This post was submitted by Zack Rosen

Sitting here at Tryst, a coffee shop on 18th St., I just missed a phone call from an unlisted number. This nearly stopped my heart. Sometime between now and tomorrow afternoon I am supposed to find out if my boyfriend and I will become the proud owners of Olive, a 4 month-old Redbone Coonhound we applied to adopt this past Saturday. So if a shaft of light so much glances off my phone while my head is turned I go into palpitations. The adoption standards of the shelter are nerve-wracking. We had an hour long interview (with an extremely delightful woman), filled out an extensive application and are up against three other families for the red-headed beauty you see pictured at right.

One year ago I vowed that moving in with my boyfriend was the biggest step toward adulthood I would take for the next couple years. I promised myself that same thing 7 months later when I started doing The New Gay full time. I should be spending every hour not dedicated to those pursuits smoking hash out of a potato while playing Tekken. (or whatever drug/videogame combo the kids are now into. Salvia and Duckhunt? Toad-licking and BoneStorm?) But now I find myself eagerly anticipating 7 a.m. walks in the rain and the pitter-patter of little teeth into every cord and pillow in my domicile. What happened?

The short answer is “That face! That little face!” We went to the Washington Animal Rescue League a month ago because their website listed a couple coonhound puppies remaining from a litter of 11. (The poor mother was adopted soon after, in case you were concerned.) But when we got there they were all spoken for. So imagine our surprise a couple days ago when it turned out that one had been returned. Swayed by that irresistable punim we filled out an application. Now we are playing the waiting game, which is way more boring than Hungry Hungry Hippos

The long answer is, well, longer. As long as I’ve had been sentient I’ve been drawn to cats. The qualities that repel most folks from the cunty little critters are exactly what make me love them. I like that they’re aloof and self-possessed. I think it’s great that they only play with you when they damn well feel like it. They are nice to people who they know can’t stand them. They lurk around the corners of conversations, listening to you talk while pretending they don’t care. They’ll spend 30 minutes on their backs, tempting you to touch a snow-white belly, and then chomp your hand the second you actually go for it. I’ve learned a lot from watching cats. I generally compare them to having a roommate that you barely see. You both have your own lives, but once in a while you both watch the same old movie on TV and enjoy each others company for a little while before going separate ways. I used to like these kind of roommates.

Dogs, on the other hand, are like having a grown man in your house who sits on your lap while you eat dinner and needs your permission to take a crap. I’ve had roommates like that too. They are no fun. And until about a month ago, I didn’t want either such roommate in my life. I have enough responsibilities as it is without another living creature’s very existence depending on my ability to operate a can opener.

But my boyfriend’s family was allergic to cats. So I had made up my mind. I couldn’t get a cat and didn’t want a dog. I was happy. Until about a month ago when I was sitting at my dining room table at 10 a.m. on the kind of grey, rainy early April morning that makes you wish the whole world was a bed and a Bon Iver song. I looked into my living room and noticed that one pin-prick of sun had managed to fall from my window onto my couch and I thought “I would feel so much better right now if there was something in that shaft of light that would look me in the eyes and wag its tail.”

This actually led to one of the most horrible revelations of my nascent adult life: My personal happiness depends on the existence of others. While I so frequently like to grouse that my boyfriend, family and social network are just contrivances of circumstance, that I could put a toothbrush in my pocket and hitchhike to San Francsico tomorrow if I felt like it, I actually owe all my present successes to a small group of people who love me. If all my friends were cats I would be miserable. (And my house would smell like shit.)

But still: How many gay men do you know who are still making up for lost time? Who treat their life like the party they were denied access to in their youth? If it was easy to give that up, wouldn’t 17th Street be a haven of pottery barns and home depots instead of a strip of homo watering holes?

Picture your early 20′s, and all its attendant irresponsibilities, as a tightrope. You can hold a beer and a bong and still traverse it. You can get a blowjob in a bathroom on this tightrope. A piercing or giant tattoo on your right arm won’t throw you off of it. And neither will a cat. You can hold that in one hand, you can change a littler box every 7 days and leave out a can of food, and not be disrupted from your bachanalian perch. But dogs? Dogs are heavy. You put a warm little bundle in your arms and it licks your face and your smitten. But it grows and grows. It disrupts your balance and you fall. Do you hurdle down past new suits and trips to the furniture store and your first gray hair? Do you wake up ten years later among a mortgage and a saturday night spent at home watching tv, all because you took that first furry step toward maturity?

I think I’m ready for it. And I’m already in love with an animal I only met four days ago. I’ve kept her picture open in my browser window since Saturday. I’ve been reading up on Coonhounds as if I’ll be tested on them. And I know, beyond any doubt, that I’ll be heartbroken if she goes to someone else.

That phone call I just got, the one I mentioned at the top of this post, it turns out that was actually from a venue owner I had contacted last week about a pride party. I’m excited he got back to me, but it was not the news I’ve been hoping for. So until that comes I’ll sit here at Tryst, with an eye on my phone, enjoying what could very well be my last afternoon as a kid.

EVENING UPDATE: Good news! We’ll be picking her up on Thursday. Unsurprisingly, her red hair and potential to hold high pitch notes are pushing us toward naming her Neko, though my Velvet Underground fandom is also leaving a Nico as an option. Opinions?

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