Dog Songs for Lost People

Brett Favre. BJJ. Mary Oliver. Ellen Bass. All the things. New tunes.

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Hey, it’s A.J. It’s good to be back typing here. I am incredibly grateful for the time off. Special thanks to Ben TG, Edith, Erin Khar, and the multi-tasking, indispensable Anonymous TSB Editor who took the reins. I got a nice chunk of the memoir done, a nice piece of my brain back.

For my reentry, let’s talk about dogs.

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I spent the entire month of May rereading one poetry book, Mary Oliver’s lovely tribute to all her pet dogs, “Dog Songs,” because I decided to bond with and marvel at our family dog, Nesta, who has become part of The Small Bow lore since 2018.

Thanks to the recent Netflix documentary about Brett Favre, Nesta was in the news cycle again. He wasn’t exactly in the documentary, but subsequent discussions about the doc eventually led back to Nesta, thanks to the Death, Sex, and Money podcast.

Here is the relevant TLDR version of how this ties into the TSB universe. Jenn Sterger was a former New York Jets gameday reporter. In 2008, Favre propositioned her via text and voicemail while he was still their starting 39-year-old quarterback. She ignored his advances but then made the mistake of telling me about it— off the record — in 2010 while I was the editor of Deadspin. I ran the story on Deadspin despite her specifically asking me not to, and both our lives changed for entirely different reasons.

Some of you might remember this story from when I published this essay on TSB a few years back — about how Jenn and I, after not speaking for 8 years, suddenly reconnected through a rescue puppy she delivered to our family’s doorstep.

It was funny, but it took the Death, Sex, and Money episode to help me realize that was that what happened between me and Jenn Sterger was not just a cosmically perverse “amends” story. It was more than that for me. I was eager to sit down with Jenn and tell her how much I deeply and terribly understood what she had experienced. How I knew what it was like to have a version of yourself, perhaps a shameful, vulnerable, broken one, one continuously re-traumatized by the internet in perpetuity in a way that is both maddening and truly lonely. I was eager to acknowledge both my part in causing her this pain and also invite her to share some insight with me as to how to fight through my own.

Once we sat down in that House of Pies diner together and broke through the forcefield of awkwardness and anxiety, we began the process of regaining control of our stories.

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One of the most potent demonstrations of vein-on-vein understanding is to sit across from someone and grab onto the silences with them. No explanations, no intimations, here is this part of me that still wobbles, and maybe we can both wobble less from here on out simply by knowing each of us exists in the same way: Let’s both embrace this invisible, heavy thing for a little while. I can’t recommend it enough. Whatever recovery phase you are in, I encourage you to find those people and push for these moments, and embrace the invisible, heavy thing. The world kinda needs it.

I always think of Nesta as the big gold paint in the kintsugi of this ordeal. Maybe it’s a little overwrought, and I don’t want to speak for her, but Nesta’s existence and the way he came to me has legitimately transformed me, cracked and crumbled, dusted back together, into someone who has the potential to add more value to the world.

I appreciate Anna Sale’s willingness to revisit this story and Jenn's willingness to go back to this traumatic place to let people know about the good that came of it — the dog that came out of it.

Nesta is 8 this year, in good health, but still barky and overprotective of his house and children. He still falls into me every morning when he wants his neck rubbed before I have my coffee. He always finds me on the couch and sticks his head underneath my arm to let me know he’s there. He’s perfect.

Love, love, love says Percy.

And run as fast as you can

along the shining beach, or the rubble, or the dust.

Then, go to sleep.

Give up your body heat, your beating heart.

Then, trust.

— “I Ask Percy How I Should Live My Life” by Mary Oliver

Alright, let’s tend to this Sunday. More below, please join me. Pay if you can. Hit me up if you can’t. It’s good to be back.

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