Ugh

[resonant]

Last night I dreamed I killed a dog. Not on purpose, exactly, but out of a combination of fear, peevishness, and laziness that is, unfortunately, a much-too-common motivating factor in my life.

Left me feeling icky. [cues up Chanticleer and looks for smut to improve state of mind]

Comments

Details?

[wordwitch.livejournal.com]

Give me what details you can remember, and I'll try to interpret it for you.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

OK, I was traveling alone. Staying at a fairly lousy motel en route to somewhere else.

A guest at the motel had this dog. It was big (shepherd-sized) and kind of moth-eaten-looking. Generally friendly.

I'm not afraid of dogs, on the whole, but I don't like them. They drool. They jump. When you pet them, they make your hands smell bad.

I got up very, very early in the morning, while it was still almost dark, so that I could get on the road early and not have to interact with anybody. The motel was sort of out in the country, and to get to where my car was parked, I had to walk down a long part-gravel-part-dirt road, maybe as long as five houses are wide. I had luggage -- not a huge amount, but enough to require both hands.

So I'm walking down this road, carrying all my stuff, and the dog comes out and wants my attention. So first I petted it and said, "Yeah, good dog, OK, enough, now, I've got places to be," and I picked my stuff back up. It followed me, got under my feet, barked until I thought it would wake everybody up and I'd be further delayed by having to talk to everybody.

Then it started getting just a tiny bit aggressive. Like, it tugged on my coat with its teeth, and then it tugged on my hand with its teeth -- in that way that trained retrievers can do where they can tug on you without their teeth actually breaking the skin?

(It was very clear in the dream that it wasn't bringing me a message or anything; it wanted me to play with it.)

Anyhow, I got to the car, put my stuff in the trunk, and got into the car (with this dog underfoot and in the way all the while), and then I started the car, and then I discovered that the dog was under the car.

At this point, I thought, OK, the right thing to do would be to get out of the car and go back to the hotel; probably the dog would follow me and I could shut it in the building, and if it didn't, then the manager could take care of it, or rouse the owner. But I'd already lost so much time, and I was pissed at this dog. And I figured that if I drove forward a little bit, the dog would get scared and get out from under the car.

Only it didn't, and I felt that very definite sickening thunk of the back wheels going over it, and when I looked in the mirror, I could see it lying all smashed on the road.

And even then I thought about stopping and going in and telling the manager that the dog was dead, but instead, I just drove away.

Okay, then.

[wordwitch.livejournal.com]

This is clearly about the irrational and ...um, word, like "unnecessary"? demands of others. My first thought was when we, your reading public, demand stories in specific fandoms or on specific subjects and plead and beg and, you know, make lovable nuisances of ourselves. You may be aware of another source of this sort of seemingly harmless demand.

You are on your way to achieving your goals, and have paused in the middle to accommodate some interim needs, but the unexpected and concomitant request/requirements with which you have been bombarded have hampered you and may well go on to block you if you are not careful.

In the end, you know very well it is necessary to be ruthless about refusing. Those responsible for the demands (the dog's owner in your dream) are perfectly capable of getting them met another way. Their carelessness is not your responsibility.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Wow. That rings very true to me.

All except fandom being the source of the demands, because it's odd, but I really don't experience fandom as being at all demanding. I mean, not that people don't ask for things, but I don't really feel any pressure to provide them. (Which you can probably tell when four months go by between one story and the next.)

I can see some of the places the pressure is coming from, though. Will have to think about what you've said.

[wordwitch.livejournal.com]

I'm relieved to discover that you don't feel pressured by us in this fashion, but it seemed to be the perfect visible parallel.

Note: that you saw the demands as a friendly but unappealing-to-you animal indicates that someone is guilt-tripping you about these things - and that you have the sinking feeling that they may have right on their side. They don't.

I wasn't specific on that before: sometimes the words are a little slow to rise from the depths of the swamp that is my brain.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I find I'm kind of resisting that -- there's a voice in my head saying, "But I ought to play with the dog!"

But it's not even my dog!

Not your dog.

[wordwitch.livejournal.com]

Right, it's not even your dog; there is someone else who has already taken primary responsibility. That it is a "good cause" does not necessarily mean that it is your cause. Each of us has specific work to do: taking up someone else's work means that you now have less time and energy for your own.

You know what your specific work is. Porn is a part of it; you know what else goes into it. Farming, for example, does not. Don't be distracted by guilt.

[skuf.livejournal.com]

Argh, for seconds on end, I read you had actually killed a dog, and thought you still sounded pretty ok about it! Of course I also just read that a guy was Batman at someone's wedding. New prescription, huh :o) ? (I know, new brain…)

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I think any wedding could be improved by the addition of a Batman.