Back in The People's Republic With My Writing Assignments

Well, I made it back from NJ. I feel slightly guilty whenever I go down to visit because there are so many people that I want to see and hang out with, but I almost never plan ahead. This time I was attempting to help out my mom and work full-time and watch a gazillion hours of inauguration coverage, while being exhausted at the same time, so my biggest trip out was to Target. People here always laugh when I say I'm from NJ, but Target, and strip malls with good parking, is just one of the many things I miss. If I wanted to go to Target here, it's a huge pain in the ass. Back in the Whip, it took me a half hour and I was able to pick up 3lb hand weights, cat litter, cranberry juice, two new bras for the pregnancy tits of doom and new body wash. And I was able to park near the door. So suck on that, Jersey haters.

I got back in time for class on Thursday night, and still feeling the Obama message of hope and inspiration, I told myself that I was going to write or journal or blog every day. You see how well that has gone. We did have an assignment, though, that was relatively easy and one that I'm having a little fun with. Each student had to put two sentences in a hat, and then the instructors picked them out and made us free write for two minutes on each one. We only got through two, but it proved that I didn't always have to be "writing very important thoughts" to just freakin' do it.

* I'm happy to be in a writing class again. I don't like my day job. Or I do, but it's not my passion. I was supposed to be a writer, but I got lost somewhere along the way. Unfortunately, I never developed any alternate career plan beyond "be a writer" so I've just stayed in the easiest place to pay the bills.

* I have no brilliant sentences in my mind this evening. (BTW, this was my contribution, in all its grammatical incorrect-ness, to the hat) I'm in a writing class, presumably, where I want to be and I'm at a loss. Have I ever done anything interesting? Or met someone relatively engaging? Apparently not, because I am struggling to come up with that one brilliant sentence that captures all my wit, intellect and charm in between one capital letter and one period, and as usual, I fall flat.

I have about 18 more to play with. It reminds me of an exercise we used to do in Mr. Lamb's Language Arts class. He would have us power write -- writing without picking your pen off the paper -- for 10 minutes at the beginning of every class. Most of my shit was really mundane, but looking through it, almost 16 years later, there are little bits of details about people that I forgot, people that I would want to pepper any story about those hideous high school years if I ever were to tell them.

Maybe something will come out of all of this after all.

In baby-related news, I'm pretty sure that I'm feeling Zygote kicking. For weeks, I was having an internal monolouge that went something like "Is that the baby or am I going to fart?" or "Is that the baby or is that Chipotle?" I'm pretty sure that it's the baby. I hope one day to pass this lovely story down to my future child, about how I mixed up my offspring, my own flesh and blood with the rumblings of a chicken burrito with extra black beans and guacamole. I now have to go watch Wife Swap or Stage Moms to remind myself that I will not be a terrible parent.