Week 8, Theme 2

Prompt: A journal entry about your habits or rituals of writing.

Star-words

I write the best pieces when I get there before 8. Most of the winter this meant that the windows were still frosty but now, as New Haven warms, they are already crystal clear when I arrive. Anthony greets me curtly – I’ve never been friendly to him and he has no reason to pretend we’re buds – and takes my order for a medium (God help me if I ever say the word “grande”) coffee. No room for milk. It’s $2.07 with tax, but I usually don’t have enough energy to unfold the cash so I pull out Visa instead. I walk over to the sugar station and empty one and a half brown packets of “sugar in the raw” into my cup.

I’ve been told that the store on High and Chapel is a “high priority” Starbucks franchise for corporate; makes sense based on the revenue that must come from all of the rich blonde girls ordering Venti Skim No Foam Extra Hot Caramel Macchiato Lattes. Certainly not a medium black coffee. But to each her own, I guess. Anyways, the high priority status affords the location a new design: two imitation vintage converted shuffleboard tables, large expanses of varnished wood, dominate half of the room. They are flanked with heavy red chairs and lend the place a cafeteria feel, with everyone and their laptops sitting at the same table.

Usually, when I get there, no one is sitting at the first long table. I take my place in the third red chair from the left facing away from the window (must not be distracted) and pull out a nice, inky pen and a piece of plain computer paper. Writing in the raw. What goes on the page is always different – sometimes words, sometimes equations, sometimes German words. Whatever it is, though, is always completed by 10:20. Productivity in the raw.

When I think of myself as the formidable, unfriendly undergrad drinking black coffee and writing furiously on computer paper, I smile. I’m a character just like the flower lady, or the guy who always brings trash bags in. I don’t mind if they all think I’m crazy – it works for me.