After my long summer, it’s finally time to go back to work teaching. I am psyching myself up to stand in front of a classroom again. I need energy and enthusiasm.
I need coffee.
I haven’t had coffee in a little while because it tastes too strong when I’m losing weight, but I will try it today because it is NEEDED.
Yes, enthusiasm comes in a mug!
Today I’m sitting in the one coffeehouse in Ottawa IL that is not corporate, Jeremiah Joe’s. It’s housed in a former department store building, so it’s a large space with tables and comfortable chairs scattered throughout. My spot is a little drafty, located close to the large display windows. I’ve put on my coat.
I remember Famous Department Store, whose name is still outlined in the entrance to the building. We didn’t shop here a lot while I was growing up, preferring the less expensive Sears and Montgomery Ward’s, and often the deep-discount Bel-Mill (pronounced ‘Bel-Mell’) in Marseilles (pronounced ‘Mar-Sales’). There’s my obligatory useless reminiscence, which I feel is part of my reward for living 61 years.
I’m drinking an excellent latte, which tastes of an espresso blend with some real character. It’s cloudy enough outside that I’m wondering if we’ll get snow. The forecast says no. Ah, well, no white Christmas for us, but there’s Christmas music on the sound system and lots of decorations throughout Ottawa.
In a perfect world, there would be a university here, and I would be teaching at it. I would live somewhere in Ottawa, where I would be close enough to Chicago to occasionally pick up a play or concert. It is not a perfect world, however, and I work at a university in a town that could a little rejuvenation and some more quirk. We certainly don’t have ‘Feminists Against Fascism’ in Maryville MO. Or an independent bookstore, an indie coffeehouse or the jewel of the state park system. (To be fair, Maryville MO has a Starbucks in the university library, which makes it exceptional for both Starbucks and university libraries. Maryville also has a city-maintained park which features cabins, fishing, and a hotel.)
Maybe Ottawa would not be as cozy to me if I lived here. Maybe it wouldn’t feel like Christmas here if it were something I experienced daily. Maybe the lack of Trump signs here lulls me into a false sense of security. But people are hugging in the cafe, and the baubles hanging from light poles downtown add a needed festivity, and Wal-Mart is not the center of the community.
Let me soak up a bit more of the atmosphere and find myself window-shopping downtown. I need to store it up to last me a year or so.
I wake up to the best coffee in town. We buy green (unroasted) beans, and my husband roasts them. Today’s are fresh-roasted, having been roasted the previous afternoon. We have a fancy coffee machine that we bought used (because we’re cheap) and so our coffee is better than any cup we could get in town.
This is not to mean all of our coffee is excellent. Sometimes a bad bean gets through, and the coffee for the morning tastes like potatoes or wet swamp. (This happens so very seldom, only once or twice in my recollection, and we’ve been doing this for over 10 years). Sometimes we don’t roast dark enough, and the coffee tastes green (again, this happens very seldom). More often, we find that a coffee, although good, not quite to our tastes. For this, we have invented our coffee rating system:
In other words, 3 is a high recommendation and four is a really high recommendation, if you know what I mean.
We like big flavorful coffees over here. Not the kind you get at the grocery store, and seldom the kind you get at a coffeehouse (coffeehouses’ coffee often tastes sour because of overextracting or being held too long). Today’s coffee has a lingering sweet aftertaste, like rice syrup and molasses. No complaints here.
So I’m done with my coffee and rather caffeinated for the day. Which I really need, because it’s a Monday.
It looks like my summer vacation* is about to end. I have a little over a week until meetings start. In fact, next weekend is my last weekend before school revs up. But I will have a writing retreat in Kansas City that weekend!
Writing retreats are when I spend a weekend some place with cafes where I can spend a good part of the day writing and where I can eat excellent ethnic food. My husband gets coffee and ethnic food out of it**.
I’m working on short stories right now. The stories I’m working on reside in the Hidden in Plain Sight universe, to be published in a future collection. I’d rather write stories for competition/publication in journals and the like, but I don’t feel inspired. To read the first collection and get an intro to the universe, look here.
I will come back Monday just in time for meetings two days later. And the first day of meetings lasts all day and is followed by a picnic***. Summer needs a last hurrah.
* Such that it is. I work all summer, but at least I get to set my own schedule.
** My husband doesn’t write anymore. I wish I could get him to write again, because I think he needs a flow activity in his life.
*** The first day of meetings is not a picnic, however.
Every trip is a mini-writing retreat.
I’m at the Hotel Kansas City grabbing some breakfast and writing time before my next intern. I have a rose-lavender latte with me and am waiting for breakfast. The whole place has a private club vibe — as it should, because it used to be a private club. In its heyday, I would never have been allowed in, because private clubs were men’s only. The whole place smells of the fireplace in the restaurant.
We end up staying in these places randomly, because we use Hotwire to book the room for an overnight. Prices are reasonable, doubly so if you’re traveling on a weekday. If you’re booking in downtown KC, you’re more likely to get boutique hotels at our price point than typical mid-price chains. And Marriott and Hyatt are doing much to collect boutique hotels in their portfolio, so interesting gems like this are easier to find.
We splurged for dinner last night (the university does not pay for meals!) at the hotel restaurant, which had a James Beard-nominated executive chef. Imaginative food, small portions, intimate atmosphere. We weren’t that hungry after pork tenderloin and curly fries for lunch.
I have one more intern, but before that, I have an opportunity to write at this lovely table you see pictured. Mini-retreat plus internship visits; just what I needed.
I haven’t been writing enough lately because I have been on internship visits all week. The first trip was Lexington/Liberty/Kansas City MO, and the other Glenwood/Des Moines IA.
Richard and I have gotten to stay overnight because of the mileage involved in visiting 3 interns. So we explore the places we’re staying given the energy we have left. This usually means food places and coffeehouses.
Notes for the Des Moines part of the trip:
The mini-vacation ends this afternoon, when we have to drive the 2 1/2 hours back down to Maryville and deal with four very grumpy cats. But my mini-working vacation has been a very good one.
I work with words all day, and especially here in the summer, when I don’t have much else to do. I have been working on several projects, putting the words into place and polishing them up. Short stories, novels, cover letters — all have been revised. But I am weary of words; they’re not inspired at this stage.
Inspired words have to come from somewhere. In my case, they come from dreams and daydreams. The realm that is illogical. I dip into that realm, find the inspiration, and use that thought and the energy to influence building out the dream into something readable. This is why I write fantasy instead of, say, historical fiction.
I haven’t had any of that kind of inspiration lately, and it shows. All I have been doing is revising, the brain work. No aha reactions, no warm feeling of having a scenario in my head (in my case it’s in words, not pictures, because of my aphantasia.)
A fellow writer in a writer’s group has assigned me to people watching at the cafe, listening to some good music (in my case, either ambient or singer-songwriter compilations). I think I should take notes away from the computer, preferably with my brass Kaweko Sport fountain pen. And I shouldn’t think about what I should write, but see where the inspiration hits me. Hopefully short stories and poems, because with 7 novels and one to be revised and added to, I probably have more than enough novels to consider publishing.
So that’s my plan for this afternoon.
This music is supposed to wake me up. The coffee is supposed to wake me up, Why, then, am I not waking up?
Maybe I should type this half-asleep. I can actually type half-asleep, at least for a couple sentences before I wake up and check it. But I can’t transition to the next idea without being awake.
Wouldn’t being able to type while asleep be a good thing? Think about how much work you can get done while asleep! All the times you said “I could do this in my sleep”? What if you could?
Think about being able to type out your dreams while still having them? Ok, maybe writing on a pad with a pen, as I don’t generally sit up while dreaming. I’d love to capture my dreams, though, so maybe sitting up while sleeping would be worth it. A sleep chair and a computer desk?
Maybe this wouldn’t be a good idea. If employers found out you could work in your sleep, they would assume you could answer emails in your sleep, and then you’d never get any rest. I’m salaried, so my 55-hour week could eventually expand to a 140-hour work week. I don’t like that idea.
I think I’ve convinced myself that being productive while asleep isn’t such a good idea. That’s fine — the coffee is finally taking effect.
Photo by Nathan Lemon on Unsplash
Monday morning, which seems a lot like every other day in this pandemic — I have two cats at my workstation (the corner of the loveseat in the living room), and I’m drinking coffee.
Today is work (the ordinary type where I have to grade final exams for classes) and work (the writing type where I look at what I’ve written and what it needs). I’ve done fixes on Whose Hearts are Mountains and Prodigies, and it’s time to apply it to Apocalypse.
You see, now I know what my problem is. I started right into the action and didn’t give the story its moments to develop characters and scene. I hope I’m doing it right this time.
Words Like Me 