I always feel like a million bucks after a morning bike ride and a scalding hot shower. Every muscle in my body relaxed, the residue of a few more cigarettes (circa 2003 at this point I think, which means only two more years of tar to go) flushed out, and the certainty that no matter what happens today I am already way ahead of the game.

Well, except maybe today. It looks like Rosie finally broke her leg, which has had cancer in it since at least December. She sort of defied our expectations by being just as ferocious and happy as ever, and she would go kulumpfing around on three legs as if things had always been that way. There was something envious in the way she just had no concept of death or even her own inconvenience. I’m really going to miss her.

Check out the short film, Ryan that won the Oscar in that category. It’s really very beautiful, and in a certain way the technique is something that every director should aspire to. That is, to be able to see the way in which human motions occur, and how they communicate something about what’s going on inside.

Is that it for Rosie, then? Is the lovable wonderdog-who-is-almost-human never again to bark at phantasms, cock her head at questions mundane or sublime, or remind us of the absurdity of the human condition by obstructing the television, oblivious to those images and sounds we so desperately crave to make us more whole, more human, less beast? She always stood as a reminder that there are an infinitude of little joys in life, like rolling in grass, eating cheese, and chasing frisbees. I know I am not alone in saying that there will never be another dog quite like Rosie. -Andro