Today is a good day for things done indoors. It's been raining off and on for the past few days as bands of rain cast off from Alex way down in Mexico skim through the yard and over the house. The dogs are bored. They are also suspiciously fluffy. Shedding in response to the stress of staying inside?
Neither dog likes to be brushed. Hugs, treats, tussles over chew toys, all of these things are considered appropriate displays of affection; however, the brush (even accompanied by treats) is something to be chewed into submission whenever it appears.
I happen to feel the same way about revision. Chewing the page into submission is often tempting, as is pretending it's not as fluffy a mess as I know it to be. Maybe if I don't take it seriously and put it back the drawer and just start over...but then another shaggy manuscript ends up sitting on my monitor, panting cheerfully and covering the plot with stray bits of nonsense.
Because I'm the master of procrastination, the dogs are the ones who get the attention this morning. Varda hooks her paws around my wrist, hooks her neck against mine, and tries to wait out the brushing. Then she tries to eat the brush. The brush is prickly--inedible unless you attack it at the handle. Where my fingers are.
We amass a stack of fur. Slick otter girl that she is, Varda gets away and inhales a handful of fur. A few minutes later, Merlin will be attempting to eat his way through the stack until he's lifted up, hind paws dangling, to be brushed like a head of fox hair on a wiggly elf.
Once they're brushed, my chastened metaphors for neat manuscripts loll against the wall and stare at me, sharing a respite from rainy day restlessness. All around us, however, the fuzziness remains.
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