Chapter 15: Time for a Movement

I had to switch offices, which meant I had to dig through years worth of crap. I ended up spending hours sifting through folders I'd not viewed in as many as perhaps eight years. Faded faxes, forgotten phone numbers, scribbled "off the recond" interviews with people who have died, handwritten notes from people I wish had died... Out it went. Now I cower deep in a cavernous, fluorescent-lit room. We're likely to move again to another building next year. I guess I've had a head start.

Chapter 14.7: Air Conditioning

It's not the humidity, it's the need to combat it. Wash me in cool air and my lungs freeze, but it's more comfortable than sticking to the furniture or feeling the sweaty seams of my pants through each hair on my legs. Can't the weather just find a state of equilibrium and hold stable for a few days? Why must it change by the hour?

Chapter 14.45: Another Tricky Day

When the rain came tumbling down today, it rolled all over the grass. I wasn't quite prepared for the mudslide that ensued, and my pant legs became quite slick with chunky bits of moist ground. I slopped some of it back onto the ground, yet there could always be remnants of the earth in my jeans. So much for casual Friday.

Chapter 14.4: Be aware!

One of the most frightening articles I've ever read arrived in my email box today:



Everyone should read this and be aware.

Chapter 14: Working Writers

The novel moves faster now and time goes herky-jerky in real life. So much to do, so much to want. The trappings of words stop me from feeling too secure. Is it all like this?

Chapter 13.6: Time Zones

A decade ago I worked for a place an hour away from my home. I'd intended to get an apartment closer, but within weeks of starting the job I realized I wouldn't be working there for long. So I didn't search for an apartment and saved money for the prospect of being unemployed.



When work is an hour away, everything feels rushed. I wasn't sleeping well because I hated my job, and an hour on the Garden State Parkway, twice a day, day in day out, is enough to make anyone's skin crawl. It was like working in a different time zone than where I lived.



These days, when I travel I like to keep my watch set to my home time zone. It's where my heart lives.

Chapter 13.5: Coffee

When I started to drink coffee I used to count how many cups I'd ever had. Among the first couple were Irish coffees, imbued with a shot of Jameson and topped with whipped cream and Crème de Menthe. Coffee was something I didn't expect to be a major part of my life.



For years now, however, I've started my mornings with a cup or two. I look forward to it. It's not the flavor, though I have become aware of what strikes me as bad, weak coffee. It's not the sweetness of the spoonful of sugar I drop into my cup. It isn't a way to wake up, though I'm not above using common phrases like "I'm just having my coffee, I can't think yet." It's more the routine it provides. It's a stalling tactic. Coffee is an accessory.



Coffee is still not a major part of my life, though it's become a usual segment of my mornings. When I worked in New York, I spent a few minutes picking up my coffee with a cinnamon-raisin bagel. The Indian guy at the deli knew exactly what I wanted and had it waiting for me by the time I'd gotten to the register. We exchanged smiles in addition to the dollar or so it cost. Those were tall cups of coffee. I loved how the hollow stirrer shot out little balls of coffee that skimmed across the surface when I tapped it on the rim of the Styrofoam. It was like a science experiment to me: how fast do the circles of coffee exist before they become part of the whole?



These days, I have a small pad where I sit my coffee cup, marked with my alma mater's name, and sip at the morning. I go through the hundred or so emails I receive each morning, read the headlines of three or four newspapers, an article or two, and get into the day. Within a half hour, I go for another cup of coffee. Sometimes, rarely, I grab another cup later in the day. It's an extravagance, and it usually ties up my belly.



I don't count the cups of coffee anymore. When they're a dessert, it usually means I want a drink of alcohol more than a caffeine fix. It's only at 5 a.m. when I can't sleep that I miss the days of early "coffee-hood." And I do look forward to putting on my shield, armed with my coffee cup to face the increasing vagaries of work. Still, coffee is not enough.

Chapter 13: Watching the Markets

A person I work with looked despondent on a rainy day. "Bad breakup," she said, when I asked how the weekend had gone.



After that came the usual comments about how you keep going on and telling yourself it's going to get better.



It occurred to me that relationships among the single are like the stock market. It's an old metaphor, of course. Relationships go up and they go down. Sometimes you sell lower than you'd like. But I realized when the co-worker related to me her situation that I was decidedly off the market and had no desire to be back in it. Watching the markets from the sidelines isn't all that bad, perhaps, but I see little purpose in spending much time thinking about it. Metaphors can only go so far.