Greetings from Brooklyn. It’s me, Jen Glantz.
Last week I paid a pet psychic $177 to communicate with my dog (Goofy) and answer an hour’s worth of questions that have rolled around in my head like dice stuck in a Yahtzee cup for the past six years.
Questions like:
Does she love me?
Have we been together in a past life?
What makes her the most sad?
How can we make her life better?
Is there somewhere she’s always wanted to visit?
What does she hate the most about her life?
Is she a human trapped in a dog’s body?
You know...normal…..very normal questions.
And in my very, very, verrrrrry normal head, this psychic was going to be able to tell me the answers.
Of course, any answer other than of course she loves you, yes, you’ve spent all your past lives together, and absolutely, she’s a human trapped in a dog’s body would’ve completely fractured my heart and sent me into a spiral.
So I’m not really sure what I was doing there.
Most of her answers were exactly what I wanted to hear. I guess I paid $177 for someone to yes, and... every one of my does she love me? questions.
Maybe I wanted her to connect to Goofy’s Wi-Fi, install a microphone in her brain, and let my dog speak for herself.
Though Goofy, who spent most of the call outside the room and probably thought this was some elaborate form of identity theft, would’ve had very different answers.
Goofy, face first in her treat bowl, slapping the porcelain edges with her Pringle-smelling paws, would’ve said:
The worst part of my life is the vet keeps saying I need to lose two pounds, so my humans don’t respond to my several thousand begs a day for more teats until I borrow a page from my little sister Gemma’s playbook and go full-throttle, the-neighbors-can-hear-me tantrum mode.
Instead, the psychic told me Goofy’s biggest sadness was being left alone for long periods of time.
Which yes, of course, would make anyyy dog really sad.
But Goofy is not really like any dog because she is never left alone.
Never. Like I swear, honestly, never.
She comes with us everywhere. If she’s not allowed to come, we pay a really nice person $15/hour to babysit her. Anyone who socializes with our family knows the restaurant either has to have outdoor seating to accommodate Goofy or there’s a good chance we won’t go unless we can find a babysitter to come whose only instructions are to not leave the apartment for even one second. DO YOU WANT to hear the story about the babysitter who we paid to watch Goofy while we went to a wedding an hour away and midway through the wedding the babysitter just…left…because she wanted to go out with her friends instead…..you have never two people rush out of a venue and back home as quickly as we did….the whole car ride humming this babysitter will never step foot in our lives again!!!!………….anyway….
Most of what the psychic said didn’t really sound like Goofy.
And while I had to listen to Adam dance around the apartment for the next three days chanting scam, waste of money, do you know how many ice cream cones we could’ve bought for $177?... (In Brooklyn, tbh, not that many maybe only 10??? but whatever, Adam, whatever..)
...I don’t regret it.
I do sort of believe in psychics because why not??? and I know for realll that this woman really honestly deep down to her soul believed she was having a conversation with Goofy. She had this peaceful, completely locked-in energy, like she’d found the exact thing she was put on wacky planet to do.
She did say one or two things that felt oddly specific. Things that made me stop for a second and think...
Wait...what if she really did connect with Goofy for a moment?
Who knows. I don’t care if it was all fake because the reason I did it was selfish anyway. I wanted someone random to confirm that Goofy and I have this out of this life connection. That I’m not crazy.
All we ever want is to not feel crazy and the #1 way to not feel that way is to have someone say:
You are not crazy for thinking/feeling that way.
We ask strangers to do this for us all of the time….., other lonely people on park benches, palm readers, people on Redditt…my favorite people to ask :)
Most of what people bark at us doesn’t stick because we never set out to follow their advice. I just wanted confirmation that I’m not so crazy for thinking that the love of our life really is really a human trapped in a dog’s body…
Sometimes we just want permission to believe the beautiful thing.
This time it cost me $177 and a lot of reminders from Adam that this was NOT my best idea!!
But it also wasn’t my worst and it was a thrill and I wish you could have seen Goofy during this call because she really was looking at me like come on…I snuggle with you and kiss you and never leave your side, and haven’t told anyone about the time you were so scared you……………you really needed to pay someone $177 to tell you I love you? What a freak….
Take care of yourself this week (ilysm).
Because with a broken toe, there’s not much I can do, so I’m doing crafts! I’m making these fun necklaces with this chain, these hearts, and beads. I’m going to mail them to my friends as a little gift :)
I keep these in my purse as a go-to healthy snack especially when I’m on-the-go and know it’s going to be hard to grab something faaast.
Love You More got my out of my June reading slump. It’s written in a fast paced kind of way where in one sitting, you find yourself reading 25-50 pages. Great summer read! Also I’ll never forget how Emily Giffin supported/promoted my book Finally the Bride in February out of nowhere…it was a fever dream.
This song always gets me to light up. Whenever I find a song I’m obsessed with, I like to listen to live or acoustic versions of it as a fun little treat.
The sweetest thing that happened to me last week was when I was feeling really sad about something and found myself all alone crying on the steps of the NY Public Library, my phone rang. One of my friends who had been thinking of me decided to spontaneously give me a ring at the exact moment I just needed a phone hug.
It made me think that instead of taking long walks (when I can walk again!!!) listening to hours of podcasts, I want to start randomly calling up people I love and catching up with them.
When you’re lost in thought about a person, let them know. Text them them or pick up the phone. They might need you without you knowing it.
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