Dear Cashiers of the World,

I know your job sucks--especially during the holidays--but trust me, it sucks for most of us on the other side of the counter, as well. And if one more of you snot-nosed brats gives me attitude when I am clearly being nice and respectful to you, then you will only have yourself to blame for the bloody, tinselled, 50%-off, you're-lucky-you-have-a-job carnage that follows.

Merry X-mas.

Love,
Me

The Writing Process

Wake up in a panic about the writing workload ahead. Lay in bed thinking about how to proceed. Get up, wash face and brush teeth--deliberately forego shower. Slap on clean-ish clothes from pile, go get extra-strength coffee. Return, eat leftovers or errant cookie. Sit down at desk, check emails briefly. Put on Pandora, classical. Open research sites but don’t read them. Stare at hard-copy outline. Take deep breaths. Stretch. Go to bathroom. Pluck eyebrows. Sit back down at computer. Check phone. Open work in progress, read latest paragraph. Change an adjective, delete a transition. Write next sentence. Consider failure at writing, contemplate photography. Look up word in thesaurus. Write another sentence. Check notes. Get a glass of water. Scan Facebook and Twitter. Write rest of paragraph, think it’s pretty good. Change mind 15 minutes later. Look up another word in thesaurus. Check fact online. Delete last sentence. Write down cool words that will never be used. Look at photos of subject. Review outline. Rewrite last sentence. Wonder how much everyone will hate what’s written. Write outline for next paragraph. Masturbate. Eat a piece of fruit. Call boyfriend. Repeat.