Dog Daze Butter

On TV, there is a dead horse in Houston. Though I've never met the horse, I know that it was gray and starved to death. That is all I know before Dad changes the channel.

Outside, it is hot. Hot, hot, hot. A truck drives by and a man says, "Caliente!" Maybe it is the name of a restaurant or a bar, one that plays Christian rock with Russian bartenders and has "Cheap pizza deals" on Tuesday nights. I feel something, and it is not bad or good, but the fact that I'm feeling is great.

This is how you make Dog Daze butter. You make butter, just plain old butter. Then you sit outside with it smeared on a piece of toast. But it has to be August and it has to be hot. There has to be stillness, and it has to be the late afternoon. The TV has to be playing somewhere inside, and you have to be able to hear it outside, where you have to be sitting, where you have to be thinking very little, in a place that has to be "off the grid." Then you have to take a bite of the toast with the butter and you have chew slowly, and it has be slow, otherwise it is not Dog Daze butter. Then you have to think about the butter, but it has to be a quick, lazy thought, it has to be both, not one or the other. And that is how you make Dog Daze butter. You can get up after you've finished the piece of toast. You can go about the rest of your day. But you don't have to. You can think about something terrible you saw on TV earlier. You can think about how hot it is. But you really don't have to.