A New Kind of War

I'm a sucker for sad faces. I admit it quite freely. If there's some sort of support group available, perhaps something like PUP (Pathetically Usurped People), do please let me know. I would be one of its most dedicated, spineless members. 

Why am I talking about my shameful lack of backbone when it comes to puppy dog faces? Because I'm daily taxed on this fault by someone I love dearly, more than my own life. My friends, I am grimly used, and I allow it to continue because it makes me feel wanted. 

You see, my sister and I are writing a fanfiction together. For those of you who don't know, a fanfiction is a story in which you use an already established cast of characters and/or story line, like Star Wars or Harry Potter. You would write a story within those parameters, not something exclusively your own. Shelby and I have been writing on story using the Twilight books as our model. What's funny is that this story has rejuvenated our friendship like nothing else. We talk about it in the mornings on the way to school, we rush to tell each other our ideas. Heck, we even have songs assigned to specific places and characters in our story. It's been so much fun, and we're only about halfway through! 

But I already know now how every evening is going to go. I'm the primary writer on the thing, while Shelby does a good deal of the plot. Plot has never been my strength. So every evening, around eight or so, I hear steps on the stairs. Shelby comes into my room, and nonchalantly lies down on my bed. I'm usually checking my email or watching M*A*S*H when she comes in--I'm no good to anyone after about seven in the evening. She'll lay down on my bed and talk for a minute or watch what I'm watching...until she can't bear the tension anymore and looks at me with this angelic, hopeful look and asks, "So....have you written anything?" I always feel so guilty when I have to admit that I haven't today. And that's when she does it. Not it, IT.

She does....the puppy dog face. 

That thing could be licensed as a weapon of mass destruction. It instantaneously makes the back of your neck tingle, your eyes water, and your will crumble into dust and you find yourself promising to do anything to make it up to her and remove the look from her face. She's used it so much on me, though, that I generally just get grumpy for having put that look on her face in the first place, and I snap at her. 

If I have indeed written something, she squeals, does a happy dance, and sits down and reads it. There is are a few brief moments of peace, in which I blissfully bathe myself. Shelby finishes reading, sighs happily, commends my brilliance, and then starts to walk down the hall to go back downstairs. And then she turns, leans around the wall, and says, "So, when are you writing more?" and does IT again. 

I just can't win. There is no good way to resist it, except not to care. But I do care...I like watching her do that adorable happy dance. 

The upside to all of this? I've gotten her to like M*A*S*H.

Like I said. Anybody got a support group?

She just came into my room again...she has a thought for the dream sequence. Back to work!