My dog has been spending time with my dad, who is typically rather indifferent to animals, while I’ve been out and about these past few days. They have totally bonded. My dad won’t admit it, but he secretly loves Leo. And normally whenever I’m home Leo follows me around the house, but tonight my dad was in the living room and I headed up the stairs to my bedroom, and Leo stood in the middle of the living room looking at my dad and then looking at me, trying to decide who he should stay with. He eventually followed me up the stairs to my room, but you could tell it was a stressful choice for him. And when my dad and I are both in the living room, he hangs out on top of my dad. You can tell they are falling in love. And I’m like “Daddy, you looooove little Leo” and my dad’s just like “Eh, he’s a good dog,” like it’s no big deal to him, but you can tell he adores the munchkin.
This afternoon, I went to lunch with one of my best friends and her parents. I lived in Arizona for a spell early this year, when I was going through something of a mental breakdown. I spent time with her parents while I was here, basically because everyone who set eyes on me back then wanted me under constant supervision, and whenever my dad had to go to work people stepped in to watch me. Most of that period is blurry to me, and I think it’s better that way, but I have a feeling I reminded people a lot of Britney Spears in her umbrella attack phase. I was not okay. So it was good to come back and do lunch with them, and they both kind of hugged me after lunch and said how wonderful it was to see me looking healthy again. It’s easy to forget how sick I was back then, but being around people who haven’t seen me in the interim, as I got healthy in Seattle, is reminding me. Everyone keeps commenting on how much better I look, how it’s so good to see me healthy again, and I’m like, “Oh, right, I was fucking nuts for awhile there.” I still refer to it as “my Britney phase,” and I laugh it off, but I realize now how scary it was to the people who loved me, and I’m so grateful that I’m better now.
