About Me

My Life lately,
by Jesse L Teshara

I sit. I'm sitting. House-sitting, in Oakland, for Sara and Pierre. They, their just-turned 3 y.o. son Augustus, and Pierre's dad, Peter, are in Portugal. I am dog-sitting, for their french bulldog, Poutine, a wheezy, neurotic thing that needs to wear a cone at all times (except of course eating/drinking) because she scratches her face, and compulsively licks her paws, which I'm told could result in amputation. She's a dumb dog to begin with, but she doesn't understand her menace to herself. I walk her 3x daily. I am a professional dogwalker. I walk other dogs, too. I am self-employed, an independent contractor, for Wag! (the “uber of dogwalking”), which uses cellphones and satellites to track your walk's route, in real-time, for the owner to see where you go. At the end of the walk, you write a report and submit a picture of yourself with the dog (you get an extra dollar if you wear the t-shirt and put a bandana on the dog, for advertising). In addition to the route, the report says how far you walked, with a checklist of whether the dog peed/pooped, and if the door is locked. I started with Wag! In March of last year (it's April '17). I've earned $5288.10 from them, so far. I've walked Rilo, Winnie, Sage, Brussel, Orion, Tallulah, Rex, Buckley, Kaleb, Kado, Indy, Zephyr, Louie, Buddy, Peggy, Toshi, Frankie, Tank, Sparkle, Myka, Scruffy, Ulla, LT, Dinosaur, Rutherford, Echo, Abner, Ollivander, Bear, Huxley, Tutt, Moxie, Maple, Paparazzi, Hazel, Poppy, Ray Charles, and Cody (38 dogs), with Wag.

I also walk outside of Wag. Fido and Taco preceded them, and are ongoing, although Taco has cancer and Fido is getting old. They live in San Leandro, and I usually walk them on Tuesdays, after eating a pastor taco or two at Los Pericos, nearby, as part of my routine. So, in additon to Poutine, Fido and Taco, and Kaleb, I walk Junie, who lives a block away from me, for Teresa, the owner who I met through Sara, who uses her home Pilates equipment and used to work with her at Berkeley Ballet Theater. I'm not very good at identifying breeds, so I've omitted that, you may have noticed. 

I listen to music every day. I have an Apple MacBook, and the itunes has thousands of radio stations, in different genres and categories (free!). I like college radio, and I skip around between Cal radio (which is also on the fm airways), and MIT (wmbr), Princeton (wprb), Harvard (whrb), CalPolySLO (kcpr), UCDavis (kdvs), Yale (wybcx), Stanford (kzsu), UCSanta Cruz (kzsc), and gdradio.net (Grateful Dead radio). That's ten, which seems apt (listen!). There's also Clave (in Argentina) and Musique (in France), which are pretty good. Occasionally, I listen to stand-up comedy. I watch very little tv, usually only at the gym or at Sara's. I go to the library almost every day, and usually have more than one book checked out. I have a subscription to the Economist, which I supplement with the daily New York Times, (at the library) and the weekly Christian Science Monitor (online). I get daily news from the Washington Post in my email. I also get daily email trivia, vocabulary, a daily poem, and book excerpts. Wikipedia is fun to surf, and I do, frequently. I have thousands of trivia cards, and the J! Archive (from the tv show Jeopardy) website has, I'm told, enough questions to take up 3 months of my life. My book lists will take even longer (1001, 501, and all the Newbery winners (since 1922). There's also Bloom's Canon, which is a whole other ball of wax. A book a day would take like 5 years, but I'm not a speed-reader, so it will take much longer. I also want to be proficient at Aikido, and do yoga, and bodybuild, while eating (mostly) vegetarian.  I have a gym membership at the local YMCA.  Dating, of course, is in the mix, but I'm 45, and not very motivated. If I can overcome schizophrenia, that would be the best. I'm told it's “chronic, episodic.” So we'll see. I've got a lot going on. 

Will I find a woman and job I love? Will I get better? Will I finish my reading list? Will I have a family of my own? A house? No matter, I'm doing okay as is, as Uncle Jesse to Ben, Declan, Augustus, and Esme. (missing a C). I'm Chuy (Jesus, Isai). I like writing my blog, and I wonder if I can make it into a published book. Between The Secret (by Rhonda Byrne), Think and Grow Rich (by Napolean Hill), and Master the Game (by Anthony Robbins), that might be a good start to an even more lucrative, rewarding career in the future. I won the Journalism award in high school. Maybe I should discipline myself to be a writer. I DO enjoy it! How to be God, lol. Just Be Good! (Just Be). :-)