Wish You Were Here, So Glad I'm Not There

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It is the first day of my temporary unemployment and I'm sitting at the Starbucks on 9th and South Street using someone else's Wireless connection illegally and feeling no moral qualms about it in the slightest. I have the rest of this week off and two days next week before I start the new job. I'm determined to spend at least part of each day writingf, even if it's only an hour or so. I have got to get into better writing habits. Dinty Moore (his real name) from Pennsylvania English sent me a copy of an essay I had published in that journal like four years ago and I reread it this weekend and liked it a lot and envied the me who used to write. I can't continue the rest of my life rereading old pieces that have been published; I have to keep moving forward. Maybe this new job will help, especially if I can take a grad fiction class in the fall which I am determined to do.

I am still experiencing PTSD from the previous job. Had nightmares all weekend about it. In the first one, I showed up at my last day four hours late, wearing a really cute pair of denim shorts (?) and a white t-shirt. I was extra stressed out because I had to perform in a musical in the afternoon and hadn't made any of the rehearsals and I was also worried that my boss would be mad that I showed up so tardy. Another dream had my boss telling me that I wouldn't be allowed to leave until I wrote the three employee promotion press releases though all of the staff had gone home for the day or were on vacation for the next three weeks. In another, he called me into his office to have me explain why I wrote that letter to the president and vp about his performance. Last night's dreams confused work and the episode of Grey's Anatomy I watched last night--something about me having to perform an emergency operation and make sure our graphic designer received the photographs for the next newsletter. Needless to say, I'm very happy that I don't have to work there any more this week--could've been responsible for three more days this week if I played by the rules. Instead, I'm watching the icycles melt from the eaves of this coffee shop and watching people walk gingerly across the slippery sidwalks and drinking coffee.

Okay, but speaking of Grey's Anatomy, I kind of hate it. I suppose the dialogue is better than most shows of its kind, but there's something irritating about it--maybe the idea that the writers aren't as good as they think they are, and maybe that they are really good at times. Here's an example of possibly good or horrible dialogue from the last scene:

Skinny Dr. Who Needs to be Hospitalized Herself in Real Life Because of Her Obvious Eating Disorder: As I was standing there, about to blow up (she had her hand on a bomb inside a patient. Plausibility is not a concern for this show), all I could think about was that I couldn't remember the last time I kissesd you.

Hot Patrick Dempsey Who I Have Always Liked Since Can't Buy Me Love and So Therefore Get Dibs on Him if We Should Ever Meet: (pauses. He was just about to walk out the door) it was a Thursday morning. Your hair was wet because you had just taken a shower and you were wearing that t-shirt with the whole in the back of the neck. Your hair smelled like flowers. I was running late for work and you were sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper. You kissed me goodbye, a quick kiss but soft, a kiss like we would have the rest of our lives to kiss (or something like that) (He starts to exit).

Skinny: Lavendar! The conditioner I used smelled like lavendar (here's were I resent the writers because I assume they think they're being clever as lavendar is the fragrance of memory. It comes up in Shakespeare. This show is not Shakespearean).

HPD: That's right...lavendar. I remember. (Exit stage right. Cut to SD standing with her hands at her sides in the amazing foyer of this apartment she could never afford on an intern's salary even with three other roommates but oh well. Music swells. Fade to..Budweiser commercial).

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