This Is Who I Am Now

By: Ben Johnson

My dog got a haircut yesterday. She has less hair now. She looks different than she used to look before, back when she had more hair. I like her haircut. I took a picture of her haircut. I almost put that picture on Facebook with a insipid caption like “Summer haircut fun!!!” I had to stop myself from doing this. “All the people I know probably don’t care that my dog got a haircut,” I thought, before not posting a picture of my dog with a haircut, “people are probably tired of seeing pictures of my dog. I’ve been posting a lot of pictures of my dog to Facebook.”

I wanted to post the picture of my dog’s haircut, though. I still want to. In fact, I am finding a way, right now and right here, to basically just post a picture of my dog’s new summer haircut. I shouldn’t fight it. I should accept that my dog’s haircut feels to me like an event in my life. Not like a lifechanging event, but like a “in the last month of my life, the dog’s haircut is in the top five things that happened.” I could share that with people. That’s okay. That’s me. This is who I am right now. I’m a guy who does this.

I used to be a guy who did a lot of stuff. I’d leave my shitty apartment and then do a bunch of stuff and drink a bunch of booze and ride a bike through a snowstorm and get laid and say weird mean things to strangers on a bus and generally be an obnoxious twat. Now my apartment isn’t a shithole anymore and I live with my girlfriend and we have a dog. Instead of going out and being an obnoxious twat I can stay in and just look at my dog.

She’s a dog. She barks at me pretty much whenever I do anything but lie down on the floor and play with her. She’s a little over a year old, so she’s basically a puppy still. I indulge her. She’s cute. If you look at every tweet or Facebook post in the entire world that’s about a thing somebody is watching, like a sports game or a TV show or a movie, I missed that. I was on the floor playing Get The Guy with my dog.

You want to know what I’m up to? I’m on the floor playing Get The Guy. We do a lot of Original Baby Get The Guy, some Rope Guy Get The Guy, and Flamingo Get The Guy. Squeaky Guy Get The Guy has been discontinued. Squeaky Guy rolls under things. I sometimes wonder if my dog is keeping Get The Guy stats in her head. Like, "Today I had five grabs, ten slips, and four runs, I'm clearly improving my short game in Flamingo Get The Guy." Maybe she is doing that. She's very intense about Get The Guy.

Sometimes we switch it up and do Boneholder. Sometimes 100% On You Boneholder. I can refer to myself as “Boneholder.” I don’t mind. I realize it’s a double entendre. I’m not stupid. I hold a bone. It’s a doggie chew bone. I hold it so my dog can chew it better, which she seems to like. Sometimes she lies her entire small dog body down on my torso, 100% on you style, while she chews on the bone I am holding. A chew bone, guys. Don’t be gross. I’m Boneholder. This is who I am now.

Last weekend I dogsitted a different dog. It was me, this other dog, and my dog. It was much dog. My life is usually 100% dog anyway, this was like 200% dog. The other dog is a bigger dog than my dog. The other dog got on me, and then my dog also got on me, and it was like 100% dog on me times two. It was like if you took maximum dog and then added an extra dog just for a hint of dogness. I’m not going to say it was too much dog. It was just a lot of dog.

You don’t want to hear about this? I don’t blame you. You’re probably out there running wild and free, being an obnoxious twat who reads and watches things instead of holding bones and getting guys for a dog. I submit that your life is the same as mine. I submit that you are just doing what you’re doing and I am just doing what I’m doing, and what I’m doing is this. Full blown doghaving. 24/7.

You don’t want to see a picture of a dog with a haircut, that’s not gonna be my problem from now on. That’s gonna be your problem.

I’m me. This is who I am now.

I’m a grown man who posts dog pictures on Facebook for his aunt to enjoy. I apologize to no one.

@itisbenjo