1. "Get A Dog and Walk It."
A tale of three tails (and one parrot).
Hey! If you’re new and wondering “what the heck is this,” I suggest you check out this intro post. Or you can just dive in below and figure it out. I believe in you!
In late September I traded Hinge for Wag, tirelessly refreshing the oddly un-user friendly homepage in search of a perfect match. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t easy.
Alexa the Corgi was willing and ready, provided you could be in Weehawken in 20 minutes. Gregor the Greyhound had “a heart of gold,” just keep him away from strangers, squirrels, and cars, because he will attack. Leah the Schnauzer was suffering from explosive diarrhea, Pickles the Pitbull had mommy issues, Wendy the Boxer was straight up mean, Butter the Weiner Dog was a bonafide celebrity and required an NDA, Darwin the Beagle was notorious for love bombing and then trying to run.
After a week of searching and swiping to no avail, I was feeling hopeless.
That’s when I saw him: Randall. He was a two-year-old Goldendoodle with a goofy grin, bright eyes, and an apartment 15 minutes away in Greenpoint. People loved him, pet parents worshiped him, pooches wished they were him. Randall was IT. Randall was a dream dog. Randall was Mr. Right!
Randall was unavailable before I could even request the walk.
And so with that, I deleted Wag and chucked my phone into the East River. Thus concludes “1. Get A Dog And Walk It.”
KIDDING. Give up because some animals on an app wouldn’t accept my walk? Please! I may be delusional, but I’m not a defeatist.
I did, however, pivot away from Wag and turn to my all-time favorite social media feature: close friends on Instagram. Reader, I take Instagram close friends very seriously. My happy place, the group consists of pretty much anyone I’d actually get coffee with after running into on the street, and also Barack Obama (you never know).
The post went as follows.
Not to get too sappy, but I was genuinely touched at the outpouring of dog-related support I received. Friends I hadn’t spoken to in months blindly offered up their pet, no questions asked. Was I disappointed Barack didn’t chime in to suggest Sunny? Of course, but I’ll survive.
Monday, September 25th
I arrived at the apartment of my friends Shelby and Ross, where their puppy Maizey was waiting. Everyone won in this scenario: they got a free pet-sitter, I got a temporary dog, Maizey got non-stop petting and cuddles. I was invigorated and excited, eager to kick off my list by wandering through Williamsburg with Maizey in tow.
The weather had other plans.
Anyone who has been in New York this summer and fall can attest that we have been getting so much rain. Look, I love me some precipitation. It’s moody, it’s cozy, it’s rom-com weather. But this? This wet, swampy, soupy hell? It’s too much! Okay, say you want to have a picnic in the park. In addition to the usual blanket-booze-bagel order, one now needs to come prepared with an industrial strength umbrella, a raincoat, rain boots, and a healthy sense of humor because more likely than not, Mother Nature will come in hot, heavy, and wet to ruin your day.
And before anyone comments “climate change,” yes I know that the endless rain is likely due to climate change, but in order to keep this essay light I’m going to blame things on an ephemeral matriarch who controls the earth instead of the looming global catastrophe we call our future.
Anyways. You can imagine my frustration when after a weekend of rain, Monday morning I wake up ready for a life-changing walk and get a day of nonstop drizzle instead. But life is short and youth is fleeting and I only had Maizey until the end of the work day, so we had to power through.
Hopes were high as Maizey and I headed to Boris & Horton, the dog-friendly cafe in Williamsburg. Boris & Horton is kind of like a Chuck-E-Cheese but for dogs and mainstream hipsters. It’s chic, it’s central, it’s cool. It is, in theory, an excellent spot for two dog owners (or one dog owner and one person borrowing a friend’s dog) to hit it off.
I arrived with major main character energy. Pulled out a book and smoothed my quirky pants and got a warm drink and positioned myself in an open and approachable manner. Maizey sat snugly on my lap, which was adorable and further added to the mise-en-scene of my perfect potential meet-cute.
Caught up in the moment, I found myself reaching for my headphones, eager to cue up a tune that would set the mood. And that’s when it hit me. Headphones.
I looked around the cafe with a sinking pit in my stomach, panic setting in as I realized the movie I thought I was in was no rom-com, but a rather horror film and the killer was already in the house. Headphones! How was I going to talk to anyone when surrounded by rows of remote workers shouting on Zooms, staring mindlessly at spreadsheets while their pets ran amok? This wasn’t a cute cafe… this was a dog-friendly WeWork!
To be clear, I’m no better than anyone at Boris & Horton. On any other day, I would also be working with headphones in and laptop out. I do it all the time. I just didn’t realize how closed off such behavior makes a person until actively trying to avoid it and open up. I went to the dog cafe hoping to talk to someone, and instead ended up listening to the soundtrack of a techie giving a Zoom presentation on her new website. The good news is that her team loved it. They have some notes on the color scheme, but it should be an easy fix.
As I sat listening to this woman rave about the growth potential of her site, I wondered how often I’ve been that oblivious loud talker and if maybe I can make a change. Then her dog peed on the floor and I realized it was time to go home.
Saturday, September 30th
We pick up on an overcast morning in the West Village with Frankie, my friend Oonagh’s puffy Pomeranian. I’d say it was a serene scene but it wasn’t, because the aftermath of catastrophic flooding was evident everywhere we looked.
Yes, that’s right. THE DAY BEFORE, IT HAD RAINED. AGAIN. IT IS SERIOUSLY ALWAYS RAINING IN NEW YORK CITY. The usually picturesque streets were spotted with puddles and the subways were streaked with dirty water. Rats scurried through soggy trash and lantern-fly carcasses drifted down makeshift rivers. It was humid and hot. It was disgusting, but fear not: the forecast said blue skies ahead, so I had hope.
Being in the West Village, I made a beeline for one of the city’s most infamous hubs of hot people: the West Side Highway. Most mornings, the population dotting the run path along the Hudson resembles stock footage for an athleisure brand or B-roll in a glossy Netflix movie set in New York.
Most mornings.
Maybe it was the tropical storm the day before or maybe it was really bad luck. Whatever the reason, I’m sad to report that the WSH was more dead than the rat corpse Frankie and I had to step over to get there.
You can’t win ‘em all, but at this point I’d had a lot of L’s. First Wag, then Boris & Horton, now this. Another failed walk? I know, I know, woe is me, but really, woe was me. I had a lot of woe as Frankie and I headed home. We passed a cafe. What the hell, I thought. Headphones out, we walked in.
That’s when it happened.
In line in front of me was a gorgeous specimen of a man and with him, Walnut, his giant golden retriever. We exchanged awkward smiles as the dogs sized each other up. My heart quickened. We said hello. We said how are you. Soon we were in a friendly but cautious conversion, a dance of who-should-say-what-where-to-go-where-what-to-do-who-are-you-yeah-I’m-you’re-this-is-my-friend’s-Walnut-is-my-sisters-and-I’m-you’re-we’re-oh! It’s my turn to order.
Our interaction lasted less than five minutes. It was friendly, flirty, and fleeting.
As I walked Frankie home, I thought about the lull between when the coffee orders were placed and the drinks were picked up. We stood there, next to each other, in non-conversation. I went back-and-forth in my brain while we waited. Should I introduce myself? Just say hey, I’m Emily. What was there to lose? What would be the worst case scenario if I took the conversation one step further? He says “No, sorry, I don’t want to tell you my name?” That would be so weird!
And look, it’s very possible the guy at the coffee shop was just being nice. He maybe didn’t care to know my name or anything about my day. But it’s also possible that he took out his headphones and brought his sister's dog on a walk that morning for the same reason I had Frankie.
Tuesday, October 3rd
My doga (combination of dog and saga – does it work? No. Oh well!) came to its end on a beautiful, hot, RAIN FREE evening in early October. Dakota lives in Washington Heights with my best friend Lexi. And to be clear, she is not just a dog; she’s family. In fact, I am Dakota’s emergency contact at the Vet.
A walk with Dakota was my chance to put into action everything I’d learned with Maizey and Frankie. I had it all planned out: we’d take the Subway from 168th Street down to Riverside Park, where we’d walk along the Hudson as the sun sets. We’d find a patch of grass for her to run, and I’d watch proudly as she romped around. We’d be joined by some dashing dog parent. I’d strike up a conversation because I wouldn’t be wearing headphones and I am bold now. I’d introduce myself and offer my name. We’d go to coffee later that week, then dinner, then a weekend trip, then get married within the year. The New York Times would cover our wedding, because Vogue felt a little extra.
It was a New York City fairytale, and it was about to be mine.
What really happened is I raced up to Washington Heights, sweaty and late. I sat next to a man and his parrot on the 1 train and watched the sunset while we stalled above 137th street. I got to Dakota in the dark and raced her out of the apartment as fast as I could. I was stressed, but determined. We could still make it. It could still happen.
But it couldn’t. Dakota refused to budge. If I wanted to get to Riverside Park, I’d have to drag her kicking and screaming, and that’s a very embarrassing thing to do publicly. No, this was it. Game over.
It was there, watching my best friend’s dog shit on the side of a fence in Washington Heights, that I burst into tears. I felt like such an idiot. What was I doing? Racing uptown to grab a dog to complete an item on a list for… what? What was the point?
Back at Lexi’s apartment, I sat with Dakota and wiped away my sweaty sorrow. I reminded myself why I started this project. It’s not to fulfill a fairy-tale or have some unrealistic meet-cute in a park with a dog as a crutch. It’s to do something, anything, everything.
Sure, things didn’t go as planned. Whatever. They never do.
This week I left my comfort zone. I took a few swings. I missed some. I met a parrot on the subway. I took out my headphones. I tried something new.
Of course it would have been easy if I met the perfect person and the list stopped at number 1. But if my list stopped at number 1 then this would be an incredibly boring adventure.
That said, if another activity is ruined by the rain, I will scream.