Uncomfort

I am sitting in Cosmo’s, my favorite coffee shop. I come here in the afternoons often to work on my novel. Yes, I am writing a novel, and yes I am aware how ridiculous that is. I almost always sit on the black leather coach that faces the window because I like to watch the people walking by and those sitting on the patio out front. Currently there is a woman with cropped red spikey hair sitting out there. She is wearing fingerless gloves, Madonna style, and drinking an ice tea. Across from her is a two-toned blonde smoking a cigarette. I am equally fascinated by both them. Everyone fascinates me.

The man sitting on one of stools to my left is thumbing through a San Diego Reader. I am on the cover of this week’s Reader. I wonder if he will notice. I hope he will not. A handful of people have picked them up while I have been here. It mortifies me for two reasons, the first being that I look like an idiot. My hands look crippled and my face chubby. The second reason—I think the story is ridiculous.

I always feel this way the moment the Reader publishes something of mine. Before it comes out in print I am okay with it but afterwards the very idea that something I have written is being read by other people makes me feel silly and exposed. I wish I could be more normal about it. I think I really need to branch out and stop writing about myself.