As if you couldn’t tell from the gigantic lapse in updates, I have taken a break. Please check back and don’t give up on the Ugly Dog yet…just when you are thinking “I wonder what that dude has been up to,” I will have another posting ready to put up. There is still more of this story to be told.

- R

The seat called out to me, from atop its polished chrome pole. The leather, or vinyl, or leatherette - I couldn’t be sure which was used in high traffic areas - was not as worn as I had expected. It looked like it had been recently cleaned. I slung my bag over the top of the adjacent seat and swiveled the chair with my knee before sliding into place. It was barely 8am, that time of morning when eastern shuttle commuters flooded airport terminals and elbowed each other for pole position in the race to get a cab on their way to the office. Already I had been nearly flattened twice as I made my way through the terminal.

The bar called out to me, and not just because I needed a number of drinks before I could fly without becoming wildly psychotic. Airport lounges during early morning hours were something to behold. Never were they treated with any kind of respect. Only two types of lounges opened this early in the day: The kind with nondescript entry ways and anonymous faded beige walls that opened at 6AM and were populated by elderly vets who needed a drink during every waking hour to expel whatever horrors of war they brought home; and airport lounges, the haven for those with lengthy layovers and poor souls suffering from jet lag. There was a third type in this scenario. The kind of traveler needing liquid sedation to ease the fear of flying. This was my type. But my kind was barely a blip on the radar. My kind could take a train if it were truly that debilitating a condition.

I mistook the guy behind the counter restocking the bar supplies for a bar back until he adjusted his apron and with a stereotypically thick Brooklyn accent normally reserved for Robert DeNiro or Chazz Palminteri asked me what I’d have.

8AM was too early for Scotch. Even in these circumstances, three fingers of Scotch before noon was bad form. Gin was the work of the devil. I never liked the stuff. Too bitter. It always tasted like lime zest to me. I brushed off some lint gathered on the lapel of my Banana Republic winter coat while I considered my options. […]

The message was short, even for Stephanie’s style. She was tired of Stacy’s attitude, tired of being accused of sleeping around with the person Stacy thought was her guy. Now it was spilling over into work on the set: It turned out Stacy, as production assistant and some-of-the-time makeup girl for Stephanie, didn’t think it was important to make her look good for the cameras. Leave me out of this, the message concluded, and don’t call me until this is in the rear view mirror. I took out the stylus at the side of my Treo phone and typed as a reply, Okay Carrie, a mutual joke we shared poking fun at the incorrect birth name listed for her on a popular web site.

“Important email?” Doug asked. He took a corner hard trying to maneuver around the half-drunken homeless man in the road who decided no red light could contain him.

“Yes, but no,” I replied as I deleted the mail from my inbox. “Same problems…more women, more problems.” I paused for a moment. “These two have excellent racks, that might be the only difference this time around.”

Doug shook his head in disapproval. “You are like that song - ‘Might as well face it, you’re addicted to love.’ That song is you.”

I smirked. “Well, that is a better option than Dancing Queen.”

Another turn, this time onto Flower. “Shut up you homo,” Doug scoffed in as prissy a Just Jack alto as he could muster. […]