Rough Day to be a DogPosted by dhoffman on February 19th, 2010
So, I took this week off with the idea that I would (a) relax, and (b) get some time to write.
The relaxation thing didn’t really happen as I lost my voice on Friday night, then either got sick or just overwhelmed with mucous (aren’t you glad you asked) as my body tried to lubricate and soothe my ruined throat. It was Tuesday before I could reasonably speak again, and Wednesday before I felt like a person.
So, of course, I had to go and tank Thursday.
To be fair, Thursday wasn’t bad for me, per se. It was bad, however, for Jack the Dog.
Poor guy had a rash on his belly. He was licking the rash so we took him to the vet to get a salve or something. Maybe one of those doggie cones that gets satellite radio. An off-hand comment from me, however, turned a routine visit into Jack the Dog’s Bad Day From Badsville.
Hey, his breath has been stinky lately. Anything we can do about that?
I feel Jack the Dog would have preferred I keep my mouth shut.
Suddenly, Jack’s getting knocked out and having X-rays done. Two teeth had to be pulled. He’s doped to the gills, staggering around the house, with a look on his face that says, “I was having a nice day. Why did you do this to me?”
Well, both teeth were cracked. And infected. Guess we could have left them in there but to my mind, the poor guy was probably suffering just having them in there. So he’s a mess now but in a day or three, he’ll be facing life with a whole new outlook.
This is what I’m telling myself.
His appointment was at 10:30am. He was supposed to be home for 2:00pm. I figured, okay, I can do that and get some writing done afterward (yes, this is the part where I tell you how worrying about my dog distracted me from writing. If you don’t want to hear it, skip to the part where I tell you I might have FINALLY cracked the start of Chapter Six and am cautiously optimistic about the direction I’m going in).
2:00pm turned swiftly into 5:30pm. We brought him home and he was basically a fuzzy puddle. I held him in my lap for a while, then we tried to feed him. No dice. Jessy held him on her lap for a while and we tried to feed him again, with some success this time. What this all amounts to is we spent the later parts of the evening caring for our poor, sad, pain-addled, doped up puppy dog.
Around one in the morning, Jack the Dog had clearly parked himself on the couch. We figured that was a good place to let him sleep, so he’s there now. Out like a light, the poor little guy. Jessy’s spending the night in there (the cat practically lives on that couch and while I can hang out in there, to sleep there the whole night would kick my allergies into overdrive — plus, I think she (Jessy) is digging that she was Jack the Dog’s choice of humans for his evening of recovery.
For my part, I spent a long time staring at the computer screen tonight. I’ve written and re-written the same 5-10 pages probably fifteen or twenty times this week. Wasn’t clicking. Tonight I did my thing and tossed out the preconceived notions and started from scratch. What I came up with — essentially jumping in a few hours later in the narrative than I’d been doing — feels pretty good. Tone is working, I’ve already got a few jokes in, with a couple more jotted in the margins. Might actually work.
So, I got some writing done, after all. I’d hoped to be more productive this week but the truth is this: if I’d spent the entire week to only get a single sentence down, if that sentence was good, and right, it would have been worth it.
If Six is working, that means I can push forward. I know what I want to be happening in these chapters, I just didn’t know the right way into doing that. An open door, a cracked window, a jimmied skylight; it’s all about finding that right opening.
Still, no matter how good my words are for the night, it was one rotten day, I think to be Jack the Dog. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.