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That old lab,I'd hardly let him pee before I'd goagain, and I couldn't stand it -- his arthritic vigil at the door when I arrived,his ecstatic drool, then his panting asI walked out, the asthma of being left. The drive to dogsitting felt like a secret: the eggshell horizonleaking albumen of weak-knuckled light,an orange suffocation, the old lab wheezing around those June mornings.I don't know how to explain this -- howwhen I look back at those months everything was steamed dogshit,bleaching grass, night buffering intodaybreak, the headache of waking, watching Friday Night Lightsuntil my eyes closed against their will,Matt Saracen's cheekbones, my sweaty thighs splayed on beige pleather, the stereo, nevergetting out of bed, the stereo, Daniel Johnstonon the stereo saying I have to live these songs forever. Sang that whole summer, said since junior highwhen he lost his mind he's been tryingto make sense out of scrambled eggs and I, high school punk, late-stage nerdperfumed by an overactive limbicsystem, pledged fealty to melancholy, nodded damn straight, likeI'd ever had to know anythingin my life. [Extracted from the article]