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Baker st Doggies
I LOVE Johnlock n doggie
So I drew Johnlock to Doggies! (YEAH!)
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Dog Training Northumberland | Effective Solutions
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Dog Training Northumberland | Effective Solutions
Behavioural Modification A Pet’s Breakfast Jump to Navigation When will you be able to trust your puppy to wander loose throughout the home? Scott, John P.; and John L. Fuller (1965). Genetics and the Social Behavior of the Dog, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Marlo, Shelby (1999). New Art of Dog Training, Chicago: Contemporary Books, ISBN 0-8092-3170-0 HOW WE CAN HELP AS A DOG BEHAVIOURIST Horticulture · 30 April 2018 Cart Be the Pack Leader Vet Visit Program Rescue and Rehabilitate Make a lifesaving difference to animals by becoming a foster carer, donating, fundraising, joining an event, volunteering and more. Email a Friend PEDIGREE® Dry Dog Food Adult Roasted Chicken, Rice & Vegetable Flavor Locations Whether you train your new puppy or dog yourself, take classes, or hire a private trainer, some basic training tips should be tackled right out of the gate. These top 10 tips from professional dog trainers at the top of their game will help get you going. Puppy Training ⟶ The proper training of your dog will build a lasting foundation for a rewarding, lifelong friendship. Urban Dog Training can help you acquire the knowledge and skills to train your dog to become a confident, happy and well behaved companion. Home What we do Care for Animals Dog Care Dog Training Tips and Videos Blue Mountains Shelter Urns and Keepsakes A further follow-up session will allow you to fine tune the training under expert guidance. Firstly a canine health profile is required to exclude physical reasons for the dog’s behaviour. This is available through Redgum Vets. On payment of the behavioural training package, Redgum’s Amichien Bonding consultant will make contact with you to arrange a time when she can view your dog in its everyday environment. Chicken Show all Phone: (08) 8642 3308 CONTACT US Contact SitDropStay Dog Behaviour Australia on Messenger Bedding Older Puppy Training Doggy Bootcamp Place a treat in both hands. Adoptions · 30 April 2018 Animal Care amp Information Meet The Team Enforcement Rates PPGA Construction Motivating Miracles Workshop Council business, news and information Jump up ^ Slabbert, J. M.; O. A. E. Rasa (1997). “Observational learning of an acquired maternal behaviour pattern by working dog pup: an alternative training method?”. Applied Animal Behaviour Science. 53 (4): 309–316. doi:10.1016/S0168-1591(96)01163-X. Charities we’re proud to donate to FAQ – The costs of veterinary care 11 References Training Advice Leashes for Active Dogs 32 Greenaway St, Bulleen – Harry Hampson Innovation and research Rally’O Training Leave it Jump up ^ Burch, Mary R; Duane Pickel (1990). “A toast to Most: Konrad Most, a 1910 pioneer in animal training”. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis. 23 (2): 263–4. doi:10.1901/jaba.1990.23-263. PMC 1286234 . PMID 16795731. Weekend: Which Level do I start in? Classical conditioning[edit] Goodog dog and puppy training Northern Beaches Our Infomercial 571 Montague Rd Dog training and puppy training Waiting at gate/door Turramurra Recreation Centre Location Anxiety Training Certificate III In Engineering – Maintenance – Fitting and/or Turning Our drop-in playgroups are a perfect complement to your vet’s puppy preschool class, particularly for owners looking forward to an adult dog who is comfortable, relaxed, and on her best manners around people and other dogs. Plus we guarantee puppy playgroup will be the best 30 minutes of your week – what could be better than a room full of puppies playing? Guided by a professional dog trainer, your pup learns her social P’s and Q’s while burning off excess energy in play – which means a better night’s sleep for you. Level 1 Basic Dog Manners 7 week course – Upgrade $295.00 Standard $235.00 At the request of our many dog-loving friends owners and partners across the nation, we’d like to share the following information, addressing a wide variety of dog care, training tips, and much more! Here you will find full color public information handouts ready for printing. Engineering Jump up ^ Wogan, Lisa (November 2010). “The Mirror Method”. The Bark. Retrieved 3 December 2012. Related Articles Community and education Urban Dog Training Ground Rules Report a Cruelty Case Location: AWL Wingfield, 1-19 Cormack Rd Wingfield 5013 Food & Treats Dog registration Outdoor classes will only be cancelled in the following situations: Good Leadership and Communication
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fbq('track', 'ViewContent', content_ids: 'dogtraining.dknol', ); I love dogs they are so cute AND Contact us now for a FREE 10min phone consultation You are here: Home Enrol or Call Us Now on 07 3342 0568 Book Orientation Session Phone: Access to the password protected section of our website with the following benefits: Our crazy vizsla is now happy and calm – cannot recommend George highly enough. Pricing & member benefits Our Approach 1 Hour Personal Training Session Pet information videos Domestic animal businesses Animal First Aid Dog Grooming Frequently Asked Questions Puppy training classes, private training training, dog training classes, and private dog training in Adelaide and the Adelaide Hills, covering the Adelaide Hills Council (including Balhannah, Lobethal, and Stirling), the Mt. Baker Council (including Burnside, Kensington, and Rose Park), the City of Mitcham (including Belair, Colonel Light Gardens, and Mitcham), the City of Unley (including Fullarton and Unley), the Campbelltown City Council (including Magill and Rostrevor), and the City of Tea Tree Gully (including Modbury and Tea Tree Gully). Location & Training Times ABC TV Education Policies and Class Information Course Resources Where To Go For Class Dogs and animals Loading… Home / 5 essential commands you can teach your dog The 1980 television series Training Dogs the Woodhouse Way made Barbara Woodhouse a household name in the UK, and the first international celebrity dog trainer.[25] Known for her “no bad dogs” philosophy, Woodhouse was highly critical of “bad owners”, particularly those she saw as “overly sentimental”.[26] She described the “psychoanalyzing of dogs” as “a lot of rubbish”.[27] Her no-nonsense style made her a pop-culture icon, with her emphatic “sit” and catch cry of “walkies” becoming part of the popular vernacular.[28] 25 Sep 2017 3:32:27am Featured Scott, John P.; and John L. Fuller (1965). Genetics and the Social Behavior of the Dog, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Click here to book a class Privacy, Terms and Conditions SA 5700 Typical positive reinforcement events will satisfy some physiological or psychological need, so it can be food, a game, or a demonstration of affection. Different dogs will find different things reinforcing. Negative reinforcement occurs when a dog discovers that a particular response ends the presentation of an aversive stimulus. An aversive is anything that the dog does not like, such as verbal admonishment, or a tightened choke chain.[39] our services Treats All classes are held at Hays Paddock with a car park in Lister St, Kew East. No events Lots of work to do still but an overwhelming and uncertain future for our fur babies has turned in an afternoon of learning, to an exciting adventure we feel capable of tackling and coming out on top. General Information Course Content: QBCC Approved Managerial Course for Trade Contractors Blue Dog Training User Login News about Cesar FREE STANDARD SHIPPING will automatically be calculated on your cart upon reaching a value of $25 or more in eligible products that are collectively under 45kg in weight, after all other discounts are applied. Training Information Konrad Lorenz, an Austrian scientist who is regarded as developing the foundations of ethological research,[14] further popularised animal behaviorism with his books, Man Meets Dog and King Solomon’s Ring.[15] Lorenz stated that there were three essential commands to teach a dog: “lie down” (stay where you are), “basket” (go over there) and “heel” (come with me).[16] Sydney Shelter and Veterinary Hospital Maths Courses All Ages (Part 2) United Kingdom FAQ – Transporting a bird to the vet Dog to dog interaction Tell people what you think Online Course -Basic Dog Manners – Level 1 Pet Boarding Best Dog Obedience Training | More Details Here Best Dog Obedience Training | More Information Here Best Dog Obedience Training | More Info Available Here Legal | Sitemap
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Tagged by: @underoosed
Tagging: @burgledthem @webwiings @learnedprice @ofdemonicmagic @centuriesuntold @frenchones
RULES : answer the questions in a new post and tag some blogs you wanna get to know better !
A - AGE : 28 B - BIRTHPLACE : st louis C - CURRENT TIME : 8:36pm D - DRINK YOU HAD LAST : redd’s apple ale E - EASIEST PERSON TO TALK TO : nerdy, deen, my bff austin F - FAVORITE SONG : currently we’ll go with million reasons by gaga G - GROSSEST MEMORY : i pooped my pants i thought it was fart :/// i was like 6 H - HORROR YES OR HORROR NO : i dont rly care for horror nah I - IN LOVE ? : with food yes thanx nerdy J - JEALOUS OF PEOPLE : jealous of everyone for not bein as ugly as me lmao K - KILLED SOMEONE : *gazes in2 the distance* i killed a man in reno for stealin my french fry L - LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT OR SHOULD I WALK BACK BY AGAIN ? : my parents fell in love at first sight M - MIDDLE NAME: rochelle N - NUMBER OF SIBLINGS : 3 and a sibling-in-law O - ONE WISH : i wish i wasn’t poor and ugly lmaoooo P - PERSON YOU CALLED LAST : my mama Q - QUESTION YOU’RE ALWAYS ASKED : "how do you pronounce that” R - REASON TO SMILE : cute girls n doggies S - SONG YOU SANG LAST : meadowlark from bakers wife T - TOP 3 FICTIONAL CHARCTERS : carol danvers, tony stark, jordan parrish U - UNDERWEAR COLOR : porple V - VACATION : im too poor to afford vaycay W - WHEN’S YOUR BIRTHDAY : april 13 X - XRAYS : the fuc this eevn mean. i’ve had xrays done yes Y - YOUR FAVORITE FOOD : pizza Z - ZODIAC SIGN : aries
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Excerpts from A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Why wasn’t friendship as good as a relationship? Why wasn’t it even better? It was two people who remained together, day after day, bound not by sex or physical attraction or money or children or property, but only by the shared agreement to keep going, the mutual dedication to a union that could never be codified.
Sometimes he wakes so far from himself that he can’t even remember who he is. “Where am I?” he asks, desperate, and then, “Who am I? Who am I?”
And then he hears, so close to his ear that it is as if the voice is originating inside his own head, Willem’s whispered incantation. “You’re Jude St. Francis. You are my oldest, dearest friend. You’re the son of Harold Stein and Julia Altman. You’re the friend of Malcolm Irvine, of Jean-Baptiste Marion, of Richard Goldfarb, of Andy Contractor, of Lucien Voigt, of Citizen van Straaten, of Rhodes Arrowsmith, of Elijah Kozma, of Phaedra de los Santos, of the Henry Youngs. You’re a New Yorker. You live in SoHo. You volunteer for an arts organization; you volunteer for a food kitchen. You’re a swimmer. You’re a baker. You’re a cook. You’re a reader. You have a beautiful voice, though you never sing anymore. You’re an excellent pianist. You’re an art collector. You write me lovely messages when I’m away. You’re patient. You’re generous. You’re the best listener I know. You’re the smartest person I know, in every way. You’re the bravest person I know, in every way. You’re a lawyer. You’re the chair of the litigation department at Rosen Pritchard and Klein. You love your job; you work hard at it. You’re a mathematician. You’re a logician. You’ve tried to teach me, again and again. You were treated horribly. You came out on the other end. You were always you.”
"And who are you?" "I'm Willem Ragnarsson. And I will never let you go.”
Fairness is for happy people, for people who have been lucky enough to have lived a life defined more by certainties than by ambiguities. Right and wrong, however, are for—well, not unhappy people, maybe, but scarred people; scared people.
But these were days of self-fulfillment, where settling for something that was not quite your first choice of a life seemed weak-willed and ignoble. Somewhere, surrendering to what seemed to be your fate had changed from being dignified to being a sign of your own cowardice. There were times when the pressure to achieve happiness felt almost oppressive, as if happiness were something that everyone should and could attain, and that any sort of compromise in its pursuit was somehow your fault.
I have become lost to the world In which I otherwise wasted so much time It means nothing to me Whether the world believes me dead I can hardly say anything to refute it For truly, I am no longer a part of the world.
A translation of Mahler’s “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen”
You won’t understand what I mean now, but someday you will: the only trick of friendship, I think, is to find people who are better than you are—not smarter, not cooler, but kinder, and more generous, and more forgiving—and then to appreciate them for what they can teach you, and to try to listen to them when they tell you something about yourself, no matter how bad—or good—it might be, and to trust them, which is the hardest thing of all. But the best, as well.
Julia had a friend, a man named Dennys, who was as a boy a tremendously gifted artist. They had been friends since they were small, and she once showed me some of the drawings he made when he was ten or twelve: little sketches of birds pecking at the ground, of his face, round and blank, of his father, the local veterinarian, his hand smoothing the fur of a grimacing terrier. Dennys’s father didn’t see the point of drawing lessons, however, and so he was never formally schooled. But when they were older, and Julia went to university, Dennys went to art school to learn how to draw. For the first week, he said, they were allowed to draw whatever they wanted, and it was always Dennys’s sketches that the professor selected to pin up on the wall for praise and critique.
But then they were made to learn how to draw: to re-draw, in essence. Week two, they only drew ellipses. Wide ellipses, fat ellipses, skinny ellipses. Week three, they drew circles: three-dimensional circles, two-dimensional circles. Then it was a flower. Then a vase. Then a hand. Then a head. Then a body. And with each week of proper training, Dennys got worse and worse. By the time the term had ended, his pictures were never displayed on the wall. He had grown too self-conscious to draw. When he saw a dog now, its long fur whisking the ground beneath it, he saw not a dog but a circle on a box, and when he tried to draw it, he worried about proportion, not about recording its doggy-ness.
Relationships never provide you with everything. They provide you with some things. You take all the things you want from a person - sexual chemistry, let's say, or good conversation, or financial support, or intellectual compatibility, or niceness, or loyalty - and you get to pick three of those things. Three - that's it. Maybe four, if you're very lucky. The rest you have to look for elsewhere. It's only in the movies that you find someone who gives you all of those things. But this isn't the movies. In the real world, you have to identify which three qualities you want to spend the rest of your life with, and then you look for those qualities in another person. That's real life. Don't you see it's a trap? If you keep trying to find everything, you'll wind up with nothing.' ...At the time, he hadn't believed these words, because at the time, everything really did seem possible: he was twenty-three, and everyone was young and attractive and smart and glamorous. Everyone thought they would be friends for decades, forever. But for most people, of course, that hadn't happened. As you got older, you realized that the qualities you valued in the people you slept with or dated weren't necessarily the ones you wanted to live with, or be with, or plod through your days with. If you were smart, and if you were lucky, you learned this and accepted this. You figured out what was most important to you and you looked for it, and you learned to be realistic. They all chose differently: Roman had chosen beauty, sweetness, pliability; Malcolm, he thought, had chosen reliability, and competence...and aesthetic compatibility. And he? He had chosen friendship. Conversation. Kindness, Intelligence. When he was in his thirties, he had looked at certain people's relationships and asked the question that had (and continued to) fuel countless dinner-party conversations: What's going on there? Now, though, as an almost-forty-eight-year-old, he saw people's relationships as reflections of their keenest yet most inarticulable desires, their hopes and insecurities taking shape physically, in the form of another person. Now he looked at couples - in restaurants, on the street, at parties - and wondered: Why are you together? What did you identify as essential to you? What's missing in you that you want someone else to provide? He now viewed a successful relationship as one in which both people had recognized the best of what the other person had of offer and had chosen to value it as well.
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A Few Hours in Dinan
30/03/2016: The weather for today. Something like yesterday. Overcast with light showers and cold with a light breeze. Just 10 degrees today.
Our first morning in Dinan, Port de Dinan Lanvallay to be exact. It started with the kids heading over Pont Vieux to look for pastries for breakfast. We noticed a pâtisserie on the corner where the old street headed up the hill but they returned empty handed. It was shut. Jo went back over with them for another look but low and behold, the La Maison de Tatie Jeanne wasn’t open on Wednesdays. There was a restaurant open a bit further up but we only wanted some croissants so we could get up to the top.
Must be a lot of break-ins around town
After giving up on breakfast, everyone returned to the car and we headed up to the old town centre. There was plenty of room in the car park so after picking a spot we headed over to get a parking ticket, where after several minutes of trying to decipher the French instructions, a lady tried to explain the parking arrangements and what the signs actually meant. Since everything was shut between twelve and two, no parking ticket was required. As the lady broke into a few moments of charades, Shane noticed a sign in English and after the explanation was understood, we all laughed and went our separate ways. The lady to where ever and us to the museum, which was closed.
Plane trees nearby
It wasn’t such an issue that the Château de Dinan come museum was closed as there was plenty more to see. We didn’t want to go in immediately anyway as we were hungry and after a feed. We agreed to return later but never did. In the mean time we worked our way towards lunch by firstly meandering through the sites, along the walls and through the streets. Our immediate decision to drop to the base of the château walls and walk around didn’t quite work as we ended up in a courtyard overlooking the southern part of the town. Nice spot to look around, or in the kids’ case, be bored.
Just hanging around the Château
Front areas of the Château de Dinan
Time to feed them. We done an about face and looked for Place des Merciers where tucker beckoned. A quick look at the offerings and we were being shown a seat in De la Tartine au Café, a nice little sandwicherie which was opened when others were not. The food was simple fresh and delicious. From simple baguettes with various fillings to some tempting sweets. Shane had a delicious tuna salad baguette and shared sweets with Jo but Soph saw a rather large meringue that she had to have. We didn’t mind as long as she ate it all.
She didn’t of course. It went in a doggy bag.
Expensive tuna shop over the road
Bellies full and griping to a minimum, we commenced the window shopping part of our day. We were looking around all of the area but focusing on Place des Merciers, the heart of the medieval city. As usual with town squares, as often as not they are not squares and this one was no different. Place des Merciers is a tiny area bounded on three sides, making it triangular. The centre of the square is marked by an ancient well, long blocked off for safety reasons.
Ding dong bell, Pussies in the well. Who put them in?
Place des Merciers is bounded on all sides buy beautiful, historic houses. Some stone, some half- timbered, some arcaded. Apparently, the buildings date from when the tax collectors charged by the size of the buildings’ ground floor footprint, they were built small at the bottom and expanded outwards as they grew. The houses in some cases almost touched. It was these very houses that attract people here and so it was with us. There was some interesting stuff for sale, tempting us inside, seducing our better judgement to part with our cash and spitting us back out onto the footpath with arms of what sometime turned out to be not what we went for. It’s all part of the experience though and not regrettable.
Towards the end of Place des Merciers
Looking back toward Rue de la Pettit-Pain
A restaurant since 1927, Chez la Mère Pourcel reputedly dates back to the thirteenth century
Looking down Rue de la Cordonnerie
Place des Merciers, or as it was formerly known, place de l’Apport or The Contribution, was the focus of medieval activity where all of the lanes of the old town merged. Craftsmen of the day plied their trade from adjacent businesses and as such the lanes were named after them still to this day, although the trades themselves have long moved on. Rues de la Larderie, Ferronnerie, Poissonnerie, Lainerie and Pettit-Pain house meat merchants, blacksmiths, fishmongers, weavers and bakers alike. Noticeable with seventeenth century timbered houses were constructed with large windows (à vitrines) which maximised daylight entering the rooms. Many of the half-timbered houses had porches below and by the early nineteenth century numbered over one thousand. Today only 17 remain and are heritage listed.
The streets seem to be more tourist centric, saturated with souvenir shops, restaurants and boutiques selling high end apparel (price wise at least).
Corner of Rue de l’Apport and Rue de la Poissonnerie
Heavier shopping bags and lighter wallets, we moved on to continue our day. Jo needed to drop in to a pharmacy while we were there as she was still quite ill with her chest infection. She didn’t want to go to a doctor in case they sent her to hospital. Ventolin and strong cough medicine was given to her by the pharmacist. She needed to get better.
There was considerable infrastructure work taking place throughout the immediate area. Sub surface drainage, utilities and communications work required substantial pavement and cobble removal throughout the streets. Mud everywhere and trucks and machinery moving around made the going a little hazardous. Some diligence and extra caution was required when getting around.
Shopping our way back to the car
The Port of Dinan has been around for a thousand years or more. Originally prospering from fishing and trade, shipping of textiles, timber, cereals and leather downstream to Saint-Malo along with the import of seafood and wine would make the port one of Brittany’s major trading routes. These goods would subsequently be lugged up Rue de Jerzual into Dinan itself. Taxing the product allowed the town to grow and due to the exposure and continued destruction of the Port de Dinan, the walled town above became predominant.
According to reports, the area around Dinan was first settled by monks camping on the banks of the Rance. Further upstream and up the hill, early fortifications were of Gallic oppidium and becoming a Roman castrum. The Bayeux Tapestry depicts William the Conquerer, then William of Normandy defeating Conan Count of Brittany and burning the Castral Motte the year before his victory at the Battle of Hastings.
Conan Count of Brittany handing over the keys to the city to William
It was after this time that the imposing fortification and construction of the ramparts were commenced. Not all were built at once, they were gradually added to and improved when Dinan became a Duchy in 1283, again during the War of the Breton Succession and furthermore during the Hundred Years War. Improvements continued until the War of Religion of the 16th century.
War and Dinan go hand in hand. The town was occupied throughout the Second World War by Nazis until the Allied invasion of Normandy had the Yanks working their way south liberating French towns as they went. On the 2nd August, 1944, almost a couple of months later, Dinan was liberated after significant shelling had the Germans fleeing. On their way, they blew up the viaduct to attempt to slow the allied advance.
Bailey bridge connecting the two spans blown up by the retreating Germans
In order to restore a crossing of the Rance after the partial destruction of the viaduct, the Americans built a pontoon bridge at the base of the viaduct to the dismay of the local fishermen. After heavy complaints from the locals to the blocking of the river, a meeting between senior military and Dinan city officials to discuss the issue was planned. The Americans worked through the night prior to the meeting to build the bailey bridge across the damaged spans and removed the pontoon bridge before the meeting commenced, greatly pleasing their commander.
http://www.indianamilitary.org
Shopping in hand and with the day done and dusted, we headed back the way we started but with a couple of more chores to take care of. The journey to Place Duclos detoured via maybe a couple hundred metres of the two and a half kilometres of ramparts that still remain intact surrounding the medieval citadel, and mostly, handsomely preserved. Again, manoeuvring our way through the excavated roadworks underway near the corner of Rues de la Poissonerie and Lainerie, we walked through the full length of construction on Rue de lÉcole. The closer to Porte St-Malo, the more complete the work.
Reaching the rear of the 13th century gates, an immediate right turn and through an old iron gate led us into Chemin de Ronde, the old walkway which in turn led to the Tour du Gouverneur and subsequently to Porte Jerzual. Not only did the tower jut out from the ramparts uncovering great profiles of the walls and porte, it also gave great views of the neighbouring houses and their elaborate roofscapes.
Porte Jerzual from Tour du Gouverneur
Views to Basilique Saint-Sauveur
We had to find the Orange Shop. Jo had been having trouble with her phone and needed to go and sort some things out with them. The service you need least when traveling is unlimited phone calls and need most is unlimited data. Good old Orange only offered the opposite. We really did need to change carriers but didn’t know who.
The route to Orange was back along Rue du Jerzual into Rue de la Lainerie and past the local catholic church, Église Saint-Malo. As lovely as the old church was we were more interested in la Fée Cabosse chocolate shop across the road than the architecture by this time. Only to look at the presentation rather than buy.
Fée Cabosse
By the time that we reached Place Duclos, Jo had a good idea where the Orange shop was and we had to queue up, even though there was hardly anyone in there. Someone met us and offered us a seat until an assistant was available. This took ages, so long that Shane went to the nearby grocery store to get some supplies for dinner. After returning he found that although Jo was being attended to, it was still a long time before we left to return to the house for dinner.
Patience required.
Back to the house for dinner
Mimics
A game of UNO before bed.
Tomorrow Mont St-Michel.
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Excerpts from A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Why wasn’t friendship as good as a relationship? Why wasn’t it even better? It was two people who remained together, day after day, bound not by sex or physical attraction or money or children or property, but only by the shared agreement to keep going, the mutual dedication to a union that could never be codified.
//
Sometimes he wakes so far from himself that he can’t even remember who he is. “Where am I?” he asks, desperate, and then, “Who am I? Who am I?” And then he hears, so close to his ear that it is as if the voice is originating inside his own head, Willem’s whispered incantation. “You’re Jude St. Francis. You are my oldest, dearest friend. You’re the son of Harold Stein and Julia Altman. You’re the friend of Malcolm Irvine, of Jean-Baptiste Marion, of Richard Goldfarb, of Andy Contractor, of Lucien Voigt, of Citizen van Straaten, of Rhodes Arrowsmith, of Elijah Kozma, of Phaedra de los Santos, of the Henry Youngs. You’re a New Yorker. You live in SoHo. You volunteer for an arts organization; you volunteer for a food kitchen. You’re a swimmer. You’re a baker. You’re a cook. You’re a reader. You have a beautiful voice, though you never sing anymore. You’re an excellent pianist. You’re an art collector. You write me lovely messages when I’m away. You’re patient. You’re generous. You’re the best listener I know. You’re the smartest person I know, in every way. You’re the bravest person I know, in every way. You’re a lawyer. You’re the chair of the litigation department at Rosen Pritchard and Klein. You love your job; you work hard at it. You’re a mathematician. You’re a logician. You’ve tried to teach me, again and again. You were treated horribly. You came out on the other end. You were always you.”
"And who are you?" "I'm Willem Ragnarsson. And I will never let you go.”
//
Fairness is for happy people, for people who have been lucky enough to have lived a life defined more by certainties than by ambiguities. Right and wrong, however, are for—well, not unhappy people, maybe, but scarred people; scared people.
//
But these were days of self-fulfillment, where settling for something that was not quite your first choice of a life seemed weak-willed and ignoble. Somewhere, surrendering to what seemed to be your fate had changed from being dignified to being a sign of your own cowardice. There were times when the pressure to achieve happiness felt almost oppressive, as if happiness were something that everyone should and could attain, and that any sort of compromise in its pursuit was somehow your fault.
//
I have become lost to the world In which I otherwise wasted so much time It means nothing to me Whether the world believes me dead I can hardly say anything to refute it For truly, I am no longer a part of the world.
A translation of Mahler’s “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen”
//
You won’t understand what I mean now, but someday you will: the only trick of friendship, I think, is to find people who are better than you are—not smarter, not cooler, but kinder, and more generous, and more forgiving—and then to appreciate them for what they can teach you, and to try to listen to them when they tell you something about yourself, no matter how bad—or good—it might be, and to trust them, which is the hardest thing of all. But the best, as well.
//
Julia had a friend, a man named Dennys, who was as a boy a tremendously gifted artist. They had been friends since they were small, and she once showed me some of the drawings he made when he was ten or twelve: little sketches of birds pecking at the ground, of his face, round and blank, of his father, the local veterinarian, his hand smoothing the fur of a grimacing terrier. Dennys’s father didn’t see the point of drawing lessons, however, and so he was never formally schooled. But when they were older, and Julia went to university, Dennys went to art school to learn how to draw. For the first week, he said, they were allowed to draw whatever they wanted, and it was always Dennys’s sketches that the professor selected to pin up on the wall for praise and critique.
But then they were made to learn how to draw: to re-draw, in essence. Week two, they only drew ellipses. Wide ellipses, fat ellipses, skinny ellipses. Week three, they drew circles: three-dimensional circles, two-dimensional circles. Then it was a flower. Then a vase. Then a hand. Then a head. Then a body. And with each week of proper training, Dennys got worse and worse. By the time the term had ended, his pictures were never displayed on the wall. He had grown too self-conscious to draw. When he saw a dog now, its long fur whisking the ground beneath it, he saw not a dog but a circle on a box, and when he tried to draw it, he worried about proportion, not about recording its doggy-ness.
//
Relationships never provide you with everything. They provide you with some things. You take all the things you want from a person - sexual chemistry, let's say, or good conversation, or financial support, or intellectual compatibility, or niceness, or loyalty - and you get to pick three of those things. Three - that's it. Maybe four, if you're very lucky. The rest you have to look for elsewhere. It's only in the movies that you find someone who gives you all of those things. But this isn't the movies. In the real world, you have to identify which three qualities you want to spend the rest of your life with, and then you look for those qualities in another person. That's real life. Don't you see it's a trap? If you keep trying to find everything, you'll wind up with nothing.' ...At the time, he hadn't believed these words, because at the time, everything really did seem possible: he was twenty-three, and everyone was young and attractive and smart and glamorous. Everyone thought they would be friends for decades, forever. But for most people, of course, that hadn't happened. As you got older, you realized that the qualities you valued in the people you slept with or dated weren't necessarily the ones you wanted to live with, or be with, or plod through your days with. If you were smart, and if you were lucky, you learned this and accepted this. You figured out what was most important to you and you looked for it, and you learned to be realistic. They all chose differently: Roman had chosen beauty, sweetness, pliability; Malcolm, he thought, had chosen reliability, and competence...and aesthetic compatibility. And he? He had chosen friendship. Conversation. Kindness, Intelligence. When he was in his thirties, he had looked at certain people's relationships and asked the question that had (and continued to) fuel countless dinner-party conversations: What's going on there? Now, though, as an almost-forty-eight-year-old, he saw people's relationships as reflections of their keenest yet most inarticulable desires, their hopes and insecurities taking shape physically, in the form of another person. Now he looked at couples - in restaurants, on the street, at parties - and wondered: Why are you together? What did you identify as essential to you? What's missing in you that you want someone else to provide? He now viewed a successful relationship as one in which both people had recognized the best of what the other person had of offer and had chosen to value it as well.
Emotionally crushing.
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