i miss my dead dog ... so what am i?

I fucking miss my dog. I miss him so much, my packmate, Buddy Guillermosson. And the thing is I know, I know he's having a good time, eating better than I am, hanging with all the ladydogs, grateful to have his strength back after the cancer, tearing arse across Fólkvangr, probably tussling with boars, defending against lone wolves, and stopping to smell all the flowers that don't even grow here. I know it in my heart, and I know that I will be with him again someday, and just like me coming home, he'll be the first to greet me, and I'll kneel down, putting his paws on top of my shoulders, and we'll hug like we used to every day after work, and we'll smile, and feel that inimitable sense of relief that no matter what, we'll have each other.

But right now, I don't have that. I have loss, and heart-wrenching grief that attacks me everyday, unexpectedly, in a sort of double-edged mercy that bleeds my eyes of tears and scrapes my insides of their seemingly endless blue wells of sorrow.

They gave me the three days off work for bereavement right after it happened, but I knew it wasn't enough. I suspect at least a month just to adjust would've been better, and now I totally get why the funeral-centric Victorians would just check out for a year after someone passed.

Buddy died in the kitchen, me laying sideways on the floor with him, looking him in the eyes, my hands holding his front paws. He'd stopped eating only the day before. I'd called the vet the next morning to make the appointment to take him in to put him to sleep the next day, droppering a bunch of palliative oil in his mouth until he wouldn't take anymore just to make him comfortable. Then I thought, wait, medicine's not the last taste I'd want in my mouth before I go, and I grabbed a little slice of cheese and a pulling of pork, and I just rubbed those around his mouth and over his tongue so that would be it, those two final flavours. Maybe half an hour after that, he spasmed, and jerked, and spasmed, and paused, and quickly twitched, and exhaled, and his eyes went from looking at me to looking so far past and beyond me that I realized he was beholding the road he was going to take into the afterworlds. And then this friend, this more than friend, this companion, the thing that had been the most forgiving of who I was, and loving of what I am, and consistently loyal to me beyond anyone in my life, was gone.

Picking up Buddy's box of cremains a few days later, it was like he'd returned in a sense. There was a comfort in it, having the presence of it, it suddenly filled the newfound absence in its way. And of course it's not the same -- it's displaced, it's passive. I still talk to the box of my dog's lich of ashes. I speak to him, I sing it sweet nothings, I ask it questions, but in my heart's eye I summon his reactions to all those things, those rituals of communication, and that way those reactions play back to me, echoing forward into the now, séanced from beyond. I place the box on my left upper chest before I go to bed and it's just as if his boxy 20-pound bully head is resting in the crook of my shoulder, that priceless thing that would happen before we went to sleep, which it physically is because that dog's head is in that very box.

I still hear him moving around the house. I hear the dogtags clinking in the hall, or in the backyard. I hear him step up into the creaking frame as a hey-it's-late sign that I should go to bed, I hear a chuf, that breath of a dog who is waiting to be fed.

For six years, those sounds were the ticking of my domestic clock, that clicking of his toenails on the livingroom's stained concrete just as much delineating the patterns of our shared life together, chasing me around the couch, drifting that S-turn into the hall, running circles after me in and out of the kitchen doors, being startled when he caught up to me, lunging at each other on the back porch, quickly collapsing into his panting exhaustion and my laughter at his exertions.

But my mind is still reeling, stumbling in some now awful space without his pro-action to mark that time, to reciprocate attention, to give me a reason to go walk, or do the hundred cyclical rituals that dogs compel us to do for care & love. Without Buddy, I'm no longer a master, owner, dog-dad, packmate, and that's also what really troubles me, because we need words to define us and give us roles and more importantly help us relate to each other. Those terms have been removed, and left a terminological void, because I don't know what I am now, I only know I'm no longer what I was.

Socially/societally there's words for other human loss dynamics like widow/widower, orphan, the recently adopted Sanskrit loan word for someone who has lost a child, "vilomah". I would think that a process so widespread as the death of a pet would've generated a handle for it, something to encapsulate that loss and give people not only a term towards situational acceptance & self-understanding, but as a communicative signifier to others that, hey, that guy's going through a really sad thing and to give them the room & consideration they probably need in the wake of that.

I'm in the in the wake of that, and more honestly, the fucking undertow of that. And what I need is a handle, a word to use for this specific more-than-terrible dog-loss, dog-mourning, post-dog rending of life to grab on to. The lack of this word is also so fucked up because many people seem to discount that loss as something less-than when its not. I realized my dog's love was quite probably the most pure and near to unconditional love I'd ever experienced, and the absence of that word only reflects a shortcoming of how people regard dogs as mere accessories or living adornments, when they're cognitively smart as 3-year-olds, and perhaps even more emotionally intelligent, and certainly far more empathic than they are. I mean, fuck, my dog actually spoke, so, yeah, exceptionally so.

I've recently asked people in my life who're animal-centric or for at least a time actually worked professionally with animals if they'd ever heard of some intracultural word that puts that grief into a proper label, and while they especially understand and have endured my loss many times over in their relationship with dear animal companions, they still don't have a word for me as a mourner in the shadow of that loss, and that only adds to my personal despair and the fucking awful aching that I'm just barely able to endure every night over the past month.

Fuck all.

And, as a writer, I'm going to coin a word that will hold me, that will define what this is, not only for myself, but for the first man who lost his canid outside of his cave to predators, for the blind who never get to see their guide dogs but whose dogs bear their lives visual witness with love, for the children who find their beloved friend flattened by uncaring cars in front of their very houses, for all the open-hearted who rescue older dogs made to fight and can never be re-socialized and so only have those especially willing owners, for those who prematurely lose their animals to parvo or lyme or lupus or cancer, for those who have their dogs stolen or others who through no fault of their own have lost their animals, for you who are sad and grieving and miss your friend and find it oh so very hard to now to take that dogwalk alone. I feel you. I feel all of you.

This word is for you, for us.

I miss my dog, Buddy Guillermosson.

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By day, Guillermo Maytorena IV is a happy bookstore fixture, but at night he's an Investigative Norse Mythologist! He's also willing to entertain the idea of being an adult film star, gynobot tester, or a tour guide in Scandinavia. Should you have any interest in his expertise or opportunities in those arenas, do contact him.

my dog has terminal cancer: in praise of Buddy Guillermosson.

In the wake of my separation, the thing that got me out of bed was my dog, my American Bully, my Buddy Guillermosson. Sure, I could lay in bed and not bother, but then where would the dog food come from? I would wake, I would see his 70 pounds of affirmative majesty just raring to go, and I would drag myself up, pet him, put on his collar, and he'd follow me to the kitchen and I'd let him out to do backyard business while I undraugr'd with a cup of coffee. Before I left for work I'd fill the treat ball, and before putting it down on the floor I'd say:

"Guard the house. Take no guff. Don't let anybody in. See you after work. I love you."

And I'd lock the door and go earn those sacks of dog food at my day job, hit that food warehouse after work, and carry that fuckton bag of kibble through the door to my grateful dog when I got home to the sound of his paws dancing on floor, his broader-than-human smile, and his soulful brown eyes that said:

 "Thank you. Thank you for doing that for me. I've kept our house safe. I took no guff. Nobody got in. And I love you, too."

And that dutiful exchange kept me alive. Buddy kept me alive during my separation, and through the incalculable loss of my father, and through my heartbreaks. It's been six years of being with him of his approximately decade-long life.

This week on Monday, Buddy threw up his dinner. Tuesday he hacked up some blood. Wednesday more blood occurred. Thursday I called the vet to get an appointment the next day, but no blood, so I almost cancelled, but I just wanted to be sure. And Friday the vet takes chest x-rays to discover a 2" tumor in my dog's right lung, and tells me that gives him a 6-8 month timeline, perhaps more, perhaps less if quality of life takes a sudden dive when his lungs fill with liquid to impair his breathing or he decides not to eat.

[The blood.]

I. Hate. Loss. And circumstantial/unwanted change. I hate it. I've never handled it well. After my last cat died, I told myself that I was done with pets until they solve the problem of death. But my future-then-wife moved three dogs into the house, among whom I found Buddy a far & away favourite. Buddy's white blaze on dark gray shorthaired coat, boxy head, wide-set bully frame, big paws, and alpha confidence was the clear winner. The bat-like over-cropped ears spoke of a past where he was beginning to be trained to dogfight, which means they start out by training them to kill small dogs so they get a taste for blood & death. Buddy escaped that fate, and this potentially $4,000 American Bully Classic was bought from the rescue shelter for $50. The anti-social behaviour of being game to fight had already been hardwired into him, which was his only flaw. He loved people & children, but when another dog got in his line of sight he'd suddenly rear up and become this embarrassingly savage monster that needed serious restraining. Some days I secretly loved that berserker flaw, other days I had to immediately leave wherever I was very red-in-the-face, depending.



[Buddy totally flips out on the guy trying to return my lost luggage!]

Buddy's brutal hólmgangr history was what it was, and there would be many nights where he would bark & growl & whine in his sleep, probably still remembering the martial past of his dark puppyhood years later. I would whisper to my sleeping dog, "Hey boy, it's okay. That's over. You're done with it, and you're with me now. You're safe with me." And many times the bad dream would stop at that comforting.

There was a bad moment where I found a precious pair of boots had been damaged by him, and I was mad at him for a good three days until I got the repaired shoes back from the leatherworker. I sat him down and talked to him about my feelings and respecting my things, and he looked at me knowingly, and I really felt better after I'd done that. My then-wife criticized me for bothering to do that, which really spoke more about her emotional shortcomings than it did about my need to process & make peace with the incident by monologuing with Buddy, and coming to accept that dogs will be dogs, no matter how intelligent they are. Though otherwise to her merit, she did once loudly & definitely declare, "Why would anyone have a baby, when they could have a puppy?!?", which was probably a Buddy-inspired comment.

[Buddy's a sidesitter.]

The running assignation was that since Buddy was the smartest of the pack that he was a doctor, or "dog-ter". (His two girlfriend dogs were then dubbed his nurse and medical coder, which still was all about him.)

[because glasses denote intelligence.]

Yet his smartness & exceptionality wasn't just our labelling him as a PhD: I discovered Buddy could speak. He was never a very verbal dog, maybe barking only when suspicious strangers crept up the driveway or dared to place a foot on the porch steps. Then one winter's night in the bedroom (for he was the one dog that got the privilege of first sleeping in the bedroom, then actually slowly but surely testing his boundaries and sympathetically wearing us down to sleep in the bed), I heard someone say, "Cold. Chilly. Chilly." That voice was not my sleeping then-wife's, it was the dog sleep-talking! There were two other instances of his speaking. The second time also in his sleep he said "Oh no!" The third, during a date, my then-girlfriend had just made a statement, where he suddenly interjected, "Sure." We both paused in disbelief, looked wide-eyed at each other, then looked at him. I asked Buddy to elaborate why he agreed, but he decided not to say anything else. It felt like a slip-up, like it was a quality he wished to keep hidden. Since the first time it happened I've been patiently waiting to hear him use his words again. There were moments while he napped or slept I'd notice his mouth move in a distinctly sleep-talking fashion for minutes, but inaudibly, and I'd come up, place my ear to his mouth, and whisper to him, "Speak, boy, speak. Tell me your words, tell me your dreamworld wonders. Speak."

To fill in these long silences between & after these six precious words, and in-line with my only-child background, we would speak for him. He would issues demands for treats or second dinners, or say judgments that as a then-married couple we would never speak directly to each other, but could be effectively negotiated by the dog. Beyond playful anthropomorphizing, it was almost a form of channeling the all-too evident persona of Buddy in the room, an outward building and sounding board of expression that added to the tapestry of domestic life.

[I would sometimes take dictation from him for correspondence.]

After the divorce the two girl dogs were no longer there, so to comfort now-co-bachelor Buddy, I began singing (badly) to him a lot more, taking lyrics and displacing them with his name & species to celebrate him, coming up with a veritable K-tel album of covers like:

‣ "Buddy Crocket: Dog of the Wild Frontier" [Disney film theme]

‣ "(I Am) Iron Dog" [Black Sabbath] 

‣ "My Dog Be Like (Ooh-Ahh)" [Grits from Tokyo Drift soundtrack]

‣ "Buddy: Guardian of Hausgard" [Amon Amarth]

‣ "Come, Come My Doggle" [Crazy Town's "Butterfly"]

‣ "Charming Buddy" [1800s "Billy Boy" song]

‣ "(I've Got) Big Paws" [AC/DC]

‣ "Buddy Planes" [M.I.A.]

‣ "Big Paws I Know You're The One" [Violent Femmes' "Add It Up"]

‣ "Rock Me Buddideus" [Falco]

... and many, many more.

And the lyrics would come out just as ludicrous as you'd imagine. Also there was an equal selection of nonsense songs that helped expand Buddy's already plentiful monikers to things like Bu-Fu, Booley-Fu, Lord Buddlington, Lil' Teef, Jarl Booley, Doggle-Fu, Hund Des Schloss, Bat-Ears, Drooly McFoo, Mr Gray Jeans, Sir Wagglebottoms, and many other kennings & verbal laurels.

In return, at night when alone, I would listen to the song of the heavy rise & fall of his barrel chested breathing, which would lull me to sleep, and let me know that I wasn't so alone.

And maybe Buddy was even secretly less alone. Sometimes I'd come home, the couch was in post-makeout disarray, his paws would smell like Cheetos, his breath like cigars, and it made me wonder if he'd been entertaining while I was out, because we were pretty sure he was also being studded before we got him, so dog got game.

["Hey baby girl, this sweater's made of 100% Sancho material. Pet me, but know you can't touch it just once. Double dog dare you."]

And if the ladies loved LL Cool J, they loved Buddy Guillermosson even more. Passing girls would just outright stop us on walks, begin to pet him, and ask me questions about his age, breed, background, and supercool tactical vest accessories & Norse patches. Sometimes I'd even get some collateral attention from them as well, but the dog was always the slightly more handsome of our Team Handsome (which is our official pack name). Above regular walks & parks & a few hikes, we went to craft breweries, bars, public events, private weddings, and even DJ booths & dancefloors to nightclub it just like his master. Buddy was always the hit no matter where we went, which spoke alot about him and how he holds himself.

[they loved him so much they even offered him a second Puppuccino, which they never do.]

And he even somehow won his Nana's affection (something which is tenuous even for me on some days); she never was a dog person, and she saves him scraps & buys him treats for when he visits.

[His Nana enjoys her grand-dog's company.]

While he already knew how to sit, Nana gave us a sheet of dog tricks, and we trained him at the late age of eight to roll over. He was always too smart for fetch though as he quickly saw through to the fact that I'd just throw the ball, and he'd have to do it all again for nothing.

[enjoying the sun during a road trip to Bisbee.]

I am going to lose Buddy's voice, that presence, that comfort, the company that has kept me alive during the unexpected and undeserved events of recent years. I often find myself mentally lost between actions, and I pause & ask the dog, "Hey Buddy, what was I doing?", and he responds, and I'm back on track. And I so, so, so fear the absence & silence & despair that will come when he's no longer there to answer.

[In the magic hallway at The McCoy during one of many awesome late night walks.]

Having Buddy has been a blessing in so many immeasurable ways. He's an emotional constant in a world of fluctuating judgments & evaluations, a factor of such shining worth by simply being no more or no less than what he is (well, the super-rare talking aside), a present-minded motivator, a metronome of wagging happiness to helicopter near-flight propeller-tail joy to ecstatic tap dancing, a needed example of taking rest, a fearless explorer, cataloguer & connoisseur of the olfactory, a contented & tireless gourmand, an accomplished city-wide mark-leaver, and good boy.

He is the goodest of boys, the bestest of dogs.

In these next 6-8 months of impending death I'm going to be there for him and am actually attempting to cut a day off my weekly work schedule. I'm going to double-dinner down until the salmon kibble's gone, then he's going to eat like a motherfucking jarl: cojack, yogurt, chicken, pork chops, hamburger, and steak, and maybe even at the table with me. I want to make his eyes bulge in amazement at meals, and give him twice the bully sticks, which are his favourite thing to gnaw on, since at this point the extra fat doesn't matter. I want to give him the most enjoyment and wonder before his health declines and he has to be put down. I know all of that won't be enough to thank him, and I know there will be nothing comparable to replace him when he is gone, but until that end comes we have the present and I'm going to make the most of it with him and for him.

This entry is his orðstírr, the reputation of his life skalded into word-glory for us to remember him by because he more than deserves all the praise I can set down. And I end this by saying what I always say to him when we lay down to sleep:

"I love you, Buddy Guillermosson.

Thank you for being my dog.

I love you so, I love you so,

never let you go, never let you go.

You're the bestest, bestest,

better than the restest,

better than the restest dogs,

better than the restest dogs

in the world.

In. The. World."

[In. The. World.]

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By day, Guillermo Maytorena IV is a happy bookstore fixture, but at night he's an Investigative Norse Mythologist! He's also willing to entertain the idea of being an adult film star, gynobot tester, or a tour guide in Scandinavia. Should you have any interest in his expertise or opportunities in those arenas, do contact him.

on the half-century.

If I have to make a birthday speech this year at the huge party my cousin's throwing me, it will be this:

In my early teens I never thought I'd get to 30, that society couldn't continue in the obviously stupid way it was set up, and I would instead die gloriously in a beautiful riot of blood & unshakable idealism before my mid-20s, because otherwise would be a compromise of my knowing better than everyone else, and having to settle for a world that was less than I deserved.

It was reading so many books & my writing that saved me from this. In words one can preserve ideas so they can spread, build whole universes from nothing, cast spells into the minds of others, and remake the fundamental way one thinks.

Yet when I crested 30, I actually expected to know everything, to fully understand how it all worked, to have my game down, and be precisely where I intended to be. And when that so wasn't the case, I was soooo angry because you then find out it's the exact opposite. You can know alot, but you will never ever be close to knowing it all, you can learn the pattern, but the game is larger than anyone conceives, and your position in the world is a construct that only comes from the centeredness & confidence from inside you. And even if you did succeed in all that, the values of those things isn't a constant, and you have those very same questions to contend with anyway.

This mental dissonance is a hard truth. Your paradigm shifts whether you want it to or not, and you let go assumptions about how the world works.

You then forgive people their humanity, or you accept their insurmountable imperfection, at least tolerating them, or find a way to insulate yourself from their unchanging foolishness. You open the doors and love your parents again as people, even though they will only always see you as children, which is just how it is. You realize the value of family, and discover why your friends, that adoptive family you create, is worth so much.

Behind my life, I am thankful for the orlog built by ancestors and family that I have lucked into. While family isn't picked, it's fated, this has so much to do with whom we become, the values we baseline from, how we first engage the world, our expectations of self, and the levels of trust we can extend to others from which the friends we keep stems from. The circle of people you keep reflects who you are, and you are my reflection.

With such partial enlightenment comes an unexpected vulnerability. I found in my 40s that I wept at things like dorky love songs or sappy films or others' personal stories that affected me in a deep way I'd never have let them before, and that disturbed and surprised me and still does. Sometimes that's painfully crushing and sometimes that's enriching in the fullness of its experience in the way a child first discovers chocolate, or thrilling as a first love.

For the few of you who really know me, the past few years have been internally so very difficult and trying. My unwanted divorce, the passage of my father's long decline and sad but merciful death, then a break-up that unexpectedly amplified those emotions. There are things in my life that I miss, and I miss them like a corpse misses its breath.

Happiness isn't objects, or wealth, creature comforts, or entertainments. It's the moments we acquire, the times we peak in our lives, and the deeds & words & art we make that may outlive that life. You become 6th grade valedictorian. Your headlines in one of the country's largest newspapers win recognition & cash awards. You lie in the sarcophagus of the great pyramid in Egypt while no one's looking. You write, handbookbind, and publish a limited edition novel. You date way, way, way more than your fair share of wicked smart, exceptionally beautiful, and joyously compatible women. You spot a chupacabra. You throw two parties that people still wistfully talk about decades later. You write a perfect sentence that transcends its own expression. You have a Viking themed wedding with a whole roasted pig on Midsummer. Sixty people show up at a nightclub just to hear you read two poems. You launch a Norse Mythology blog over eight years ago that you add to every week and is globally viewed everyday. You begin work on a map that could significantly change how people view the intersection of sacred place, history, legend, the monstrous, and the divine itself.

I want to thank you for giving me one of these moments, right here, right now, at this moment of turning half-a-century in my life, and recognizing my value in your life.

Thank you for just being here and much love.

[just a candid homelife shot.
Note that NorsePlay swag Map Of Midgard shirt!]

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By day, Guillermo Maytorena IV is a happy bookstore fixture, but at night he's an Investigative Norse Mythologist! He's also willing to entertain the idea of being an adult film star, gynobot tester, or a tour guide in Scandinavia. Should you have any interest in his expertise or opportunities in those arenas, do contact him.

greeting card holidays that remind you of death.

You're at that bullseye logo'd store and you're doing okay. Then you see the display with the slippers, one toecap stitched with "Best" and the other embroidered with "Dad".

And somewhere inside you just fucking fall apart, and you're in the space where he used to be, that abyss of loss that will never again be filled, and you miss him so very much, and it reminds you that his death will equinox the holiday this year.

Fuck you, Father's Day, you fucking greeting card throwaway fake commercial American timestamp. Fuck.

And here's what I have to say that's constructive: Don't buy your Dad another tie, or that shait card with some one-sentiment-fits-all canned inanity, or some clown-arsed coffee mug. Instead take some time to stop and contemplate about what that man means in your life, and how much of you actually is him. And whether that's bad or good, then take some follow up time to go either have it out, or fix what's bad, or go let him know how & exactly why you are thankful for him.

Your father is limited-time only, he is mortal, that door will close, and you will lose him. Go say those things now and not just on some bullshit annual confabulated demarcation of the calendar like Father's Day.

Do it as you need to, do it frequently if you can, put it in words from deep inside and spare nothing. Address him with the very humanity you've been given by him, his accidental act or considered trust in his own potential as a parent, and his investment in you as a person, as a vessel or vehicle that will manifest as a possible gift to the world that is by circumstance or design or wyrd is a part of him. That's the covalent mutual legacy and act of faith that is your bond. Go articulate that so he understands that you understand that, and acknowledge his role in your life because that recognition of worth is the priceless thing that Father's Day only emptily mimics and falls so achingly short of. And when he is gone, you will be thankful you did.

[My Dad was supposed to be thumbs-downing with me as a response to my Mom being in the hospital gurney (this is her POV as she's actually taking our picture) after falling in a parking lot at the end of a long hike and busting her forehead open on a huge rock.]

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By day, Guillermo Maytorena IV is a happy bookstore fixture, but at night he's an Investigative Norse Mythologist! He's also willing to entertain the idea of being an adult film star, gynobot tester, or a tour guide in Scandinavia. Should you have any interest in his expertise or opportunities in those arenas, do contact him.

hey Dark Entries "subscribers", do hit follow instead.

The "SUBSCRIBE" by email button Feedburner widget (now absent from the right column) will cease to work with Blogger in July, meaning it'll stop functioning & disappear anyway in a few weeks, so if you've previously subscribed using this button, please now instead hit the blue follow button in the column at right instead to continue receiving Dark Entries' deep & insightful content in your inbox. And thank you for your continuing readership, dedication, and enthusiasm.

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By day, Guillermo Maytorena IV is a happy bookstore fixture, but at night he's an Investigative Norse Mythologist! He's also willing to entertain the idea of being an adult film star, gynobot tester, or a tour guide in Scandinavia. Should you have any interest in his expertise or opportunities in those arenas, do contact him.

... and then my mom got covid.

"So my test came back positive. I've got covid."

"What?!?" I must have yelled into the phone at work. My mom's been uncharacteristically fatigued for a week, normally being an 85-year-old senior with the energy of a mid-50s woman, but her symptoms had included no respiratory difficulties nor cough, so I chalked it up to some less pressing flu/cold condition, but apparently Doctor Guillermo was wrong.

"Now, I left a message with my doctor, who's supposed to call me back, but no matter what he says, I'm not going to a hospital."

"Um, you might consider that he's a doctor, but still it's not like your organs are painfully ceasing function and your breathing's entirely okay. Which if that changes you should go to a hospital since that would be the kiss of death."

"No, I won't. If I die, I die."

"Well, I'm glad your affairs are in order. I'll miss you, even if you won't miss you." My sarcasm was angry at her self-disregard, and probably not the best approach, but when emotionally blindsided by potential loss it tends to be my reflexive default. I miss my father, and I'm not ready to lose the parent I have left.

"I won't go to a hospital."

"Mom, you're old enough to know that sometimes what you desire and what you require are by necessity different things. And if you actually haven't learned that, you know what? If I think you need to go to a hospital, I'll fucking tie you up, throw you in the car, and take you to a hospital, because I love you."

After this conversation of forcefully imperative parental love ended, I left work and drove to two different places to get myself tested and neither took walk-ins any longer, so I still don't know if my exposure during my four visits to her last week has given me covid, or maybe an irresponsible custie at my non-essential workplace that shouldn't be open anyhow gave it to me which then got to her, or she got it while going to one grocery store too many for a nickel's savings on produce. I don't know, I'll probably never know exactly, but my test's on Friday, and I'll likely get results on Monday.

In the meantime, my Mom's felt gradually better during the last 72 hours, so I suspect she'll be okay sooner than later, and I won't have to make good on my caretaking abduction threat. But I will if I have to.

[my parents being loving enough to take me to the emergency room in the middle of the night a few years ago. Yes, this is my POV from the ICU gurney.]

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While a mostly happy bookstore fixture for over two decades, Guillermo Maytorena IV is currently willing to entertain your serious proposals for employment as a literary/cinema critic, goth journalist, castellan, airship pilot/crewperson, investigative mythologist, or assisting in a craft brewery. Should you be connected to any of the above or equally interesting endeavours, do contact him.

damn, it's good to be a skald.

In a completely ill-considered/life-embracing Halloween night foray to two parties, a hostess-with-the-mostest had an outdoor open mic and personally encouraged me to read some of my poetry. I told her I'd read only one 'cause poetry's always a hard sell, and I had just one poem that was this year's blue moon occasion appropriate:

[it's actually written to be performed & read aloud, so imagine me tuning bunny ears with my hands, speeding up my reading as the car comes, hands giving a loud single clap to indicate the roadkill, the change in tenor as I say "but they fuck alot", and my existential downshift as I gesture upward to the moon to finish.] 

Not that the open mic was a competition (though on some level it always is [and there was a really super terrific interpretive lip sync sign language number]), but after reading I was the only one the crowd asked for an encore from after the applause, which I gave them.

It felt good to be loved for my words, to own a room, to give a shared experience and get that energy back in adoration for that gift in real time. Thanks Shanna for goading & giving me that opportunity.

Damn, it's good to be a skald. 

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While a mostly happy bookstore fixture for over two decades, Guillermo Maytorena IV is currently willing to entertain your serious proposals for employment as a literary/cinema critic, goth journalist, castellan, airship pilot/crewperson, investigative mythologist, or assisting in a craft brewery. Should you be connected to any of the above or equally interesting endeavours, do contact him.

so, about your dating profile ... .

Hey there, prospective person. I'm honestly glad you're interested enough to decide to make an effort to homework me and it took you here.

So if you're hoping for me to mutually swipe you right/superstar you/heart/smile/wink/message back or any of the other possible digital approvements, I'm going to address the following all-too-common facets found on most dating profiles:

All those emoticons & icons. Maybe emoji are the modern shorthand hieroglyphics of the texty new millennium, but fuck that girl, use your words. Words are sexy like a silk smooth sonnet or fun as freeverse. Seduce us with your personal expression.

Filtered photos are like wearing a stocking mask to rob a convenience store for its fountain drinks of sugar love. Nobody wants to get robbed this way. If honesty is your foundation, then mushy/blurry high-impact filters are no way to start a relationship.

Sooooo much makeup. If it all goes well, you're going to be seen in the morning. If the moment of judgment comes after the business, then odds are you're not going to get a repeat customer. Have confidence & security enough to post something with you not wearing a whole five pounds of slap on your face. Less is more.

That duck face. Cut it out. This relic of late aughties emo/scene selfies somehow still endures, and it is not cute, nor winning, nor transmissive of how anyone really looks. The duck face isn't used IRL outside of this one single dated cyberconvention to express reactions in any context, so unless you're actually an emo/scene gal, just stop, delete, and please exit your bathroom or car to go take a for-real picture.

Those GIF-y Instafilters. On Instagram you've got an endless roll to selfie-indulge in, but on your dating profile, you don't. There's this limited and bullet focus chance you've got to attract a person (which is why you're there, yes?), so choosing to overlay yourself as an animated dog, or with Harry Potter spex, or Wayfarers you can't afford, or rainbows passing straight through your ears, all tries to indicate fun but ultimately works against you. Anyone can use those, it's hardly original. Either compose/find a photo that shows you're for-true fun, or hey, even better, write about how exactly you are fun-fun which will be far more attractive than detractive.

Your theme of Lil Mosey's Blueberry Faygo. This begs the question if Spotify selects this track as a default, or if there's some SEO-boosted digital dating advice article that states most people swipe right to that, but it's baffling that like 1 out of 5 people have this as their profile's anthem. It's not a good song. And my observation that it's somehow a pop cultural lowest-common-denominator shows anyone's lack of individual merit in selecting it. Same for anything by The Weeknd, or most of Post Malones' tracks (excepting that Spiderverse soundtrack one, but still that's not really reaching for something distinctive). There's an endless jukebox of choices, go find the one song that is you and not everyone else.

Your "I'm an open book" isn't an open book, and you probably couldn't write much less be a book if you tried, which you haven't. I've written a book and that's no task for anyone who can't even adequately form three paragraphs about themselves. And if there's not enough inside of you to compile those few paragraphs then it's not a relationship you need, it's self-improvement.

If you want a partner in crime, I want plans for a scheme that will set us up for life. Show me your flawless criminal genius, and I will drive the getaway car. Let our togetherness raid the world like Vikings and beat this system for good.

The body shot. Where in your carousel of photos is it? While I'm sooooo definitely a face person, that fine face is attached to a whole being, a complete package, and you can't make a fair physical chemistry judgment about anyone without that full body picture. If it's because you have a weight problem, then maybe you should ease off on the weekly pizza. Not saying curvy girls can't look good, but you have to give us a look to begin with.

Remember that hiking was used to get place to place, not as a fun activity. While connecting with the majesty of nature's a redemptive & renewing thing, it tends to happen on a meditatively personal & individual level inside oneself. If I'm going to get sweaty with you, there are far better options.

And for people who all say they love to travel so much, somehow I bet that's more wishful thinking than your actual life recreation. None of that's cheap, believe me, I know. Pick your destinations wisely because odds are you'll never be able to afford nor see it all. And destinations never stand still, like a postcard, they change while you're away, so factor that into your unrealistic pie-in-the-sky travel budget.

"Netflix & Chill" is lame. I would probably sit on the Chesterfield with you to watch something, but we'd have to make out a little somewhere in there. But hey, fucking like to read. Books are sexy, they make you sexy. With each page you turn, you earn. It's a mentally proactive neural activity. New ideas, new ways of thinking, the gift of experiences/histories/possible futures -- it's the most rewarding of mediums, and if you like that, then you're already brilliant.

What I really, really, really find dismaying about the broad cyberavenues of online dating is that there's so much no, which I suppose is a large part of the reason behind this piece. It's like this whole universe of no you never knew existed. You'd think that in increasing the dating pool to a potentially global amount of people than you'd normally never run across in local meatspace would then give you tons more worthy candidates to choose from, but this is so not the case that I've encountered. Even moreso, I wish there were even finer granulations of criteria to scythe down this huge haystack of mega-chaff as it seems the few delimiters that influence the algorithms still sling all this time-consuming non-harvest of no at you.

This unforeseen dearth should just reinforce my self-worth, letting me know that my selectivity & relationship experience only confirms that I'm emotionally intelligent enough to know what I want. But it also lets me know how incredibly lucky I've been so far to date way, way, way more than my fair share of wicked smart, exceptionally beautiful, and joyously compatible women, given how very, very few are actually out there, at least ones that can convey that in the above context of a dating app/site. I sincerely hope dear reader that you are one of these brilliant exceptions, and that you

find me here.

[hardly the best Lichtenstein-styled homage, but you're artistically literate enough to see that, right? Right.]

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While a mostly happy bookstore fixture for over two decades, Guillermo Maytorena IV is currently willing to entertain your serious proposals for employment as a literary/cinema critic, goth journalist, castellan, airship pilot/crewperson, investigative mythologist, or assisting in a craft brewery. Should you be connected to any of the above or equally interesting endeavours, do contact him.

my not-Purge.

The dark beauty of The Purge franchise is its personal questioning that if you were annually granted 12 hours with which to commit any crime with impunity, wouldn't you seize that opportunity? The world is replete with imbalance & unfairness, with injustice & shortcomings. There's a not-so-fine line that separates murderers from vigilantes, thieves from robin hoods, the traitor from the patriot. These constructs are overlays that shift with the tides of history and sociological contexts. You put on the hat, you believe in the ideas of that costume, you arm yourself, and if you're victorious, then those are the terms that tend to endure. You have essentially purged your obstacles, and someone once said that for your dreams to become ascendant, one has to destroy the dreams of others for its fuel. So beautifully grim, so mercilessly direct, but is that violent fulfillment true?

So I went to The Breaking Point to Purge. My father died a couple years ago, around the same time my separation & subsequent divorce occurred. And late last year a breakup unexpectedly happened to me. There's a compounding of anger from these three things inside myself that I've never experienced before, in a way that is so not who I am, yet I can't argue with the very real pain level of loss & vulnerability I feel from those experiences. And the catch is if I let that anger go, then the sadness of it wins, so anger seems to be the default coping mechanism, but that's obviously a holding pattern and not a solution. My left-brain thinking's that if I could fully unleash my anger and go somewhere to destroy things with impunity, that I could purge myself of those feelings, level out and become myself again. Or even transcend the societal limitations of civilized behaviour, become a berserker, and gain a level of superhumanity, maybe. I'd tried acupuncture over the past month, but instead of blissing out like everyone else in the room, I'd mostly felt varying levels of emotional/energetic discomfort, even being inflicted with a serious hangover headache after a session, and I felt done with it. Instead of my body passively being subjected to sharp objects, I'd decided it was time for the objects to be subjected to all the brute force my body could actively generate.

The fraternal co-owners of the local rage room were so stoked I showed up with my loadable workout hammer that they took this picture of me ready to clobber things for their social media:

Yeah, total Purge coveralls, paintball mask, and construction site gloves, all practical safety appurtenances, plus you have to sign a waiver just in case you get hurt. I'd paid $10 extra for 20 glass bottles. They gave me like 50, so there would be glass, oh yes, much glass.

Pairing my phone's Viking Metal playlist with the room's bluetooth speaker, the brother gave me a quick rundown of the implements on the table just inside the door that were available: varying lengths of pipe, a small sledge, a claw hammer. Short of hitting the walls, ceiling, or camera (yes, they keep an eye on you, and if anyone's in the lobby, your rage room antics are on an external monitor above the door), everything else was fair game. The room's major features were the corpse of a water heater, a dinged but not defeated safe, the skeleton of a smashed large screen projection TV, a martial arts practice torso, a hairdressing mannequin head, an old large server case, and a huge tire, all either at the slopes of or somewhere on three small hills of destroyed rubbish, like a mini-apocalyptic landscape. 

Once the door shut, for the next fifteen minutes I could just beat anything in sight to oblivion. Amon Amarth's Versus The World ramped up and I fucking went to town, whirlwinding my hammer into the tire as hard as I could, beating the water heater like a dying elephant that dared to charge me, surgically striking hinges & welds on the iron safe to challenge its surfaces, crushing the side of a PC case into a dish-like object, becoming the wrecking ball to the remaining skeleton of the TV, hitting the makeup head right in its stupid face across the room into its upper corners like I'd just decapitated a battlefield opponent. 

Cresting the wreckage heaps, I turned and quested for more things to hit. The slopes of these proved somewhat unstable, my feet sometimes sinking into layers of jagged plastics and some sharp-edged ruined objects, which made me realize if I did this again boots would be more sensible protective option, so I had to mind my balance and ankles as I sought out new targets in the room.

And it was the bottles that were the most satisfying. I made them explode in mid-air with deadly accuracy, set them on top of the tire to tee-ball it into glittering snowflakes, threw the fragile containers at the walls and ground to comet tail into traceries of bright fireworks, smashed their shining curves with my hammer neck down into the floor until they shone no more. This was recycling at its finest, the noise of shattering a wonderful symphony of finality, the high bell glissando of instrumental vessels which would never hold anything again, their completeness irreversibly converted into an unexpectedly delightful schadenfreude.

There were only two moments, maybe less than ten actual seconds of that whole quarter-hour where I connected with my feelings, screaming & weeping & raging with anger, but the focus of the rest of the session turned out to be purely physical, instead my mind calculating the hows & methods of strikes & blows to greatest efficiency & degrees of effect, maximizing the experience to do as much evidenced damage as I could to the microcosm around me. It was more like a good workout than anything, and seemed more like I'd been at it for 45 minutes as opposed to just fifteen. I did leave with the endorphins from the exercise of it, the praise of the brother owners, and the achievement of getting to sign the wall as a participant in the shared commercial ritual of contained brutality, which was something, but not what I came for.

My father is still dead. I am still divorced. And, in a weird way that outweighs the other two, there isn't a day that has gone by where my heart does not mourn, uselessly re-negotiate, or miss so very deeply my last relationship.

I wish I could've beat those things out of my head & heart, used the experience as a modality for healing and self-care, but the purge didn't work for me. I find my feelings are more concrete than other people's, and far more substantial than all that glass or metal, which makes their quality resilient & stronger. My sadness is more profound, and my love more real. This presents a difficulty and a blessing which cannot be purged.

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While a mostly happy bookstore fixture for over two decades, Guillermo Maytorena IV is currently willing to entertain your serious proposals for employment as a literary/cinema critic, goth journalist, castellan, airship pilot/crewperson, investigative mythologist, or assisting in a craft brewery. Should you be connected to any of the above or equally interesting endeavours, do contact him.

all the red rings.

The new car's bluetooth digitally grabs my phone, pulling a random track out of the playlist a thousand deep:

And the mercy seat is waiting
And I think my head is burning
And in a way I'm yearning ...





Like a spell, the surprise blindsides me, and I'm in a kitchen I remembered from long ago. The redhead is uncorking her two-buck chuck like it's the finest. She climbs up an uncertain stepstool to get her fancy plated goblets with the relief of grapes on them for us, her well-proportioned Italian posterior centering the balance of her fae Irish form, barely keeping her from falling down like a beautiful disaster. The reels on the tape player turn slowly, the white teeth in the spools grinding forward toward a foregone end as we smile at each other. Nick Cave continues rasping out his ballads of murder & seduction, the listener uncomfortably attracted to the ouroboros of the idea that both those things swim in the same dark, warm water.

[she looked something like model Laura Schuller {photo by Marc Laroche}.]

All the red rings of hair my eyes cannot help but follow around and down, and I am lost, so lost in their warp & weft woven to crown this actress, a sketch group comedienne, this woman of talent who decided to come to a holiday party with me. And then there we were, at her place.


The stained livingroom couch has a gypsy fringe throw, and she drops into my lap like a gift. Our mouths are sour with her cheap wine. We walk the goblets into the bedroom. The fancy party clothes drop away in slow rounds of lingering movements.


Three hours later she tells me, "You fuck like the Devil." I whisper, "And you love like a pale, beautiful angel." The hours continue.



Somewhere during a breather, this important life changing moment happens, where she says, "'Bill'?!? Guillermo is soooo much better. You should take it back. Be Guillermo."


After, we lay there and talk of magick, and talk of curses, and talk of dreams, and talk of secrets, until the birds of dawn join our conversation, their song finally letting us drop into sleep.



I would call her later, asking if she wanted to watch Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, thinking our shared love of literature and her stagecraft could coo together over the spectacle. Many voicemails, but she would never answer. I saw it with someone else, who didn't appreciate it at all.



She would later go join her boyfriend in California, her future husband. I would get an email a few years after, with a subtle admission that perhaps her marriage was an ill fit. I never answered.


Between that unrequited pair of communications but before her intended move, I starred in a friend's poetry reading performance trio onstage at Club Congress, The Drunken Poet's Highball Hour, where 60 people I knew showed up just to hear my two poems. I'd mailed her a flyer. A heart milagro pinned to my jacket's lapel buttonhole, the emotional boutonniere that I would've unpinned to gift her in the audience during my reading. She doesn't show up to hear me speak the words to everyone:


"I would have gone.

I would have gone." 


Years later, at an unexpected nightclub encounter, she tells me between tears of regret that she scripted a character based on me in a play she wrote.



Somewhere outside of time, there's a version of me on a stage, my hand pressed to the small of her back, my fingers wedded in the red rings in the curls of another her, and we are together, still kissing.

[For Kimberly, who gave me the gift of my name.]

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While a mostly happy bookstore fixture for over two decades, Guillermo Maytorena IV is currently willing to entertain your serious proposals for employment as a literary/cinema critic, goth journalist, castellan, airship pilot/crewperson, investigative mythologist, or assisting in a craft brewery. Should you be connected to any of the above or equally interesting endeavours, do contact him.