminable game. Sometimes, I noted a strange look in his eye- and occasionally I saw him deliver that same look to R as he prepared out for a night at a gay venue, almost as if F wanted to tell us something…
Many facts about F are so astonishing that they are highly likely to be dismissed as fictions, but I will share them nevertheless; all I can say is that if I didn’t know F, chances are I wouldn’t believe them myself.
- F sings in a voice best described as distinctive. He dislikes the loud noises of others, in particular sounds caused by storms, Ani DiFranco, and public firework displays.
- F chews all of his food, and particularly enjoys salad, but only with dressing, preferring to pick olives out and eat them one at a time before consuming all of the other ingredients.
- Unperturbed by most animals, F harbours a dark hatred for a little poodle that lives around the block from him: whenever it happens to be in its garden, yapping at a stranger’s approach, my placid friend transforms into a canine version of Mike Tyson, snarling through a wire fence and baring his teeth menacingly.
- That said, all breeds of cat- kittens, in particular- terrify F. Whenever his nemesis- a black cat that lives down the road- hisses or spits in his direction, F refuses to pass, and on occasion R has to carry him past in order to return home.
Gentle readers, without further ado, let us extend a warm welcome to F… who we expect to become a regular contributor of fabulous calling cards.
After all, consider where he’s living (I saw a headline in the newspaper about
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