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.

Humble Pie

Lately I have been really lucky to have scored a number of freelance writing gigs. I think it started to go to my head a little. I started wondering if I really needed to suffer through all of those pointless classes I have been taking lately. I began stupidly thinking that maybe I could give up the whole school thing and find work without having to get a silly piece of paper to prove my credentials.

Last night I had dinner at the home of my new employers. The whole staff from BK was there. When things deviated past work, Rafael, the videographer asked me where I went to college.

I am certain my face turned the shade of a stop sign. The fact that I do not have a college degree has always been a profound source of shame for me. I blurted out “I don’t have a degree.” and didn’t bother to mention that I’m working on it. I just wanted to get the attention off of me.

I started out the night super confident in my abilities as writer for the project they have hired me for but the end of the night I sort of felt like white trash.

This morning in my e-mail inbox I received a description of a San Marcos college winter intercession creative writing workshop for my old journalism Professor. It proved the point once again that I need to get all this silly general ed stuff behind me and continue on with the hopes of soon enrolling at San Marcos.

I like the idea that when I start getting overly confident something mortifying happens to ground me. I think humbleness is a quality I will never grow tired of even if at times I am humbly shamed.