People who knew me before think I'd had a mental breakdown fourteen years ago and just haven't stopped yet. People who meet me these days have called me, apparently, "independent" and "eccentric".

What an awful word, that. Like I'm some zany artist from the nineteenth century, chewing on my led-infused paint, surrounding myself with my delusions. Like I have a fetish for eating cherries off the toes of hairy women, like a man I met once at a very dull party of which his confession was the highlight. Anyway, I understand why you might call him eccentric, in his incongruous plaid and striped suit, unruly red hair, and deeply lined face. But not me. I'm not in his class, I wouldn't say.

Is it such a sin to keep your windows open and have fairies on your wallpaper? Well, that's probably not the problem people have with my apartment, if I'm honest. It might be Wilbur, Marge, and Sweetheart.

Wilbur is, of course, everyone's second favorite, but even he isn't very likeable. I closed the door behind me, listening to my beautiful Neapolitan Mastiff snuffle his way across the kitchen towards me. He has been described to me many times as, "The ugliest dog I have ever seen," prompting strangers to call him, "Holy Christ Jesus what is that" instead of Wilbur, which I think is a much nicer name. Ah, well. I bent down to pet him, working my fingers into the massive folds of flesh drooping down his face like many layers of jowls. He was only a foot short of me when he stood, his massive ball sack hanging down like a water balloon. He was my first purchase after the divorce, rescued from a home that didn't appreciate the unique joy of Neapolitan Mastiffs.

He followed me into the bedroom, snorting at my feet as I tossed those troublesome boots aside. I could hear gravel rattling inside of them. What had she taken? I tossed my hat new had into the closet and tried to put it out of my mind. Wilbur smelled wonderful right now, the deep shampoo from doggie power-wash yesterday still lingering in his skin. I squatted to bury my face in his fuzzy neck, trying to wrap my arms all the way around him. I couldn't, he was too thick around. He gave me a wet nuzzle under my chin that would have completely disgusted me twenty years ago.

I went to make some tea after that, Wilbur lolling at my feet like a thick rug. The neighbors walked by in the hall, too loud, and he lunged to his feet with an avalanche of low, deep barks that would send any grown man screaming for his life. They must have had guests with them, because I heard someone scream, "Jesus Christ, what is that?"

The sun crept down while Wilbur and I cuddled together on the couch to watch Project Runway and think about work we should have been doing but weren't. Marge rolled around on the floor, scampering from leg to leg under the coffee table like a lost child.

Marge is named after my mother because she is prickly, hard to handle, and always pissing all over everything. Mum loved that when I told her. Threatened not to invite me to Christmas. I rubbed Wilbur's silky belly and thought that I might have to change my her name, anyway. It was too sad to think that I was more attached to my little hedgehog than my own mother. Mum could crawl into a ditch and die and I'd probably be less upset than the time when Margie swallowed a bit of sponge and started frothing at the mouth.

A woman in a scary dress collaged together out of black lace and rose-print cashmere strutted down the aisle, pale as the moon, small-breasted and thin shouldered. My opposite. "That dress is so ugly," I told Wilbur. He panted and licked my neck. The Captain Hook, the designer had called the dress. Of course, Tim Gunn loved it. Brilliant, he claimed. Wonderful.

As Tim nodded his approval, I noticed a rustle in my curtains. I didn't investigate. I'd stopped being afraid of noises when Wilbur lumbered into my life.

At midnight after three episodes of Say Yes to the Dress, half a page of the seven page article I had due that Friday, and a pint of ice cream for dinner, I tucked my babies in and crawled into bed myself. Margie curled up under her little plastic habitat and gave me a little purr goodnight. Sweetheart, in a bad mood, just poked her head out and hissed at me.

Sweetheart never really liked me that much, I don't think, but she was always my favorite. That night, I reached into the cage and gave the Bearded Dragon a poke, giggling like a kid when she writhed away from me.

Wilbur was already in bed when I got there, splayed ungracefully over my entire mattress. I nudged him aside and curled up with my back to him, reaching out to click off the light. Who needs a man, I thought to myself, when you have a 150 pound dog? What's the difference? I fell asleep listening to his congested snores.