I like to think of what Geordie Bear would be like if he were human. I know most pet owners think of this from time to time, but I wonder if anyone takes it to the extremes that I do.
In my defense, there’s very little to think about while I’m walking Geordie around the neighborhood. We take the same loops every day, and Geordie’s probably the only one who finds variation in these. Geordie doesn’t seem to mind the same circuits, pee-mailing with the same old characters in Mr. Rogers neighborhood. My not-yet-caffeinated mind wanders into a territory in-between dream and imagination, even while I’m bagging poopies and examining them for colitis.
Today I went beyond the usual characterization of Geordie Bear as British. He’s so very British, there’s no way he could be anything but British, but this is not because of his name.
He’s understated and well-behaved. I had nothing to do with this. I got him at the pound and he just came this way. He hardly ever barks, not even when other dogs bark at him. When he has to go to the bathroom, he walks around a little more than usual. When he wants me to wake up, he shakes his collar. When he gets scared, he sits a little closer to me. The only time he makes his desires perfectly clear is when I sit at my computer in the morning thinking I might actually get to drink a cup of coffee…then he yawn-yowls and jumps up and makes eye contact. The rest of the time he’s super polite. He doesn’t beg at the dinner table, but sits quietly off to the side. He won’t even eat food from the very accessible coffee table, not even when we leave the room. Not even when we leave salami and cheese. Now that’s polite.
GEORDIE BEAR
Background: He’s not from Northern England, as his name would suggest. He doesn’t have a “Geordie” accent. He lives in Brighton but spent his formative years in London, although his mother moved him to Brighton before he reached ten. He can’t remember why they moved, but he never thinks of going back to London. He doesn’t really think of London as home. In fact, he doesn’t even like going there on business trips because he knows his colleagues will pick some posh restaurant and talk about culture. It’s not that he doesn’t fit in at posh restaurants, not that he can’t talk about culture too, but that he’d rather sit in the hotel room and take advantage of the sports channels and room service.
His mother died of lung cancer when he was in his early thirties. She was a working class woman who held various jobs, but she wasn’t around much and Geordie was often left to fend for himself. Never met his father. He doesn’t think he had a bad childhood, but he’s okay with spending much of his time alone—and he attributes that to his childhood.
Now he’s in his late fifties and works at a big company in the media sector, although his heart isn’t there. Still, the pay is good. He doesn’t mind it too much. He gets on well with others, though he doesn’t make friends at work. If he did, he’d have to take sides sometimes and that would be uncomfortable. He’s looking forward to retirement.
Hobbies: He goes to the beach sometimes to walk around—this is his primary form of exercise. This doesn’t do much for his beer belly, though he tells himself the walk is for his health. In truth, he likes to watch the people, especially the happy families.
He watches “football” and has favorite teams. He’s a bloke, what can he say. Since I don’t know much about sports, I’ll just say Geordie likes to go to a certain pub mostly frequented by the lower middle class (he never eats the food, but never disparages it either) and sits quietly to watch the big games, which he considers monumental events worth sharing with others. The others cheer and get rowdy when the local sports team fares well against the non-local sports team, but he’s more objective in his sports team assessments. He favors certain teams from a more global perspective and keeps up with the players and the minutiae of plays and such, but never does he share these insights with others unless asked. He smiles and sometimes gives a shout—only to fit in—and takes a drink of his beer. It’s not that he’s above these blokes, not at all. He’s really having a good time. He likes their company and enthusiasm. He just doesn’t have a need to root for the local team.
He also watches tennis, golf, and the Tour de France. He fell off his bicycle when he was young, and never got back on it. But he admires cyclists, especially since he knows the dangers.
I’ve made Geordie sound like a sports nut, but his life is not sports. He used to play a bit as a lad, but that’s not it either. He just finds it a nice escape, the same way others like to build model airplanes or read novels. A lot of his colleagues don’t know how much he keeps up with his teams, because he’s not one to bring up subjects that interest him. He lets others bring up subjects and he tries to be a good listener. He reads the newspaper every day, so he knows what’s going on, though he doesn’t care that much about politics.
Fishing. Geordie loves to go fishing, but hardly ever does. He always eats the fish he catches because he doesn’t like the idea of harming fish for no reason. He also likes the idea of hunting, but has never done it. He’d eat whatever he caught, if he hunted. But guns scare him. So noisy.
He likes music, but isn’t musical himself. He listens to popular music, but doesn’t go to concerts. He likes Simon and Garkfunel. Bob Dylan, the earlier stuff. He doesn’t like a lot of hard rock or clanging and bashing around. James Taylor, for sure.
Love life: He lives alone in an apartment that could use a woman’s touch. He’s not sloppy, for a bloke, but he doesn’t know what kind of artwork to put where, doesn’t know what kind of curtains to buy, etc. He’d love to have a romantic relationship, but he’s never been terribly attractive to the opposite sex. People say it’s because he’s too nice. What kind of sense does that make?
It’s true that he’s hard to get to know. He has little ticks and expressions that only an intimate friend or lover would be able to interpret. But once you get to know him, you’ll find him morally outstanding. He’d never cheat if he had a wife. He’d be so good to her. He wouldn’t behave the way he knows his colleagues do.
He knows he’s not supposed to say this, and he never would out loud, but he wants a traditional sort of wife and he’d be happy to take care of her. He wants a wife who appreciates it when he mows the lawn, kills spiders, fixes the garbage disposal. He’d certainly appreciate a wife who cooked for him, and he’d thank her every time. He’s kind of romantic, but romance for him would mean sometimes taking home a nice bouquet of flowers from the supermarket for no reason at all. He wants a no-nonsense woman who will prove that she’s not after his money. (He knows what it means to be poor, but now has a good job and has amassed a decent nest egg, prudently invested.) He’s been burned many times. He’s not bitter or stingy, just careful.
He wants true love. Yeah, he likes long walks on the beach. So he’s a little boring and cliché. He wants someone who appreciates boring, which he’d prefer to call “peaceful domesticity.”
Pet peeves: People who don’t show up on time. People who name drop to make themselves seem smart or well-connected. People who talk loudly or too much. People who gossip. People who hold extreme political views. People who interrupt. People who talk on their cell phones while checking out at the grocery store. But most of all, people who have everything in life and throw it all away by doing something stupid.
It occurred to me that pets can be used as jumping off points to create a detailed character profile from which an entire short story could be built. I don’t know if I plan on doing this, but it’s an interesting idea. In any case, it was a fun writing prompt.
Diotima's Ladder 
Well, it’s like basing a character on people you know. It’s just applying a bit of imagination!
I think I once mentioned I thought of writing a short story from a dog’s point of view, but writing in such a way you don’t realize it’s a dog and assume it’s a human. It would require careful use of language and concepts to reflect a dog’s simple understanding of the world.
The real point is trying to imagine what dogs think of us. Like you, on walks with Sam, I used to try to imagine what the world was like to her. What was the “something it is like” to be a dog?
No dog is an atheist, of course. They live in a world where gods are real and have power over their lives. OTOH, they’re not really theists, either, since they don’t believe… they know. 🙂
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Well, you know, dog spelled backwards. 🙂
The trick to writing that story would be not revealing right away that it’s a dog’s POV. But who knows? Give it shot!
The “something it is like” seems to get clearer and clearer the more I get to know Geordie. It’s tricky, though. Each dog is different. Skippy, my last dog, would do anything for good food. He was most definitely a gourmet, rejecting anything that wasn’t delectable. And he was pretty independent. Geordie’s only slightly picky about food. He cares more about playing than anything else. He even likes to play a game for dogs on my iPad (it’s pretty cute to watch him.) Plus, he never lets me get out of his sight. Ever. He has to be in the same room with me at all times. Sometimes I wish he’d give me a break, but it is sweet. I don’t know whether he feels he’s looking out for me or I’m looking out for him.
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“The trick to writing that story would be not revealing right away that it’s a dog’s POV.”
Yeah, it would probably work best as an SF story where readers are used to being kept off balance. You’d want to think it’s someone experiencing some strange form of confinement or existence. His (or her) food is provided by giants who control her (or his) life.
The ultimate goal would be to keep the secret as long as possible, ideally until the last line. What would be cool reveal is if the last line involved trying to figure out the giant’s language and decypher a phrase… “GGdd DDgg”… “Ghud Dahg”… I’m so close to understanding it! It seems important!
There’s no question dogs have personalities! Every dog I’ve known has been a distinct individual. Some of that comes from the owners, but just like people, dogs have a personality from a very young age.
Sam, for example, came into my life at a time when I was feeling (still) young and free and pretty good about life (the last time that was true, actually). As such, she developed a really great personality — one of the best dogs I’ve owned.
We were together constantly (I made a concerted effort to work at home a lot during her first few years) and played a lot. I deliberately tried to train her for quick response and alertness (fast moving objects). I those things mattered.
Dogs are pack animals (which is why Geordie keeps you in sight), they expect to be among others. I could tell Sam liked being part of a larger pack when I married and added a wife and two step-kids to ours. She liked it so much she was very graceful about the resulting lack of attention from me. But then she really was a sweet dog.
Sam would keep me in sight, too, with the rare exception of when I was playing a video game I used to play. I must have grunted or something — or maybe it was the music and sound effects (TV never bothered her) — but she’d usually leave the room.
But she’d always place herself so there was no way I could leave without her knowing about it. As with all dogs, she did not like being left alone. In their mind, where their pack leaders go, they go, too. And you really do end up with a better dog if you can take them everywhere you go.
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Totally makes sense to make it seem like Sci-Fi story. That could work really well.
Funny about the video game thing. I wonder if it was the sounds from the game? Or yes, it could have been your reaction to the game. (You don’t want to see me play Super Mario Bros. I actually work up a sweat.)
Geordie doesn’t like certain songs and he’ll leave the room if they come on. He tends to be okay with my usual music, but doesn’t like anything they have on DogTV for relaxation. (I think those actually make him anxious.)
On video games, there’s an app out now for dogs. Geordie loves the game. I taught him not to paw at my iPad since I don’t have a special protective screen, so he just uses his nose to tap. Pretty funny to watch. He only plays for about five minutes though, but still, that’s a long time for a dog.
On the pack animals/family thing, Geordie pretty much hangs out with me 24/7. He doesn’t know how lucky he is. If I’ve been gone a long time, he’ll yowl as if he’s pissed and happy at the same time. It’s weird. I’ve never heard anything like it. I really feel like he’s scolding me! I know, you probably think it’s all in my head, but you really have to hear this noise he makes. It sounds like he saying, “Oh I’m so happy to see you I’m so happy I’m so happy. HOW DARE YOU LEAVE ME FOR SO LONG! I’m happy happy happy. DON’T YOU EVER DO THAT AGAIN.”
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I don’t doubt it at all. The pack animal part is devastated that you left him. The part that loves you is so, so, so happy to see you back.
What does the app for dogs, do? (Enough to warrant a post?)
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The app is just a cartoon dog that looks like a mouse. It runs around on the screen and anytime you tap it, you score a point. It makes a squeaky toy sound when you tap it, but also makes noises to generate interest. It’s pretty cool. Geordie usually gets frustrated that he can’t sink his teeth into it, though. He runs around to the back of my iPad and can’t figure out where the dog/mouse is. It’s definitely stimulating, but ultimately frustrating. I usually give him some real toy afterwards so he doesn’t feel tricked. Or I’ll say “Yes!” every time he scores a point. He seems to like that. He does pretty well…better than I would. The mouse-dog runs pretty fast. He scored over 100 points on our last game.
Whether to write about it…maybe. I found out about it online.
I’d do a video for you of Geordie playing it, but unfortunately I have iMovie only on my iPad…no space elsewhere.
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It’s interesting how different writers develop stories in different ways. If I recall correctly, you develop characters, and then see what story comes out. I’m (I think) more of a plot person. I come up with a setting and overall storyline, then think about what characters might fit, although eventually the characters and plot start modifying each other.
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Yeah, I do tend to start with the character. I believe Aristotle would say I’m doing it backwards.
I tend to think the two come hand in hand, and for me it’s just more fun to start with character. I like playing with voice. A whole lot. Starting with voice gets me writing. Then I have to take a long walk to decide what happens next.
But basically, you have a character who wants something, does something to get what he or she wants, something prevents that from happening, etc. For me, this stuff is hard. Simple questions, hard answers. I usually need weeks or months to figure it out. It’s probably not the most efficient way of writing.
I imagine that writing Sci-Fi makes it more likely you’d want to see the whole picture first. Especially since a lot of times the setting is a character.
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I’m not familiar with Aristotle’s views on this, but everything I’ve read indicates that there are a lot of paths to success in story crafting.
It sounds like you’re focusing on the basics. Who are the characters? What do they want? Who or what stands in their way? Is there a story length conflict? This is stuff a writer has to figure out no matter what angle they attack it from.
I’ve been reading a lot about story structure lately, getting into the details of the three act structure. I’m finding it pretty illuminating. It’s shedding light on why my earliest attempts were such dismal failures. I was well read enough to know I was failing, but couldn’t figure out why. It’s also showing me why some books, despite having good characters and setting, are still emotionally unsatisfying.
On sci-fi, there are authors of all types. Plenty are discovery writers. But I’m finding that I like to have a good idea of the shape of the story ahead of time. When I don’t, I don’t like the decisions I end up making. The plus side is that when I do finally figure it out, my writing productivity is usually pretty good.
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True, there are many paths to success. I just find that focusing on the character’s goals will lead to the plot almost inevitably. (Although you can have someone just rambling, I suppose.)
I’m glad you’re finding some guidance in your reading about writing.
On discovery writing, I find it’s not entirely a “my characters are telling me what to do” kind of thing. I don’t outline at first, but when things get complicated, I take a step back and assess things. Then I write an outline for how things might go. But the outline is more like a suggestion. And this back and forth process happens a lot.
Right now I’m doing something pretty strange. With over 500 pages to work with, things are complicated to say the least. So I’m taking on one viewpoint character at a time to make sure I’ve created a full narrative arc for each one. I have my outline printed out and posted on the wall right in front of me so I don’t have to go back and forth to figure out where things are. I know the ending, but I haven’t written it yet (I want to make sure it coalesces with what I’m doing now.) This has been helpful. Plus it lets me bite off smaller chunks at a time, which is a lot less intimidating.
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The structure stuff is adding something I felt I was missing. Having read thousands of books in my life, I sort of had an intuitive feel for it, but seeing it spelled out helps. It’s also interesting. Apparently movies and TV shows follow pretty rigid three act structures, as well as most bestselling novels. Although the three act structure seems misnamed to me; it seems like it should be called the four act structure.
Your process writing sounds similar to what I did on my Nanowrimo novel, starting off pantsing and then outlining to finish. But in my case I didn’t really enjoy that early stage, and regretted some of the ideas I came up with during it (like introducing aliens, albeit extinct ones, because I was desperate to think of something to write).
One system that I read in a couple of books, suggested making a note card for each scene idea, then arranging them in various orders to see what works best. Another suggested doing the same thing with a spreadsheet. From what I’ve read, Scrivener lets you do your whole novel that way; I might have to give that package a try.
I’m still in awe of your 500 pages.
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The note card idea is great. A woman in my writing group does that. She tends to write short scenes, so she gets a giant refrigerator box and posts her cards there. my scenes are really really long. I can get by with a giant canvas I found in someone’s garbage can. (Yeah, I’m sort of a dumpster diver. Although the thing wasn’t in the can, so…)
On that note, the order of scenes is a great way to build tension. Sometimes it makes all the difference. That woman with the refrigerator box did amazing things by structuring her chapters to build tension. So for instance, instead of simply omitting information (which can be frustrating to readers) she used POV characters to tell their version of what happened. Starting with the least reliable moving to the most can be a great way of telling the story, especially at a climax scene.
Yeah, the three act structure…meh. I think of it as small rises and falls, moving up to the big rise. Sort of like the stock market just before a crash. 🙂
I haven’t checked out Scrivener. Might have to do that!
Don’t be in awe. It’s not much of an accomplishment…it’s more of a mess.
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The stuff I’ve been reading presents the three act structure as a tried and true way to craft those waves of rising intensity. One writer instead advocates a “three disasters plus an ending” structure, but admits that it more or less maps to the same thing. But there’s plenty of good stuff out there that doesn’t follow it.
On arranging scenes, I’ve also heard that Evernote can be a handy way to do it too. But I’m thinking about just keeping it simple and trying it with Word’s outlining feature.
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Scrivener looks pretty neat. I’d heard about it but I’d put off checking it out for some reason.
I’m just doing it the messy old-fashioned way. Something about physical paper printouts taped to the wall works well for me. Maybe it’s only a reminder of my messy (but productive) college days.
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I may be way, way off-beam with this idea Tina, but are there just the tiniest shadings of anthropomorphisation here? There are? Good! I enjoyed this so much; it was quite wonderful to read. And you had me howling with these words: “He’s understated and well-behaved. I had nothing to do with this.” Heaven forfend that you would my dear!
One thing I wonder about, and which may apply, is that Geordie is a secret cross-dresser. The way you describe him sounds just like the sort of middle-aged English chap who comes home from work only to don himself in a rather fetching tweed skirt and frilly blouse, some rather clunky heels, and a ludicrous over-application of face powder. Whaddya think?
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A cross dresser! You’re good. 🙂 Here we go!
Okay, a cross dresser, but I’d add that he dresses the way he wishes his mother had dressed, although he tells himself he’s dressing the way he wants his future girlfriend/wife to dress and thinks this Freudian stuff is absurd. And it’s not full-on cross dressing, just a few articles. Since he’s reluctantly sophisticated, he wouldn’t want to be frumpy, so we’ll have to skip the clunky heels. Feet too big for stilettos. (Besides, he doesn’t find women in stilettos all that attractive. Remember, he’s into practical women. Stilettos are indeed sexy, sometimes, depending on how they’re worn, but they don’t tend to go with the whole image he’s after.) So he can’t do the shoes. I think he has a thing for yoga pants, but he’s too pudgy to fit into them, and he doesn’t think his bum is his best feature. Maybe he does makeup, but only foundation. Like male actors, right? Gotta even the skin tone, just a natural look. That’s more…metrosexual, right? Besides, he had acne as a lad and he’s a little resentful that the ladies got to cover up their imperfections when he didn’t. He sometimes curls his hair. Just a little at the ends. See, he’s got this obnoxious cowlick that makes his hair stick up in one spot, and his hairdresser hasn’t found a solution. So yeah, he’s got a curling iron. Actually, it’s a straightening iron, but that’s what people at salons use these days to get natural curls. They offer more control. So he curls his hair! His hair is fantastic! It’s really his best feature, so why not play it up? Not really all that different from lawyers and their funny wigs.
So what does he wear? Hmmm…
Can’t do skirts yet. That’ll have to come after retirement.
He wears a lovely silk scarf which he keeps in a beautiful bird’s eye maple box. The scarf is emerald green. Solid emerald, no flowers or polka dots or anything like that. Like the emerald earrings he bought his mother for her birthday when he was twenty-two, the ones she never wore because she lost one of them almost immediately. Emerald, her birthstone. Real emeralds too. She told him she wanted to keep such a precious gift safe, and that’s why she never wore them, but he knew the truth. Rather, he suspected it, but didn’t say anything. In fact, he found the lost earring after she died. He wears one of those too (only one ear pierced…a silly phase in college, right?). It matches the scarf perfectly, of course. He’s keeping those earrings and plans to give them to the right woman. He’s waiting…
Where did he find the earring? Any ideas?
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Yes to a mildly fetishistic yet impractical harbouring of yoga-pant thinking. I imagine they would only pass muster in grey cotton (possibly an 80/20 synthetic mix), but certainly not anything pink or gauche or with logos. He has to have some cross-dressing footwear surely Tina, if only for occasional (full-frontal only) posing in front of his wardrobe mirror in those ill-fitting yoga pants? Perhaps some flip-flops with a bold paisley design? Metrosexual?! Geordie?! Well, if you say so. . . but I doubt he trims his nostril and ear hair quite frankly. Yes, fantastic natural hair, carefully styled to look un-styled by his gay barber who leaves his salon open after hours for Geordie, and Geordie alone, on the third Thursday of each month. Upon each visit Geordie brings him – Lionel, the stylist that is – a small bag of home-baked all-butter shortbread by way of thanks. And at all such visits, Geordie wears an earing – not the solitary emerald one he found when he was clearing out his mother’s chest of drawers six weeks after she died, and which appeared to have lodged itself behind a ribbon-tied bundle of old photographs, mainly of his parents in colonial Malaya and Singapore during the early post-war years, including a few of the two together in the cocktail bar in The Raffles Hotel pretending to be a little more sophisticated than they were in all truth – but a small, multi-faceted, solitary cubic zirconia which he secretly hopes will endear Lionel to him in ways that fall just short of improper to his pathologically conservative sensibilities. To his surprise, at the end of one of these visits, Lionel suggests the two of them go for a drink at a bar he tends to frequent. Tell me Tina, how does Geordie respond to the suggestion?
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I had this long reply, then it got deleted. Oh well, here’s a shorter version:
On the footwear, I think we’ll have to earn that. It’ll have to come after the climax. 😉
I think Geordie will take a raincheck on “going out for a drink” since “he has to get up early for work,” but in truth, he imagines Lionel goes to a discotheques. However, upon seeing Lionel’s disappointment (Lionel’s wonderfully transparent), Geordie indicates that he frequents a certain pub on such and such street, only on the weekends, and warns Lionel that “it’s a bit of a dive.”
Damn. I had this whole thing played out in scene. And Lionel’s bald and well-built, but moans about being old.
Now Geordie wonders if Lionel will decide to “stop by”…for the wide selection of beers on tap, of course. But does Lionel even drink beer? This pub doesn’t serve fancy martinis.
What do you think?
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No, Lionel responds noncommittally, saying that perhaps they could meet up on his day off, and that if Geordie liked (he knew he would), the two of them could go for a stroll on the beach at Hove, and maybe have a bite to eat at his place afterwards, but adding that he had obligations for the next two weeks. [He has doubts about his initial suggestion to Geordie, and needs some breathing space.] In truth, he’s really giving Geordie the sympathy vote, sensing that for all the business he’s been given by his podgy and incredibly loyal friend, and for all the thinly-veiled flirting that Geordie seems pathologically prone to, then he at least owes him the thrill of a solitary intimate encounter, if only for the purposes of letting Geordie become clearer as to his sexual orientation, which he knows is on something of a knife edge.
What he doesn’t realise is that Geordie would be horrified at the thought, and that whilst, like most men, his subtly ear-studded friend finds femininity in men attractive, he doesn’t want, and indeed is fearful of, a full physical relationship – Geordie desires only to flirt with the exotic and romantic idea of such a challenging test of his obliquely apprehended inner self. More than a few times has he, upon returning from watching the game at the pub, replayed his video of Oliver Reed wresting naked with Alan Bates in Women in Love, and felt simultaneously repulsed and enigmatically intrigued by it. Yet, his social mores are such that, as we already know, he sees himself with a traditional wife at some point, as you said, but is confused as to how he might summon some genuine romantic expression – now or with any woman he might meet in future. For Geordie, the flirting with Lionel is a quasi-romance, and so really he’s on the same ground as Lionel in that he’s not looking for a sexual relationship between the two of them. They’ve got tangled up in a mix of obligation and reciprocated flirtation without either having any real intention to develop the situation.
Back in the salon, Lionel knows immediately that he’ll be fumbling for excuses as soon as he closes the salon door and bids Geordie goodbye. He’s overstepped the mark and doesn’t know how to retract. For his part, Geordie, as he wanders off into a late autumnal, early evening sea haar that has begun to envelop the cobbled back alleyways of old Brighton, has noticed a unusual shortening of his breath, and a rather restrictive feeling in his upper chest. He thinks it’s the onset of one of those panic attacks that he last had for months during the eighties after he lost a major account at the commercial radio station he works for, and which almost cost his job and pension. He survived that near miss, and now he’s beginning to sense a reliving of the same psychological stresses as it slowly dawns on him that what he wants above all is certainty and security, but that just as the insidious sea haar envelops him, what he in fact has is a cloud of confusion and vulnerability. He heads to the beach to collect his thoughts, though his breath is shortening all the while, and he wonders if he’ll make it . . .
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Brilliant! Oh you’re cracking me up.
I’m also sensing that Geordie’s going to start a motel out in the middle of nowhere. And then there’ll be a huge rainstorm and some beautiful woman will decide to stay the night. She’ll hear Geordie’s mother through the halls, but she won’t see her, seems she’s ill. And there will be a shower scene. And there will be taxidermy.
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Yeah, and he’ll call the hotel cocktail bar ‘Skippy’s Haunt’, seeing out his dotage in the evenings sat at the end of the bar quietly getting sozzled; and ever so gradually, over the fading years, it will begin to dawn on him who he was in a past life . . .
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Oh, I must have some British blood too. I loved the original Geordie character, before all that plot and character development happened. Now I’m heart-broken. There better be a happy ending. Can we just go back to the beach and stroll? 😉
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Haha! It did get kind of crazy there. I’m blaming Hariod. He started it. 🙂
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My sister and I did this exercise with her dog, Bug. We decided that all the things he does that make him such an adorable dog would make him the creepiest human being ever.
Deeply staring into EVERYONE’S eyes, delicately licking his lips before he lets out an understated burp into your ears, flopping onto everything and everyone, passionately making out with tennis balls and chewing bones … I’m pretty sure I just described someone with a very long criminal record filled with very mystifying legal concepts. 😉
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Ha! Yes, exactly. Funny how dogs have a lot of traits in common, but also their own personality. There are poop eaters, and non-poop eaters; dogs who eat everything (including dangerous objects that have no food-like odor) and dogs who reject anything that’s not somewhere in the salami-bacon realm; dogs who love other dogs, dogs who don’t seem to care about other dogs at all except insofar as they pose a possible threat.
I love the name “Bug.” How did that come about?
Geordie stares into my eyes, but he’s totally monogamous. I think he has a crush on me. I can’t even fix his toys because he’s always with me. When I get to work on rewiring something or whatever, he’ll start crying and flipping out. The worst is when he follows me to the bathroom and stares at me while I’m on the toilet. (Yeah, I just shared that. To my defense, I drink a lot of water, so closing the door is just one step too many. Plus, it feels kind of rude to slam the door in his face.)
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Hahaha. It sounds like Geordie would have a shorter criminal record. 😉
Abbreviation of “cute as a bug.”
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Awwwwwww.
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Then of course there are his 87 nicknames-
Wigglybutt, Buggaboo, Count Wigglesworth, etc.
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What a great idea for a writing prompt. As I read your description of Geordie the person, all the details of his personality were quite believable!
Most dogs I know lack Geordie’s British reserve and politeness 🙂
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It really is fun! I love how animals have their own personality. It’s fun to dig deeper into that.
Geordie is so unbelievable. I’ve never met anyone like him. The only thing he does that’s not quite polite is jumping up on people. (I could train him not to do that, but I’m lazy.)
He even needs to be invited up on couches sometimes. It’s strange. He starts to jump up on the couch, then he looks at me like, “I hope you don’t mind if I join you?” Then I have to give him great encouragement and let him know he’s very much welcome, otherwise he’ll curl up on the floor instead. In our house, he’s allowed on everything. He sleeps in bed with us. Yet he still has to ask.
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What a little gentleman 🙂 He is sweet!
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