"How to Be OK Pursuing Happiness as a Warm Friend To a Puppy Not of One's Own but By Borrowing Your Neighbor's Best Friend and Taking Him to Dog Parks Where He Can Make Lots of Friends of His Own."

The title of the book Meade says he would write if he "wanted to write a book motivated purely out of my love for humanity."

It's based on the clichés ("all true"): "If you want a friend, get a dog" and "If you want a friend, be a friend." Also, there were those self-help best sellers from the 60's and 70's "How To Be Your Own Best Friend" and "I'm OK - You're OK" plus, the classic Charles Schulz' "Happiness is a Warm Puppy."

What's stopping me from writing it is I just don't have that much love for humanity. I'd write it for caninity but of course canines don't read. And besides, they don't need self help — they need our help.

Bob Marley spoke some harsh but true truth when he said: “The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.”

And he was right!

That's from the comments thread about the cartoon "I Think I Am In Friend-Love With You," by Yumi Sakugawa, which I love. It's spurred a lot of conversation. For example, Meade and I got into a long conversation after he quoted commenter Skyler's remark that the cartoon was "pathetic." Wasn't it only that the character in the cartoon was pathetic — and why was that? — and not the cartoon itself as a work of art? Are comics art? Are comics comical? What is art? It's art because it made us have this conversation about it. Whatever happened to works of art that found their completion in all the many conversations they inspired?

ADDED: I just found 2 Yumi Sakugawa books on Amazon for $1.99: "There Is No Right Way To Meditate"  and "Special Message For You Hand-Delivered To You In The Universe." I read some of "There Is No Right Way" out loud to Meade:

10 Ways to Get Rid of Your Bad Mood

1. Have your doppelganger extract your bad mood from your chest so he/she can make fun sculptures with it.

2. Paint out your bad mood. When you're finished with your painting, set it on fire...

Meade said: "This is where Yoko Ono meets Chip Ahoy."

Studying with babies.

Have you ever had a baby by your side when you were studying for a law school exam? I had one -- out of the frame -- when I posed for this photograph. The baby -- my older son, John -- was less than 2 months old, so he took no interest in my ordeal and went about his baby-business as usual.

But maybe you are studying with a baby who's a little older, like this one, who, I'm told, spontaneously dug the Constitution out of a schoolbag and started reading it:



Good luck to all the law students who are studying with babies!

ADDED: A few months later, John did take an interest:



IN THE COMMENTS: Skyler says:

My daughter liked to study for the patent exam.

Some serious cuteness at the link. Plus, the daughter is named Elle.

Mcg said...

Somewhere I've got a picture of my infant daughter and [me] watching the dittocam. If I wasn't interested in preserving a modicum of anonymity on this forum I'd post it.

But I am, so I won't.

Instead, I'll post a link this hilarious blog mocking pictures of cute animals.

Forgive me for correcting your grammar, but you Arne Duncanned.

As a Rush Limbaugh fan, you may be horrified to learn that when I created a tag for your pseudonym, Blogger tried to autocomplete "mcg" to "McGovern." But -- who knows? -- maybe you are McGovern. Who knows what celebs lurk behind these pseudonyms?

As for that blog -- Fuck You, Penguin -- I love it. Don't say "fuck you" in front of babies, but I'm totally on the same page as the Fuck You, Penguin blogger: what does this asshole think he is doing?