Wednesday, May 8, 2013

(work in progress)

Coffee, and more coffee, keep showing up at my desk somehow.  I'm not sure where it comes from, necessarily.  Coffee is magical.  It bewitches me, encases me in a chocolate brown haze of caffeine (or lack thereof) and I sleepily shuffle to the counter where an order spills out of my mouth and a perfectly bitter drink is balanced in my hand.

I swear, honey, the debit card just swipes itself.

Sadly, I'm almost sure it's this overload of caffeine that has caused a minuscule twitch in my left eye to continue all day.  Random smacks in an attempt to calm the hyperactive muscles have been to no avail.

***
I'm contemplating taking an online writing class.  I used to write short stories.  They emptied my mind of all the things I'd been wanting to say but could only express through the narrative of another life.  It was calming.  It might help my anxiety, like running on the treadmill until I'm unable to feel my numb feet thudding on the rubber belt.  I may not be running anywhere but it sure feels damn good when the adrenaline has been exhausted on something other than the wild, scary thoughts that scurry around in my brain and sometimes slip out from between my lips.

My high school English teacher, in his own way, encouraged my writing.  I was the kid in high school that always did well while doing nothing.  I was in every higher level class offered at my school and, I believe, only ever read one book.  Just one.  But there was a time in my senior year during which depression rolled me around and I failed.  To graduate, I needed to pass my English class and I wasn't, not anywhere close.  Mr. Kenney worked out a black market deal with me to make up the credit: turn in a page of writing a day, any kind, and I would pass.

So my weird, depression-recovering, stubborn self said, "Yes, I will take your deal and meet it with one unusual or awkward piece of writing every day."

I wrote some crap, seriously.  When I got bored, I wrote a bullshit resume, though of course the style was altered to reflect my rebellion against society's call for perfection.

I also wrote some really, really cool stuff that I'm still proud of.  Like the personification of blue.  It was (and I pause hesitantly) glorious.  It's a piece of writing that I secretly dream of one day publishing.

Mr. Kenney told me that I was the only student he knew who could actually become a writer.  I wrote five pieces for the entire quarter and passed.

Maybe this writing will go somewhere.  Maybe it'll take me away to writer's land where the women are hip, wearing high-waisted skinny jeans and a slouchy men's shirt, sipping tiny cups of caramel colored espresso and typing away at their expensive laptops with that apple logo, blissfully ignorant of the cacophony of human interactions going on around them.  They're focused on their purpose: writing.

But it probably won't go anywhere, at least not like those fairy tale fantasies.  I'll still be me, showing up everywhere with wet hair and no makeup, spilling coffee on my pants, scarves and dog, and wearing my underwear inside out.

And that's ok too.  Maybe that's better.  Though that underwear thing should probably be worked out.

***

 Big bugs mean it's almost summer.  Ew.
New necklace
 Curious
He's beautiful
I'm bias

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