When I was thirty eight I decided it was high time I should marry a dog. I didn’t have a dog in mind, I was merely in the planning stage like an old time farmer imagining a mail order bride.
I was lonely and poor, having lost my job as an adjunct professor at a small college. I felt like the bald customer in a barber shop: people stopped talking when they saw me. Colleagues who I’d once believed to be friendly shied away. I’d lost my job in the spring and then it was autumn and even with legally blind and mediocre eyes I saw the trees flare into gold and I walked about with a cd player and listened to Viennese love songs, songs like cream puffs, and I decided it was time to get married. I would marry a dog. I would marry a dog though all I owned was a suitcase tied with a rope.
–from What a Dog Can Do: A Memoir
By Stephen Kuusisto
Forthcoming from Simon and Schuster
Posted with Blogsy
Planet of the Blind 
Fabulous. Perfect excerpt to read while the essence of autumn is outside my door. By the way, I gave a speech recently in which I mentioned you by name and quoted you. Will send you the text.
Ilene
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