A day in my life
By: Dalcash Dvinsky
Tags: Academia, Diary, Dogs, Routine

7:00 I open my eyes and a big furry creature is staring at me. I close my eyes again. The creature disappears.

8:00 I wake up again and search for my phone. The creature gets up, sits down in front of my bed, and stares at me. His name tag says ‘Bunny’. He might climb into my bed for a while, to pretend that he is interested in cuddling, but he really wants me to get out of bed. What follows is lots of yawning, touching, stretching, checking the windows, as we move together from the bedroom to the front door. For a few minutes, we look at the world, with Bunny between my legs. These are among the best minutes of the day. We talk about the sky and the weather and the dogs.

Then the first dog walk of the day. Most days it’s a quick round in the neighbourhood, our local beach, our road, our backcountry. One mile, perhaps more in the summer. Very quiet, few people out, but lots of smells. The only training we do is recall and loose leash, usually without a lot of success.

Ritual handwashing for me, ritual brushing for the dog. I make breakfast for us and we eat together. He finishes after ten seconds, I need ten minutes. I change into my working pants. They are just pants, I just think it’s important to wear them from time to time, to maintain a level of structure in my life.

At some point the old Aleks comes into the kitchen, makes himself coffee and disappears again towards the living room to start on emails. He doesn’t eat breakfast, ever.

9:00 I settle down in front of the laptop in the living room, Bunny somewhere else without a laptop. The next two or three hours I work, on the things that I have decided to work on. Sometimes I videotalk to people. Sometimes I videotalk to myself. Bunny checks on me every once in a while, which is always an attempt to lure me outside. His most successful strategy: sitting next to me, staring at me, while trying to give me his paw.

Old Aleks takes a shower, gets dressed, and drives to the university, maybe around 10 or 11. It’s a source of great stress for him. He has to focus on driving, listen to disturbing news on the radio, find a parking spot, and then make small talk with various people until he is back at his job. At that point he is inevitably hungry and exhausted. Upon arrival at work, a pile of tasks has accumulated on his desk, sometimes in form of an actual pile of things.

12:00 Lunch break, which means: Bunny and I go for our mid-day walk. It takes a while to get all our things together. This could be a trip down the coastal path, Caiplie and back, or the small Wormiston loop, or once around the village, perhaps three or four miles overall. We hope that most of the other dogs are indoors, except the ones that we like. We might encounter sheep, but nowadays Bunny is cool with sheep. The walk may include swimming (for me) or mouse chasing (for Bunny). It’s very exciting. And often a bit nerve wrecking.

I have a text from Old Aleks saying he can’t focus on what he was planning to do because there is constantly someone in his office. ‘Do you have a minute’, they keep asking him, and of course he has the minute that turns into half an hour. I tell him to work from home and schedule all meetings properly. On the other hand, he has a cafeteria and vending machines and grocery stores and can eat whatever he wants through the day without earning jealous looks from an ever-hungry dog.

13:00 We are back home, exhausted, but happy. Ritual handwashing for me, ritual toweling for the dog. Ritual eating of something we both like, a banana, an egg, something. We need to sit down and relax for a bit. When we are done with relaxing, I make ‘lunch’ for both of us, safely before Bunny decides to eat me instead. It’s not really lunch, it’s just food, whatever is available, a handful of something.

Old Aleks has managed to escape to the observatory. It seems he is not very productive there either, but he maintains the appearance of being at work, which is what matters most. I’m not really sure what his job is. Although it’s supposed to be the same as mine, he spends his time quite differently. For example, he works with actual telescopes, and sometimes he uses them to look at stars. I haven’t seen stars in a while. I miss them. When measured in hours, Old Aleks is also working a lot more than I do.

14:00 In principle I could work for another few hours, and often I have to. But the presence of multiple beds nearby may cause an interruption. Overall, the day loses structure and purpose and direction, but that’s fine, because you can only have so much purpose on a day. We try to play a bit, because games create structure. Oh man, I’ve become a morning person.

At some point Old Aleks comes home, perhaps goes for a swim, and then proceeds to make his dinner, the only real meal he is eating. He doesn’t really seem to eat a lot, but he is gaining weight. I on the other hand eat tons and lose weight. He might join us for our last walk and tell me about the university, the town, and the people. He always has a lot of interesting stories that I would miss without him.

18:00 The last walk of the day is mostly meant to explore and have fun, but not too much fun. Perhaps two miles of fun. It’s typically a round through and around the village, which is now again empty. We try to avoid other dogs. Bunny is very interested in the lobster cages at the harbour, the house of the butcher (who also has seven huskies), the local sheep, and the park, always the park. The tennis courts in the park have a high fence. Bunny gets off leash, we play and train, but he is not very patient. He wants to explore instead.

19:00 Coming back home. Ritual handwashing for me, ritual brushing for the dog. Realistically, brushing happens whenever Bunny is calm enough to stand still for a while. We eat something, one more time, an actual meal. Bunny and I eat different things, by the way, but at the same time. He gets fish and chicken based kibbles with some vegetables and extras, in a dark broth. Pretty good.

Old Aleks manages to get some work done in the evening. Sometimes I join him. He is still much more awake, presumably because he hasn’t walked seven miles at an insane pace. We have different rhythms, he and I, and different priorities. He is more a sea creature. He is more mobile. He is more interested in the rest of the world. I’m very keen on knowing everything about the patch of grass directly in front of me.

20:00 We wind down the day. I pay bills, play piano, order dog treats, and drink tea. My entire social life, on Zoom or Skype or Gather, happens in these short evenings as well. Bunny is often excessively nervous for a while. He chews on soft things, whines, paces around, until I sternly tell him to go to sleep, and then he does that. He varies his sleeping pattern a lot. He sleeps in the porch, in the hallway, next to me, far away from me. He has established around eight sleeping bases around the flat, one of them in my bed, where the day ultimately ends.

22:00. Around that time, the dog insists that we really go to bed. What this means is that we start our evening routine. One last time, Bunny and I open the door and stare out into the darkness, another good moment. I share a cookie with Bunny, which makes both of us happy, and go to bed. We eat different cookies, Bunny and I, of course. Again he tries to find a place to sleep, it is hard to predict where that will be. I sing a lullaby to him, in German. All night when I wake up, I wonder where he is and what he is doing. Mostly the answer is at my feet, asleep.

Old Aleks has the night for himself. From the browser history I know that he is spending a lot of time on youtube, on Netflix, and on NBA livestreams. He is planning future travels and trips, which is something he seems to be interested in. He will inevitably get hungry again and start eating again. He will stay awake because he has the feeling he doesn’t want to miss anything. There is so much going on in his life. He complains that there is white fluff everywhere.

(All times are plus minus one or two hours, because neither Bunny nor me nor Old Aleks are machines.)