Concerns about self-discipline

I’m concerned that I’m not being very disciplined at setting aside enough time for my writing. That said, I am managing to finish my writing exercises, and give lots of feedback on the other students’ work and in fact, I seem to be more active of the writers’ board than nearly all of the other students. But given that I’m not working (unlike I would imagine most of the other students) I should be able to accomplish a lot more. Gaydar and the temptations of promiscuous sex get in the way. Maybe I shouldn’t disclose this. Simone de Beauvoir said that she felt strongly that her decision to write about her life had been a rash exercise. Oh well, perhaps I’m being rash. Wrote a great piece from the point of view of a dog, despite my shocking lack of self-discipline.

Week 2, number 4, "Life sucks...."

Life sucks. The man left and now its kibbles all the time. No more cheese or beef jerky. And the squirrels are taking over the garden and I have to do patrol all the time. And she is always sad now. Where is the man? One day, I felt the connection to him suddenly snap, and he never came home that day. And then she became sad.

PATROL! Squirrels in the garden! I bolt through the dog door and race around the lawn. “Arf, Arf, Arf!” The squirrels always scramble up the old cedar fence into the pine trees before I can catch them. Life sucks. I really want to catch one!

I come back inside to where she sits, looking out the window. What can I do to cheer her up? Maybe she'd like to play ball. I'm not really fond of ball. It's a lot of work for me, and kind of pointless. But it used to make the man happy when he came home stressed from work. So I go to retrieve the orange ball from under the old brown armchair. It's lying beside a dead moth. I eat the moth to get the taste of kibbles out of my mouth. Then I go to her and drop the ball by her feet and suggest that she might feel better after a small game. “Arf!”

“Don’t bark Felix,” she says. “Let’s go for a run.” Life sucks. I hate running, but I can’t say no. She runs until the exhaustion of her body causes the ceaseless whirr of her thoughts to stop, like a ceiling fan turned off. But then she runs in that trance for ages! And it’s hard on me. My legs are so much shorter than hers. I'm getting old.

I prefer to mosey gently along, stopping to smell the world. Who was here, and how long ago? Which lucky dog got fed lamb for dinner, instead of kibbles? How much longer the old orange tom cat's failing kidneys will last? A dropped ice cream cone. My amour fou with the brown bitch from down the road. A dead bird. Delicious smells, the tantalizing world of the pavement. All this is denied to me now.

MAIL! I go to the door and take the envelopes gently in my mouth and bring them to her. Seeing this, she smiles and strokes my ears. Joy, what joy! But then I can feel her mind start to slide away as she opens one of the white envelopes. She begins to cry again. Life sucks. Sometimes life sucks even more than the fish-flavoured kibbles. Nothing comes from these white envelopes other than unhappiness. I resolve to bite the man who brings such tragedy to our house and to destroy these terrible things before she ever sees them. Perhaps then she won’t be sad. I look at her and tell her these things. I tell her that I know the man loved her, that he would never leave us. I tell her that I know he will come back. I tell her that I love her, even if she does feed me kibbles. “Arf! Arf! Arf!” She wipes her eyes and looks into mine and smiles and says “Oh, Felix, what would I do without you?”