I don't know anything about your dog.

In high school my family had an exchange student. She had the perfect level of English fluency - the level of French fluency I hope I have - where everything she said was technically right, but sometimes just a little tiny bit wrong.

The best example is one morning she looked down at our dog and asked: “Is your dog a man?”

“He’d like to think so,” I said.

Our dog’s name is McGee, and he is a man. But if people think he’s a girl, or a woman, I don’t correct them. 

If someone says “She's so cute” I don't correct them, they're right. My dog is pretty cute, I think. The "she" part doesn't matter so much to me. Dogs aren't boys. Dogs aren't girls. Dogs are dogs, to me.

If someone says “Why does she smell that way?” I don’t say it's because he’s a man and that’s what men smell like. I usually just say that we don’t wash him very often. The groomer said he has sensitive skin so we’re not supposed to. Try standing further away if it bothers you. Or stand upwind maybe. 

It’s ok that our dog is sensitive. Our dog doesn’t care if you call him a him or a her. I'm almost positive our dog doesn't subscribe to any traditional or even non-traditional gender norms. All I really know is he’ll lick up his own pee if we don’t move him along fast enough. Licking pee is something our dog avidly subscribes to.

Wikipedia says that being soft, dependent, and emotional are feminine characteristics and my dog is all these things. If you count leg-humping as being sexually aggressive, that’s a masculine trait. But if you count leg-humping as flirtatious, then it's feminine. Our dog has a few different styles of leg-humping for different occasions.

The point is if you have a great dog, and I bet you do, I’ll want to ask “Can I pet him” or “Can I pet her” and honestly I can’t tell if your dog is a boy or a girl, so I’m going to have to guess.

And I’ll probably be wrong and you’ll probably correct me, and that’s fine, but I won’t really get it.

I don't think your dog cares. And I think your dog smells great.

Name any place in the world

My sister has the same initials as me but is better at running than me, better at making scrambled eggs than me, and probably smells better than me, and she’s getting an envelope in the mail any Wednesday now that says where she will live for the next year and half while she’s on a mission. 

For some reason the envelope will definitely arrive on a Wednesday. We know that, but we don't know where she'll be going.

She could go anywhere in the world! Except North Korea. And a few other places. But other than that, anywhere in the world. It makes me so excited I can’t eat, but then every few hours it makes me so excited I eat lots, so it evens out.

Can you imagine my sister being gone for a year and a half? I guess first you have to imagine me having a sister. If you already know my sister, you have a head start on imagining this. My sister’s name is Bryn.

A year and a half is a long time. Sometimes I think of a good joke and am about to say it to my sister, but then I think, I’ll save that joke and tell it to her when she’s gone. That way the joke can cheer her up after a hard day in Botswana or Iowa or Iceland or the Maldives, or anywhere, anywhere in the world. Except North Korea. And a few other places. 

Here are ten of the thousands of places Bryn could possibly go:

Neft Dashlari a city built on some boats floating off the coast of Russia or something.

Somewhere with tapeworms I want to hear more about them.

A 21-Jump-Street-style mission where she goes to high schools every day and pretends to be a student.

Florence, Italy This is my grandmother’s vote. My grandmother has it on good authority that girls usually go where their dads go, and my dad went to Italy. This sounds about as reasonable as the theory that men only go bald if their mom’s dad went bald, but I think some scientists proved that recently, so this one might actually be pretty accurate. 

One of those states no one can remember when they’re trying to name all 50 states.

Tokyo, Japan If my sister goes to Japan I will be as excited as that dog in the YouTube video that sees his owner for the first time in 2 years and gets so excited he passes out. I’m not posting a link because the video itself was pretty underwhelming.

Marseille, France

Just the rainforest Is that a thing? I hope so.

Canada Everyone in my family has dual Canadian-American citizenship and we all talk a big game about being Canadian but if my sister spent a year and a half there she would honestly know infinitely more about Canada than the rest of us combined.

Portland, Oregon I would get to see her every day.

I miss you already Bryn. Mostly because you already live in another time zone but also because I love you a ton.

Name something that weighs ten pounds

Guys should I adopt this dog? Here I three reasons I probably should.

1. My landlord said he prefers if I don't have pets BUT he said it so gently that I think he would love this one.

2. Last week I saw a free fish tank WITH FISH on Craigslist and before I had time to decide good idea or bad idea it was gone. So maybe from now on I should assume everything is a good idea.

3. He looks like Paddington. The dog does, not my landlord.