Of all the small changes I’ve made in 2008, one of the coolest has been to start a weekly writing date with an old college friend turned writing partner, Mayumi. We meet for about 6 hours, once a week, alternating houses, and feed each other lunches and gossip about our work and life and in between all that, amazingly, we probably get a good solid 4 hours of writing (on our own projects) done every week. To quantify that, on days by myself, in a 4 hour period, I’ll output about a thousand words. On days with Mayumi, I can surpass two thousand. Which means in our time together, I’ve actually started and completed two short stories, am working on a third, and have made room in my brain for two new ideas, both of which I’m excited to crack open.
Pretty good for a small change, right?
Nearly as exciting as the writing has been this:
Well, we go there once a week (Nano in tow – someone get me a laptop backpack already, the ten pounds of computer and the ten pounds of dog on the subway gets heavy!) and she comes here once a week and well, it was bound to happen. Mayumi (and her husband) fell in love with Nano.
And then raced out and got one of their own. And aside from really and truly feeling like a fairy dogmother for being the spark of an idea between May, Dave and little Nahe (you should have heard me shriek when the ASPCA woman called to ask for their references), I’m also delighted to see someone else’s life being transformed by the power of canine.
This is all just a way to point you towards May’s latest post on the subject, which made me all nostalgic for those first glorious, tumultuous weeks that this shy little dude tiptoed into our home and proceeded to upend our lives and make them infinitely better. And I showed you some cute pictures along the way.
what we learn from our dogs
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hahahaha, you are TOTALLY Nahe’s fairy dogmother.
And it is entirely the “fault” (blessing!) of you, Nano, and our writing dates that Nahe has found a new, doting home. I heart you, Krissa!
I’ve always wondered how Nano got his name. Was it because he is tiny, like an iPod nano? Was it because he is tiny, like an actual nano?
And then, today, I thought, “Gosh, I wonder if it could be Nano, as in NaNoWriMo.” And then I came and read your post and it’s all about writing, so I thought I’d share.
Ky Eliza, it was definitely nano, like, the iPod that inspired us. Unless you ask Stuart, who insists it’s the prefix nano- which is ten to the minus 9.
I maintain that we wouldn’t have thought of it at all were it not for Steve Jobs naming his device nano, so that’s the derivation.
I had never thought of nanowrimo, which is funny, since I actually DID it last November.
awwwww. I’ve been wanting a dog. to name suki.