Jill Rants and Raves

got border collie?

It all began with a bird by the side of the road. A baby towhee perilously close to the rumbling wheels of the weekenders returning home along Skyline. We stopped and started to search, without luck, for the nest it may have come from. This was the second time I'd found a roufus sided towhee on a busy road and had been advised by the wild bird centre that if I couldn't find a nest and the young bird was in danger, to bring it to the local humane society and they would transfer it to a bird sanctuary and it could be released at a later date. Susie looked at me with that familiar 'not again' look and we headed down towards Peninsula Humane. Roxy and Riff Raff, fresh from their adventures by the creek and under the redwoods, were barely awake in the back seat. They wouldn't have cared anyway. They both came into my life in similar ways, to this bird. Riff Raff found in a gutter off Fruitvale Avenue in Oakland, and Roxy at the end of her holding period at animal control.

We dropped the bird off and before I could stop myself, I asked a question I had begun to ask casually at every shelter I visited. 'Got any border collie pups?' A staff member eagerly responded 'we haven't, but I have a friend who is having to euthanise her 6 month old border collie because he bit the kid'. This didn't sound promising. 'I would have bitten the kid too' she added, so over Susie's strenuous objections I took the phone number, intending to put it in the garbage on the way out.

That was in May 1996. Frankie had been alive for six and a half months, and had been adopted by a woman and her 4 year daughter after they became enthralled with the movie 'Babe'. The mom managed a motel in the Outer Mission and was looking for a guard dog plus babysitter for the kid. The pup was overweight, timid, and reeked of shampoo. I talked to the mother about what happened between her kid and this beautiful pup whom they had bought from a puppy mill breeder at 8 weeks of age. As we were talking I looked over at the dog, laying dutifully at the feet of the child. And the kid - was kicking him in the back. She was barking instructions at him, handing him toys and then ripping them from his mouth, so hard she dislodged a tooth from the pups mouth, and kicking him - rhythmically - with a sweet smile on her face.

Frankie left with us that day - and joined Riff Raff and Roxy in the back seat of the red car.

The story of why I gave him back to them two weeks later is still baffling to me: how the family changed their minds, how they pleaded, cajoled, begged to have him back, how they were going to give him to another family member who would run with him each day. And when I finally relented and they picked him up, the look he gave me as they loaded him into their car and drove away is not one I will ever forget. It was the look of an animal abandoned to hell. He knew it even if I didn't.

I began to beat myself up over the decision 30 seconds later. I knew I had done a terrible thing. I couldn't sleep, I felt the strongest sense of having betrayed an animal, and it brought back all the nightmares of the many animals my family had left over the years when we moved. And my mother, knowing that all the cats and dogs would come to me if I called them had used me to fetch them for dispatch. Sometimes I wished they would just make a run for it.

The phone started jangling at around midnight. We ignored it. But it wouldn't stop. Finally I picked it up and the mother screamed at me 'What have you done to this dog? He is trying to bite all of us, we can't get near him. You need to come and get him'.

30 minutes later, barely dressed, Susie, Roxy, Riff Raff and I were outside the motel. In the room a family of angry people gathered. Frankie stood, disgraced, shaking in a corner. I had the collar I had bought for him and showed it to him and asked him to come. His tail started a low, quiet swish between his legs, he moved slowly towards me and pushed his head between my legs and waited for the collar to be put on. I attached a leash and asked him if he wanted to come with us, and his head reared up and I have never seen so broad a smile on a dog.

That was the last of the motel, and the four old abuser.

My life with Frankie has not been easy. He was terrified of small children and bared his teeth if they came close, he was afraid of most dogs and bit many of them, though rarely breaking skin, he herded some - but not all - of my cats mercilessly, he barked like a border collie - sharp, high pitched, frequent. He adored adult people and was fiercely territorial of them around other dogs. He once fell out of the car through an open window while I was gently driving along a dirt road, he once fell off the back of a convertible, he once had to have stomach surgery to remove a piece of tennis ball, he once jumped out of the back of Aida's pick up truck while it was parked because he saw food in the gutter and we didn't even notice until we got home. But when we returned to the same spot, there he was - waiting. He loved the redwoods and the creek at Mary's house, he was happiest chasing balls on a lawn, he loved to hike for miles along a beach, or on the trails in the hills or wander the Albany Bulb with me and the others.

I have often wished him gone. When he bit another dog I threw him on the ground and screamed at him, he has bitten me and growled at me, someone once threatened to call animal control on me to report me for abusing my dog. I gave him the phone number and said 'go ahead, tell them it's Jill and her border collie'. Frankie was legend as the border collie least likely to win any congeniality prizes. Much like his owner. Me. I absolutely fuckin' adored him.

And yesterday, I had him put to sleep. And you all know what that feels like. It's no different whether you have one or twenty animals sharing your life (and for all of you who worry - I don't have anywhere near that number!)

Why is it that I am dreaming border collie pup right now?

goose on the loose

Okay, I know I am a freakin' weirdo. I have been trying to get to the carpet warehouse in Richmond for days and every day there seems to be some distraction, somebody's car breaks down and they need a ride, or some work project just has to be done. What is up with that? So today, on one of the hottest days of the year and having wiped out on my dogwalk this morning I thought that a mellow trip to the carpet place would be a good idea and asked Aida to come along as she was similarly derailed by the heat (and last night's margarita I guess).

But, here's the thing. Richmond is a twisted maze of triangles and dead-ends at freeways and train tracks that look like you'd better not cross to the other side. I know, I know - lots of great people live in Richmond and it has a vibrant history linked to the amazing docks and industrial heartbeat it once was, there on the flipside of San Francisco Bay. Richmond is the story of Rosie the Riveter and proud union ship building, and there is still a hulking marina and boat building business, container ships rest here, and boat wrecks nudge through the still waters of the bay around Richmond Bridge.

But don't get lost in Richmond. 

We got lost looking for the carpet warehouse. And as we crept through the streets, criss-crossing Cutting, Carlson, MacDonald and Harbor we both felt a little unease as we turned onto a street where a crowd of people were standing around a chain link fence behind which a bunch of gnarly pitbulls and chows were chained, lunging at the fencing and - staggering like a drunk sailor on the tarmac, drooling - was a Canadian Goose. Now, I'm not crazy about geese. They make a bloody mess and there are a whole load of them. But ya know what? It is a beating heart. And that's good enough for me. I jumped out of the car, trailing a huge blanket I carry around with me for some reason and looked back at Aida, still seated comfortably, who asked ' did you want my help?'

Moments later I flung the blanket over the large bird and I barked instructions to Aida to get in there and get it wrapped up. Have you ever been bitten by a goose? Yup, once is enough. Aida, if anything is more impulsive than I am, and flung herself on the ground wrestling a 20 pound bird. I called animal control and asked, over their laughter, what to do with our new bird.

A few minutes later we were releasing our irritable passenger into a lake by the Bay, watched incredulously by about 40 geese who stared at us as if we were insane.

I tell you what - as the goose waded into the cooling water and sipped and nestled himself into the pond and swam off, I felt pretty good about our adventure.

We set off in search of the carpet warehouse.

As we looked at the miles of floor coverings, one of the guys who works there asked, because he recognized my accent from my earlier pleading phone call asking for directions, 'what took you so long to get here?'. I recounted our goose tale and watched his face go a little pale. 'You stole someone's guard goose?' 'Guard Goose?' And then I got a little cultural education. Apparently instead of pitbulls, our local drug and gun dealers are utilising these feathered watchbirds to squawk like crazy when the SWAT teams descend. I guess these supercriminals save big on the dog food.

Ah, well. My feathered friend, now liberated from his life of crime, is sitting on a pond by the bay...

kennedy, health care and my own twisted take....

Ted Kennedy's recent impassioned and outraged speech to his congressional colleagues about their hypocrisy in accepting tax payer funded healthcare while voting against the rest of us receiving it was one of his finest moments. And while I can find plenty to get frustrated at in Kennedy's life and career, he had many of those moments when a public servant lived up to the best of that description.

For one who was born into the fledgling National Health Service, the American approach to the health care of its population has always been a head shakingly frustrating discussion for me. And when I first came to the US for an extended time I collided head on with this system when suddenly one night I developed the most crushing stomach cramps and my girlfriend at the time rushed me to the local hospital where, it must be said, I got great treatment from a terrific set of caring doctors and nurses and then after I recovered was ushered into the back room for the money talk. And for the first time in my life I signed up for 'charity'. The bill, which exceeded 3,000 dollars, was well outside my ability to pay at the time. And it got paid - by someone else. By whatever Catholic Charity or other non-profit partnered with that hospital.

And I'm embarrassed to say that over 20 years later, as I stumbled into an emergency room having impaled my elbow on a nail, I signed up once more for help paying a bill that I couldn't possible afford in my current financial state. The bill from the radiologist, the bill from the attending physician, the bill from the emergency room itself, the bill from the person who dressed and treated the wound and who got my blood on their bare hand. At the end of that day, the cost totaled more than 2 mortgage payments on my house.

In the intervening 20 years, I had paid, and paid and paid - for private health care. And even though I was healthy and rarely used the system, my monthly premiums went higher with each birthday and my co-pay got bigger and finally - when my income began to shrink, I made a choice. My house payments or my health care premiums. I dropped my private health care. And became one of those millions who leaves the house each day and hopes the cars stop at the crosswalk or that I don't trip and fall.

I liked Kaiser. I knew how to get the best out of the system. But I've sat in waiting rooms for hours, sat again in the stifling small exam rooms while the doctors were running late, have been told by my doctor that she could only discuss a certain number of items during a visit, and when I got behind on paying my $450 per month premium, was denied a visit while I was clearly having a health problem. By a girl, barely out of her teens who told me to just go to the finance office on the 2nd floor and pay and then I could be seen.

What is it with you Americans that you don't see that your health care is already rationed?

Americans are determined to present an image of an independent, get the government out of my face pioneer, yet the vast majority of working Americans are tied, hook line and sinker to an employer and to a job they may hate because your health care and that of your loved ones is tied to a corporation. Most Americans are now 'tied' to companies because of your dependence on the healthcare package, every bit as much as workers once were tied to the company towns they worked in and whose homes were owned by the robber barons and first major industrialists of this phenomenal and great nation.

It's an interesting phenomenon to witness former 60's radicals who were trying to bring what they saw as a corrupt government to it's knees - Vietnam, Kent State, the pitched battles of the Free Speech movement in Berkeley, the Weather Underground, Black Panthers - become the primary endorsers of a government run health system and to see the new radicals - the loud, bullying, under-educated mobs of 'conservatives' massing on the new battlefront - howl about how a public option in health care reform would involve a government 'death panel' deciding when to kill your granny. How would you rather have decisions made? You and your doctor in a fully run government system like Medicare? A system which can always be changed simply because it is government run, or you and your doctor in a private system where automatic letters are sent out telling you your coverage has been dropped because you missed a payment?

Do I think the National Health Service is a perfect system? Nope. Do I think the Public Education system is unflawed? Think again. But do I believe the American way of sub-contracting out what really is supposed to be a full-on government program - the military - to private companies like Blackwater is any better? Hell, freakin' no. And just think on this - the entire National Health Service in Britain serving the population of 60 million employs fewer people than one US government department - Defense.

When the NHS was miraculously brought into existence in 1946 (enacted in 1948) the principles were simple:

• That it meet the needs of everyone
• That it be free at the point of delivery
• That it be based on clinical need, not ability to pay             

Since then a more complex set of principles has been added, and more services are now jointly run by a  public/private option, almost 10% of people in the UK choose a fully private system (and are able to pay for it) and there have always been areas which are not covered 100% - like dental care.

In 1948, as the UK was heralding a new era in social justice by providing health care for all, President Truman was asking Congress to support federal anti-lynching legislation. That effort, like others before it, failed. Social justice - as embodied in the way in which we care for and educate all of us - is facing one of it's greatest challenges right now in America. Ted Kennedy - you will be missed.

three dog (good)night

Photo: Jill Posener ©

Yet another euthanasia looms and I feel worn out. Not so much by the prospect of Frankie's departure but by the way in which my own brain tortures my decision making. And it's not that Frankie's death will be anything short of miserable for me. But these weeks of twisting and turning about the right time, the best day, the nights of no sleeping as he pants and paces and falls and cries, and my getting up and searching in the dark for a comforting medication - for him, not for me - have taken a toll, especially so soon after Oscar. I cannot hear another word of advice or platitude about how I have done the best for him, that I will know when the time is right, that he will somehow communicate that decision to me.

I don't want to hear another comment by someone whose job involves killing animals that these are 'good deaths'. Buddy - there are no good or bad deaths. There is death, there is an ending. That is never good. It might be merciful if pain is constant, it might be carried out as well as it can be given what we are doing to a creature that can never really consent, it might even be the only option, as when a police officer is called to 'dispatch' a deer hit by a car and in what the state law calls 'irremedial suffering'. A bullet to the brain is at least a quick end to a terrible event. But a good death? Death by injection with a loving owner and a beloved pet is a terrible decision made at a time of awful and fearful suffering. It may well be the right, the best, the only decision. But it is simply death - not good, not bad, not indifferent.

I worry that if you consider the mercy killing of a suffering animal as a 'good' death, you might, as you take the animal that has not been adopted, or the underage kittens or the tail waggin' smiling pitbull to her death in the room now being re-named the 'comfort' room, that you just might be able to persuade yourself that these are 'good deaths'. Euthanasia after all, comes from the Greek and means literally 'good death', but it refers to the practise of ending a life painlessly. It doesn't engage in the decision making leading to that death. Euthanasia in the vast majority of cases in our animal shelter system are acts of expediency, budget concerns, lack of kennel space, behaviour assessments. Necessary sometimes? Absolutely. Good? I don't think so. And sometimes the Greeks got it wrong you know. The word 'hysterical', which as every woman knows will be levelled against us when we get a bit upset about something is from the Greek word meaning 'womb suffering'. A similar level of 'hysteria' from a man will be admired as some sort of passionate outrage.

And death by injection in the death chamber at San Quentin, while done as 'painlessly' as possible is not a good death. It certainly is not the same as a home-rigged method of self deliverance done with an informed and deliberate consent. If there is a single thing about my adopted country that I despise it is that it still takes a man in shackles to his death in a clean quiet room in front of a hungry, if small, crowd.

You see where my tortured brain takes me?

I have sometimes wished Frankie gone. Not through suffering. I fantasised a couple of times that he would have a massive sudden heart attack while prancing along a trail and die with the wind on his lips, right there. But now that he is a pathetic old man, I cling to him, feel his soft velvet ears brush my face, look at his fading brown pools of eyes and wonder what, if anything, he is trying to say. He is the last one of the trio of dogs Susie and I brought from San Francisco - Roxy, Riff Raff and Frankie. So he carries on his poor shoulders the weight of my losses.

He is a border collie, bred badly in some stupid San Jose puppy mill, and bought for $300 by a woman and her 4 year old daughter in the afterglow of the movie 'Babe' to live with them in the Mission district. Never let off leash to play or to run, tied to the banisters of the staircase so that he could not join the kid upstairs, and most terrifyingly - abused and kicked by the child whose love he most sought, Frankie was facing euthanasia before he was six months old for biting the child in retaliation. When I casually asked at a shelter whether they had any border collie pups, a staff member eagerly put me in touch with the woman who was going to take a 6 month old puppy to a vet for a shot of the pink liquid - the 'Fatal Plus' euthanasia drug developed by a vet for the most humane reason - because his own dog had suffered while being euthanised and he wanted to develop the 'best' and most painless drug on the market for what is a growth industry and an inevitable moment in almost every animal lovers life.

For me - it was love at first sight. And really this blog should be a celebration of Frankie's smart and determined grab at freedom. And I've ruined it with my agonised, murky tussle with the issue of euthanasia. I think killing animals is a dreadful necessity. And many many times the animal in a shelter is dying for the simplest of reasons - the ignorance, neglect and cruelty of humans. I have agreed to the euthanasia of many - more than I can remember and many of the deaths haunt me every time I let the memories sneak past the curtains of my memory.

Let's be clear - we kill hundreds of thousands of domestic animals because we simply have nothing better we can do with them and they cannot live by our rules - so they have to die. And those that we, loving caring pet owners, deliberately and carefully plan for are the lucky ones. But none of them are 'good' deaths. The Greek notwithstanding.

And Frankie's blog - his joyous, extraordinary story of survival - he deserves another day.

people who harm animals rarely stop there

People who harm animals rarely stop there.

That is a sentiment I believe in completely. I believe that anyone who gratutiously hurts and destroys animals the way MV did needs very careful monitoring. And I believe that law enforcement agencies and district attorneys are coming to this understanding way too freakin' slowly. I'm hopeful that because Rebecca Katz, who is the new head of Animal Care and Control in San Francisco was a Deputy City Attorney in that city, that this might start changing as she presents a true picture of this issue to her former colleagues. Could it be that the context of animal sheltering - run as it is predominantly by law enforcement - is one of the reasons why young males are attracted to breeding, training and fighting dogs, of using them for the protection of drugs and guns, for using them to create an image of fear and machismo

There is a lot of emotion being expressed around the signing of Michael Vick to play for the now deeply unpopular-with-dog-lovers Philadelphia Eagles. Anger and outrage enough for a month of blogs - the unseemly speed with which Vick scored a rich contract after being suspended 'indefinitely' upon his conviction; the assumption that he is just putting on a good show in front of the cameras, coached by the manipulative Tony Dungy to act nice, look nice and kiss a few puppies; the shock that a man who could show such cruelty and sociopathic behaviour could so easily be re-made into a football hero for millions of youngsters who will not understand that if you electrocute and drown dogs you are an amoral piece of shit and - unlike the pitbulls he damaged - incapable of rehabilitation; that he had not been punished nearly enough and that the sentence did not come close to fitting the crime; that his only regret is getting caught and that he is an unreconstituted piece of garbage worthy of being flung to a pack of angry dog lovers who will show their moral superiority by tying him to a tree and doing unspeakable acts to him; that the Philadelphia Eagles should feel the wrath of dog supporters everywhere by boycotting them. I live just a few miles from the home field of the Oakland Raiders and the forces are already being mustered to protest when the Eagles come to town. Hello? Oakland? The city whose animal shelter is run by a deeply compromised Police Department and which three short years ago underwent a very public scrutiny for things like having a senior officer involved in a dog breeding ring, lack of accountability, treating the public with disdain and a host of animal abuses like dogs found alive in the freezer after euthanasia. What the fuck?

My regret is that during his time in prison Vick wasn't enrolled in Puppies Behind Bars, the jail program which trains service dogs for returning veterans with traumatic head and brain injuries, where an inmate lives 24/7 with a dog and is entirely responsible for the dog's well-being and training.

Of all the righteous outrage about Michael Vick's restoration to a football jersey, the blog entries on BadRap's site seem among the most justifiable. After all, BR (Bay Area Doglovers Responsible About Pitbulls) were one of the humane groups most involved with rescuing and rehabilitating the surviving 'Vick dogs' (as they have become known). I have met a couple of these celebrity dogs, just as I met many of the 'Katrina dogs' which people rushed to adopt in the aftermath of the terrifying events in Louisiana. There are also some 'Oklahoma Bust dogs' or 'Missouri puppy mill dogs'. In my own rescue efforts there is  'Willa the wild dog from the Albany Landfill', the 'Freeway dogs', the 'Warehouse dogs', 'The sweet tale of Bernie Tucker' (to tag just a few). I understand the power of creating a story, or running the most pitiful image of a dog or cat in a fundraising appeal, of the need for hundreds of competing non-profits to pull a particular heartstring. After Katrina, when dogs were being flown in to the Bay Area so that the largest humane organisations in the area could be filmed standing tearfully on the tarmac receiving these pathetic animals from the poor southern states, who was the ultimate beneficiary? Go figure. Many of those dogs had to be returned at great expense after owners frantically searched the database of 'rescued' animals and found their beloved 'Fluffy' was now living in Marin or San Francisco. The animal welfare industry is riddled with hypocrisy and cant, with competition and self aggrandizing, with lack of co-operation and with infighting which would make most dogs recoil in disgust.

On the other side are the many who watch the unfolding of outrage and shake their heads: 'they're only dogs' they say. All the crass accusations aimed at those of us who care passionately what happens to animals in our communities and in our world. I'm as pissed off about that as I am about the eat your own attitudes within the animal rescue world. When I first started becoming aware of what happens to animals within our animal sheltering system in my own progressive town in Berkeley, I was sitting across the table from the then Police Chief and he slid a couple of polaroids across the table towards me. I fearfully picked them up and saw the limp body of a love bird with a clear human bite mark on it's body. I looked at him. He said 'I have a problem down there at the animal shelter'. A staff member had bitten the bird to death in retaliation for it nipping at him. And our Police Chief had found out that among his police colleagues the common response was 'So? It's just a bird'. For men whose job brings them in daily contact with brutality, cruelty, lying, thieving, child abusing, raping and bloody mayhem the death of a bird at the hands of an animal control staff member seemed insignificant. Less than six months later the political pressure took the Police Department out of the animal shelter.

The problem isn't Michael Vick. I am not an apologist for Michael Vick. Luckily we aren't likely to cross paths. Because he's bigger than me. And I don't like him one little bit. The problem is that as a species our moral development is seriously lagging behind our ability to fly a probe to Mars or create an iPhone. The problem is that we throw money at the wrong things. The problem is ... you pick it, you'll undoubtedly be right.

vick, remorse, dying dogs and a ton of money

I'm not a football fan - but it isn't just because of the level of violence associated with players on and off the field, it isn't just because of the drug taking, the steroid injecting, the artificial muscle bulging, the trash talking, hot-dogging, testosterone raging, large number of gun incidents, bankruptcies, stupid fucking situations some of these guys get into and it isn't even because the Philadelphia Eagles signed Michael Vick, the most famous dog fighter in US history, to a one year deal (and they weren't the only team holding up wads of green stuff and a contract). It's just that I'm a baseball fan. Where a 120 pound weakling can still make an impression fielding a ground ball and make a perfect throw from 2nd base to complete a double play. Yeah, yeah I know - baseball is not what it once was. Barry Bonds has tainted the game and the greatest record in the game beyond repair, icons from Roger Clemens to David Ortiz and Mark McGwire and junkers like Jose Canseco have proven that earning millions from a sport doesn't mean you spend the money on self improvement, self awareness or online college degrees. But the level of sheer, putrid violence is simply not the same. 

So, suiting Vick up in an Eagles outfit isn't a problem for me. The sport is run by extremely wealthy men (and the occasional woman) who own sports teams to dip their toe into a rough world they usually only drive by, who would probably have bankrolled the Roman gladiators had they lived then, sipping their Tuscan vineyard produced chianti from a silver chalice wearing a Toga designed by Marc Anthony Versace, sitting in their luxury boxes on the upper levels of the Coliseum above the screeching masses in the bleachers.

Vick has served his time. He is overseen by a phalanx of legal and humane society advisors who make sure he is seen by television crews to show remorse. But his crimes, though terrifying, were a product of a society which dumps truckloads of money in the driveways of million dollar mansions owned by men who think it's a good idea to install gold plated bath taps, own tigers, and do shady business deals with their cronies. They are often men whose incredible physical gifts are valued far more than the ability to balance a check book or the ability to invest for a life after football - Vick hung dogs from trees and beat them, electrocuted them or drowned them and he also declared himself to be bankrupt with debts totaling 20 million dollars and assets of a mere 16 million.

Baseball has always been seen as a metaphor for life. But modern American life has gradually started to resemble a football game far more than the langorous pace of a nine inning game of throwing, hitting and catching on a perfect green lawn, a game where good defense will usually beat a good offense. Football is entirely the reverse. The more powerful and violent the offense, the bigger the players, the more aggressive the attack - will always beat out a well crafted defense. Actually, when I think about it, football is a metaphor for the obesity of the general American population.

But back to Michael Vick. The ruling body of football suspended Vick 'indefinitely' when he was convicted of his heinous and callous crimes. Two months after the end of his sentence he is back to being a millionaire sportsman. Does the decision send a message of uncaring by the rulers of football as many animal organizatons have suggested? Does the Humane Society hope that Vick's inevitable high profile declarations of sorrow will direct some of the truckloads of money in their direction? Does this move by the Eagles (and by implication the whole of football) suggest to youngsters that it's okay to fight and kill dogs because Vick is 'forgiven'? I believe that having served his sentence, Michael Vick is entitled to pursue his career if an employer is willing to take him on. I believe that Michael Vick is a more productive member of society earning his own way and not suffering the same fate as the vast majority of black ex cons, and I also believe that whether Michael Vick can use his experiences from his conviction and jail time to work for a more equal society and a more humane society will depend on how much the people around him can be less sycophantic and more challenging.

Ultimately, Vick will be the deciding factor in whether he is a complete jerk or has become a more complete human being. I wish him well.

how things change and stay the same

You know - the 80's weren't so bad. Any decade that can produce a perfect pop song like 'Poison Arrow' by ABC or 'Mirror In The Bathroom' by the Beat, never mind The Clash 'Should I Stay Or Should I Go' (my anthem) can't be a total loss. My thirties weren't so terrible. I had a crazy amount of sex with women most of whom I can't remember too well, and those that I do remember, I have been trying to apologise to. I had two books of photography published, I was going to be a pretty big seller for publishers who threw parties for me, my mum and dad were still alive sniping at each other from afar, I held Berta in my arms for a few short months in 1982, fucking her in her bedroom with the light streaming in, until my familiar 'don't come any nearer' voice reared in my head and bucked the good feelings. After leaving her house in West London I went out looking for graffiti to photograph and felt whole again. When she was dying just a few short weeks ago, I so wanted to clamber on to the cot in her makeshift bedroom on the ground floor and wrap her like a blanket. This battle rages on. I look like a girl though it has been said that when I really look at someone they felt that they were being sized up by a 16 year old boy. A nice boy. With blue eyes. Berta knew that boy. And her nearness to the truth brought out the mean kid. That's my battle. So, sadness is a pretty familiar stream of consciousness for me. Don't touch me, just don't freakin' try it, ok? I like feeling sad. I love crying. It is cleansing, it is lubricant, it makes everything look fresher, brighter, more sunshine and less grey. You don't have to read this. I guess I don't have to write it. Yeah, I do.

Last week I was cruising around with Aida and a friend called her and asked advice about some tiny feral kittens living in a beaten up old car which was due to be towed away on Monday - kittens n' all. We headed to Richmond and found two tiny beasts hiding under the front seats of the trashed Datsun. A few minutes of hide and seek later we had the hissing, scratching tabby by the scruff and the little feisty black kitten was biting down hard on Aida's index finger, and as she dropped it, it sped through the open door and into the bushes. You had to laugh. Really. We set traps and left to tend to the little one who was now hiding fearfully in a cat crate. When we went back that evening, a surprisingly calm mama cat sat in the trap. Until we moved her and the rage of a fiery feral uncoiled as she spat and rushed at the metal trap. I love feral cats, I honestly do. A few days later, after she was spayed and recovered, I took her back to the parking lot where she had come from and let her go. On Friday I went back to try and trap the black kitten, I set two traps and took my dogs for a hike in the hills overlooking the industrial city and docks of Richmond, watched the freeways move like ants, heard the freight train lumbering to a halt at a crossing, turned to face the bay and feel the summer breeze on my face and loved my dogs more than I have ever loved them, missed Oscar and thought of Berta and her cats Lily and Dracula and Bluebell, and kicked dusty dirt down the trail as I headed down the hill, back to the car to go back to where the traps were. As I passed the huge water storage container in the park I thought of the white labradoodle I had trapped right there with Karen - after the dog had been missing for 6 months.

I got back to the traps - untouched by even a curious cat paw. Then I looked over to my left, my dogs quietly peeking out of the windows of my car. Two small black kittens were playing like only kittens can - leaping, pouncing, ambushing, and next to them quietly, calmly was their recently spayed mother washing herself fastidiously, oblivious to my contented presence watching them. I packed up the traps, smiled at the little family scene and left.

There are days I wonder why I feel so compelled to go through this inner turmoil with such a public vengeance, there are times I contemplate the wisdom of hanging myself out with the dirty laundry, and I end up with the same answer. This blog gives me some sort of courage, I think. It's as if it's outside the walls, the light is piercing it and it feels safe. Strange huh. But the alternative is sitting in that chair that is spinning while the walls close in, and the walls are covered with sharp blades that come nearer with every turn of the chair. For me, who had nightmares of such breathtaking violence almost every night until one day in 2005, the public revelations are nothing! As Aida would say - oh, how we laugh.