a new story. may 20th.

so i did that rtw exercise.

and just as before, i had an idea.

only instead of it taking 12 exercises, this time it only took 1.


so what i have decided to do, in an effort to stretch my comfort level and to try to write outside of my experiences, is to take a song. and essentially write the story behind it.

i've had damien rice's rootless tree stuck in my head for a full week now.

though the emotion in the song screamed things i was thinking, what the song is about is different.

so i thought i'd write the story that inspired the song.

i wrote it from a man's perspective, and tried my best to keep it as short as i could, while trying to include a lot of details that would lead to the emotions he wrote into his lyrics.


what i decided, as i started this story, is to attempt a collection of short stories. all of them based on songs i can't live without. or songs that are gestures. i want to paint the masterpiece.


in any case, i don't know if i'll succeed or fail. after giving the novel away, some feedback i got was to give stories away in chapters, so if there is a flaw, you don't have to go all the way back to the beginning. so by switching to short stories, maybe there is a way to get more feedback more quickly.


i need to get back to the novel. i'm putting it off, but i don't know why. i think because i only have a few edits. everyone else still has their copy. nate read the whole thing, but didn't edit as he went, so he's going to go back and re-read it.


that's that.


in other news, i bucked up today and went to the house to pick up my puppy daughter for some quality time at the dog park.

it was nice. it was hot and sunny, and there wasn't enough shade. we stayed for almost an hour.

ever's taking her tomorrow to get her hair and nails did, as we call it, for her birthday. her birthday is the fourth of july, but i guess they're fast-tracking it.

his birthday is in a couple weeks.

i'll be home for hers.


also, i looked up the info for the dark sky park trip i intend to take with kit.

there's one coming up in june and one in september. i think i'm going to buy a tent and try to go to both, if the one in june is awesome. i'm really excited about it. it's twenty days away!

i cannot wait to see the sky through astronomer's fancy telescopes. it will be a first for me. which is a little surprising, as into the sky as i am. i mean, i had a telescope back home when i was a teenager, but it was of the shitty variety, so i remember being in amazement of the moon, but that was really all that i could see with any detail.


what else is there?

this week at work was brutal. it was health inspection time, and i had a pop in surprise visit. once i managed to calm down from the initial panic attack i was fine. the girl was really nice, shockingly, and was joking around with me. which never happens.

but she approved our store, and i felt great. until she said she was going to see the others.

panic attack number two.

i ran ahead of her to the next store she was going to visit and made sure things were on the up and up and warned them that she'd be there soon, and to do their best.

so they did. and just like with me, she was joking around with them and didn't close the location, even though she should have, on a technicality. my employee who is 'in charge' of the location had his first vacation days in several years, so he wasn't there when she came through. oh, the timing...

so i ran to the third store, as she was on her way to the second one. panic attack number three, the worst one. i really had to tell myself to calm down, because i thought i was going to pass out. i thought, 'you're going to be of no use to anyone if you pass out right here on hamilton walk. pull it together.'

i got where i was going, and cleaned with lightning speed, and got out anything that would complicate the inspection.

sent the girl home who was working, about ten minutes before she was supposed to leave, so no one would be there when she came through.

i guess she couldn't find it, because she never showed up.

anyways... it was a narrowly escaped DISASTER.

but at the end of the day, on paper, it appeared to be a success.

so now work takes on a whole other meaning, as i dig into the next phase of the initial location. we're adding a lunch menu, complete with paninis in the next week or two. and business should double. or at least increase quite a bit.


and finally, there's scrabble.

scrabble with coffee.

keeping it simple. keeping it light.

i thought about letting him beat me the first game, so he'd play again.

but in the end, i didn't want to fake anything.

i did use some 'strategery' when i changed my picture to be one of me, from the trip home in december, that nina took. looking pretty darn smiley in front of the place where i met him. i didn't even think of that until just now. i just wanted the cute smiley pic.

the game was neck and neck. we were only ahead of each other by a few points each round. and i couldn't help but to think, 'see? it's a good matchup.'

and let my mind wander. he played 'moan'. never got those k-i-s-s tiles i wanted. or m-a-k-e-o-u-t.

but i hope he plays me again. starts a game. i don't want to instigate the next time.

it would be nice to have this as a reason to meet up with him when i go home.

'wanna play scrabs in person? i'll be home and would like a good challenge.'

not to mention, a game of scrabble, when it's a good matchup, can take up to two hours. that's a lot of time to drink a lot of things with alcohol in them, to ask little burning questions.


and for the record...

i beat him. not by much.


but i beat him with my last five tiles, and one l already on the board..


i beat him with the word 'lonely'.

correspondence. may 17th.

so.

today was a brain breaker.

i feel okay right now. but i came to realize something today, in writing to the writer.

and it's not okay.

i'm not okay with it.

i don't know how it started. but we were writing notes back and forth.

and somehow i started talking about how leaving ever meant leaving the business.


and i blathered on about all the ways it has bummed me out, and all the ways it has changed the world that used to surround me.

i've written about that enough, but for some reason, i was going into more detail with him. i don't really know why.


but then something happened.

i was at work. today was graduation, so no one was around. they had catered the event. no one buys things where there's a building full of free stuff.

but i was stuck working, so i spent the majority of a day, between customers, piecing together a message to him.


what it came down to, in the end, was this:


i'm not so sure that i want the same thing that i think i wanted.

this is a general statement. obviously, it was true in my marriage. and now, i mean it in a different way.

i was explaining my dream.


the dream i've had since i was nineteen. since nina got me hired on at the coffee shop she worked at. for thirteen years, i've wanted my own cafe.

but in detailing it to the writer, as i was writing the words, i started to wonder if all of my coffee energy has been given to kenna's company.

and that, in three to five years, when i'm financially set to do my own thing, i might be completely burnt out. on a life filled with coffee.

i already feel myself heading in that direction.


i don't know what it was. something about the way i was explaining to him that i don't know where i want to be. i don't know where i want to live. i don't know what it looks like anymore.

i guess that as i've grown up and changed, so has my dream.

i'm going to cut and paste here, because it's easier than paraphrasing the thing...sorry for a lack of context, but i don't want to include his words here.



the business was his dream, not mine.

i was happy to help him, like i said - i loved it until i started to resent it.

because my dream is different. and from year two, he promised that every year he'd be set up in a year to let me have my turn with my dream. and every year, it would be another year. it was another factor in my decision. and he likes to tell people that i left him for a coffee shop. it's insane.

i waited for so long, with total faith that it would happen. but it never did. and in the meantime, a friend of mine left the company i work for to do what i wanted to do. and won best of the city awards every year since. it was heartbreaking, because she was only taking the business approach, she was in it for the money. on the other hand, my heart was in it, and it made me feel that it should've been me. that was four years ago. i've been holding a grudge ever since, because i wanted my turn.

but i know how awful it was to not have my dream, so i wouldn't ask him to give up his and go to a clock-in job so i could have my shot.

i have wanted my own cafe for almost as long as i've been working. since i worked with nina back home. pretty funny... it's all her fault.

the idea of my cafe has taken different shapes over the years, first i wanted it to be a venue where bands could play.

when i was doing angsty spoken word at nineteen, i wanted a place where people could do that, but i'm over that now.

i spent years at this one coffee house, and that place was exactly what i wanted. it was like being in a place where my dream was alive, and realized. but i was young, and it changed.

when i started working with ever, in my mind my cafe became a place that was a combination of things. a record store, a bookstore, consignment stuff, too. a multifaceted approach.

now, it's different. honestly, now i don't know what it is anymore...

the other thing, the MAIN thing, is that i don't know where i want it to be. i feel like my dream died to keep his alive, and now i am coming back to it.

i don't know if it will survive ultimately. i am afraid that by the time i get to it, i will be burnt on it, and won't want it anymore.

i think now that i'd incorporate craft beer into it, because that's what i'm into. at several points along the way, i wanted a coffee bar. i guess i'm back to that again. uppers and downers.

i have a new five year plan now. because when i finally do it, i'm going for it completely. i want to set myself up to be financially independent of it, in case it doesn't work. one of the things about doing this for someone else is that i've seen three stores i opened shut down, because they failed. and when it's my money, i can't lose everything if the unforeseeable happens. and in ever's case, his venture was less a business, but he didn't see it that way, so i have that experience under my belt also.

in any case, this city is pretty saturated. if i decided to stay here, i'm sure that i could make it happen. but this town feels small, and i feel like i'll always be in his shadow if i stay here. i'm committing to living here a year, and then i'll think about what i want to do. i have a feeling i'll be ready to leave in a year.

sometimes i think about living in new york, because i have a lot of fun when i go there, but i don't know if it's for me. it might only be fun to visit, like tahoe, but not to live.

when we got hitched and left home, i said i was never going back. i can only think of a couple reasons to go back on my word and move back. and i don't think they're worth it. it's stale and unchallenging, and it's not a city.

i moved here without ever having visited, i just left and trusted ever. and i do love it here. but if it weren't for him, i think i'd have been on the west coast again. he refused to even try life out west, so we came here. i lived in lake tahoe for a year when i was 21, and hated it. it was beautiful but boring and there was nothing culturally happening there.

but i fell in love with san francisco, only i don't know that i could afford to live there. if i had my way, i think that's where i'd live. it has everything i want, except seasons. but it isn't perpetual summer. anything is better than that.

so i need to travel. see what i see.

when i travel in the fall, i'm going to see my old roommate in tahoe, and my friend in sf. i have loose plans to see my friend in portland who has an organic farm of miniature vegetables with her girlfriend. and sacramento to see another friend.

i've never been to seattle or canada. though, in terms of coffee, i couldn't choose a worse location that seattle. i'm afraid when i go to either place, i won't want to come back. i felt at home on the west coast, despite being bored with the town where i lived. i never got to travel around, and i am finally making time for it now. i need a city, though, and sf/seattle provide that.

i guess that now i just want a place where people can be comfortable. i've been with the company i'm at now for seven years, racking up experience.

and since i came back to writing, now i'm thinking about self publishing my own stuff, as a side project. and if i can find a way to incorporate that with my other dreams, i think i'll be alright.

i hope i still want to do it by the time i'm set up for it. it might only take three years, because we'll sell the house in two and a half, and already have a ton of equity from buying it as a shell and gutting it. it's too bad you didn't get to see it. that house was one of the things in my life that i was most proud of. we kept as much of the original woodwork as we could salvage. and the kitchen i left behind still makes me cry.

thanks for listening/reading all this shit... it's making me think of things in different terms that i do when i just write about it without input and inquisition.

honestly, it's making wonder if i even want what i thought i wanted anymore.



yeah. fuckin a.

it's a bummer.

he even said it was sad.

what if a big part of why i left was to break free from his dream for my own, only to find that i abandoned that, too?


it was the thought and feeling behind it. he never made my dream a priority, and i made his dream my priority for seven years. in the beginning, it was every day. in the end it was once a week. but there was a constant flow of people into the house, so it affected almost every single day for the last year.

i'm not bragging. but everyone knows that he wouldn't be where he is without the help i gave him all those years. i think that the fact that he's carrying on without me and growing exponentially is probably going to bother me more a little down the road.

it's like building a plane by each individual component. and taking something like six years to put it together. it's not that you intended to fly it personally, but you at least thought you'd take a ride in it.

and then, the day it's finished, you realize there was only room for one seat, and you never equated that to you. and you don't have a pilot's license, so you can only admire it from afar. and you'll never get to ride in it, because you gave up your chance to learn to fly so that you could build the machine.

it SUCKS.

i don't want the glory. but would it fucking kill someone to just say, 'hey, tea. how are you doing? i've missed you. just because things didn't work out, it doesn't mean i can't still be your friend.'


balls.

maybe i need to even think about it, one step further. if ever's business was the plane, and he was the pilot, and i was the person who built it, what does that make my dream?

somehow giving up my dream meant that his came true. does that make it the fuel? no. the atmosphere? no.

what does that make my dream?


the writer was right. he said it was bittersweet. without the sweet.

that makes it bitter.

that makes me bitter.

at least i'm also honest.

i think i've got some thinking to do...

rtw 176. driving forces 5/16/10

i am plot-driven.

the character is almost always me, so that is not it. and where i feel i need most work is in character-driven storylines. i feel that my characters, when seldom they aren't me, fall flat.

sometimes i fall flat, too. because i recycle, repeat, and reuse.

and i'm not trying to find my place in the world, so my writing isn't universe-driven.


i write to clear my head. i write to tell my story. i write because i want to help someone. even if it just means that they don't feel abandoned and alone in their problems.

to succeed as a writer, i want to be relatable. i define success as someone saying, 'the way you said that? you put it perfectly. i have been there. i have felt that. reading your words took me back to that place.'

beyond that, to have a physical effect on someone is important to me, too. i want someone to laugh when i write something funny. to cry when i'm heartbroken, and my words reflect it.

to create a pit-of-the-stomach feeling in another body.

i've been told for years now that i'm not good in the communication department. but the thing i keep thinking is, 'what if you just weren't good at translating? what if you were such a shit listener that you just didn't hear what i was saying?' i think i word things pretty well, but usually only in writing. when it comes to dialogue, i am lacking.


i walk around all day, every day, with words swimming in my head. dreams, too, on occasion.

and the way i feel when i wake from a dream, if it is a good one, is the longing desire to keep the dream going. to do something to make it happen in real life, so that the dream can die and then live in another way.


one of the things i fear is that my writing will be compared to someone else's. because i'm suceptible to influence. if i'm reading something dark, i might start writing something dark.

if i'm enjoying the voice of an author, i might start using words they used.

it happened when i read post-birthday world. i read that book so intensely that i heard the narrator's voice in a british accent.

and my thoughts while i was reading, and in the week or so following, were in a brit accent. i didn't write anything other than the blog at the time, because i didn't want to borrow.


upon reading cruddy again, i see how similar my voice is to hers. i mean, she puts things in ways i never could, or would think to. but she NAILS it. and now i think in terms of 'freaking me completely' and 'freaking out' more than i did before i went back and read it again.


i guess what i lack is inspiration. i mean, the novel was inspired by late night sleepy thoughts, as i was drifting. and as it developed, it was purely drawn from my own dreams and my own life.

music is something i can't help but to let influence me. i'm writing in silence now, but it's only because i don't feel like getting up out of bed to put something on.


i just want people to have the feeling i feel when i read a good book or hear a song that alters my existence. when i think, 'god i wish those were my words. i've had those feelings, and said them in so many different ways.' but to condense words accurately into a line or two? that is a gift.

and i believe that if i practice, and try to stretch my boundaries and move outside of my comfort zone, maybe i'll get there.


maybe a place to start is to take a song and write a story about it.

because i can't come up with ideas for stories on my own. i keep hoping that if i do eleven more exercises from rtw, that a novel will pour out of my head again.

though i don't want to re-create the circumstances under which i wrote that book, there's something to be said for a perfect storm. i was so longing, so desiring, for a different situation to call my life, that i created a story.

i just want to be a vessel again. there are not words for how incredible that felt. i just started writing, and literally could not stop.


if the song that is stuck in my head serves as my muse, then that is something.

but all my favorite songs are heartbroken anyways, so am i really straying?

i fear not.


also, i depend on people to affect me in that way, too. if there is a boy to write about, i'm a well. but if there is not, then i find that i have nothing to say.

because i'm secluding myself romantically from boys right now, maybe that's where the dried up feeling comes from. not that i'm a romance novel writer, but i tend to not stray too far from matters of the heart.


i have always believed that i'm only good when i'm heartbroken. i'm only inspired when i am writing about how someone makes me feel, or how i want someone to make me feel.

i need to change this belief. i don't know how to do that.

olfactory. may 15th.

the way i feel is an audible groan.

annoying neighbors across the street (not to be confused with the glee club next door) threw a party. first sign of trouble was a girl screaming, repeatedly for ten minutes, 'i don't have herpes. stop telling everyone i have herpes. stop spreading rumors about me. i don't have herpes.'

yelling at the neighborhood that you don't have herpes doesn't make it so. dumbass.

later some girl was saying 'shut UP!' and not in the way that would've been intended to silence someone. in the stacy whatshername way from that makeover tv show. i can't stand her. but makeover shows are a guilty pleasure. i always wanted to be one of those ambush makeover people.

anyway, some girl was squawking 'spread your legs more. oh my god! how long has it been since you peed?' to her friend.

someone was peeing. on the sidewalk. in front of the house. allegedly.

i wouldn't have believed it, but then some guy was yelling 'what are you guys doing out here?'

and the girl bragged about peeing on the sidewalk and showed him the puddle.

i didn't see anything. i didn't have my glasses on. and the streetlight was making it so that everything was shadows. this was all being yelled. right outside my bedroom window. painting an unfortunate picture in my brain.


i fucking hate retarded drunk people. screaming, yelling ridiculous conversations. just to hear themselves speak.

don't get me wrong. i'm giggly when i'm drunk. but drunk stupid people are the worst. and people three blocks away can't hear my laughter.


anyways, i'm awake again.

too much on my mind. despite distractions.


i spent a lot of time tonight reading the writer's blog. it's older, different from the photography one that is easy to keep up with, thanks to facebook.

there are so many short stories. i read them until my eyes burned, saved my place, and got into bed.

i would kill for an ounce of that talent. to write stories that are fiction.

i don't know. i guess my fiction is still me, for the most part.

i just want to write something that isn't me at all.

to separate.

i don't know how.


i was also thinking, pouring a glass of water in lieu of a second beer... when i read a story he writes, or when i read a story nate writes, i always picture them as the character.

is that normal?

it doesn't matter much what the story is or what's happening. but in my mind's eye it plays like a movie, and it is always the author who is the character.

maybe that's why i want nina to illustrate my novel for me. so it eliminates that possibility, if i'm not the only person who does that.

because i have a clear picture of what charlie looks like. not really anyone else. they're more mixes of people i know.


i wish the thing was done. i wish i was in production mode. because i cannot wait to build the books. hold it in my hands for the first time. touch the fabric cover and flip the pages.

i want it so badly.

i want it to be good.

i don't know that it is.

i want to send everyone copies of it.

i want it filed on my bookshelf.


today was a strange day. i keep saying that. writing that.

i had a ton of laundry to do. from when my family was here staying with me, and just from living these past two weeks since i moved out of my-your.

my next apartment is going to have to have laundry. this is too annoying. that was too convenient.

kit's away, so i took all the laundry over there in the car. the stackable there is tiny, you can't wash much at once.

and until today, when i figured out the lint catcher, it would take like six cycles to dry.

what i pulled out of the lint catcher was unreal.

it was scary.

but i was proud of myself for figuring it out today, because i couldn't in the two months i was there. and kit didn't either.

and i looked. more than once.

anyways, so i started the first load. and turned on her tv. and started flipping channels.

it felt good, in a way. because i think i needed a mental break, to just zone out in front of the tv.

and i accidentally found a movie. all of three minutes into garden state, i found it.

and parked it.

i remember loving that movie. but i only saw it once.

i remember loving the soundtrack even more.

and even though i remember the story of zach braff discovering the shins and making their music part of the movie, i forgot that he wrote it.

i forgot a lot about it.

and rewatching it definitelly affected my mood.

i was already feeling odd. i woke up late, drank a bunch of coffee, and sat online for a while. then went over.

but seeing it again, it made me wistful. it made me want to meet some random boy and see what happens. i'm silly. he's squishy. i'm a prude. he gets attached. he goes to leave. i get left behind.

sounds pretty familiar. sounds an awful lot like my days with the sun.

i remembered them being on top of a truck. but didn't remember them screaming into the abyss. and i've been screaming lately. i love that it was in the rain. i wish i'd been dripping wet, screaming in the rain. how poetic.

and i didn't remember him kissing her then. but that was my favorite part, i think.

i remembered the little funeral in her yard.

i forgot the end completely. i forgot his story regarding his mother. i forgot about the drugs, and the filming of the scenes where he sits still and everyone else is moving at light speed.

the end did kindof annoy me, but it also made me cry. so it was effective, if nothing else.

i'm glad that my memory sucks, most of the time. i write down what i want to remember. everything else can seem like a surprise later. i have a horrible memory for movies and books. i blame it on my adhd that i've never been formally diagnosed with, but suffer from.


i took jonathan strange with me, to see if i could read more of that. i didn't think to go to the bookstore until i was watching the movie and well into laundry. i hate not finishing a book. especially one i'm 450 pages into. but i just don't know if i can make it. it's so slow. it's so long. whine, whine. and yes, i'd like some cheese with that.

i read only a couple chapters, during the baseball game i watched from start to finish - all four hours of it - after the movie ended.

so i guess i was there for six hours. maybe seven.


it was a long time.

i got a lot done.

and then i came home, excited to get online. only no one was there for a while.

i guess today was lonely for me. after that movie, i wanted a boy to curl up with in my bed. tangled feet. his hand on my bare belly, spoons.

and i just didn't have that. not even a contender. not even a thought of where to start to try to find one.


i guess that's the thing about this whole being-alone-for-six-months thing.

it's not that it's gonna be okay.

it's that it's okay to feel.

it's that it's okay to have fun again.

it's that it's okay to want someone around.

i wish i had a friend who did that for me. i kindof think of rob in that way.

the guy i'd be curling up with and falling asleep next to.

but you can only do that for so long and keep it platonic.

i know myself well enough to know that i'd be tempted to nuzzle. and it's all downhill from there. which is why i cannot.


reading cruddy, she talked about boy smell. in a good way. not in an ever-forgot-to-bathe-for-the-fourth-day-in-a-row way.

i miss boy smell.

i miss boy deodorant.

i miss the slightest change in a room when a boy has recently passed through it.

it's not even a cologne thing. i mean, i went through that phase. but it hasn't been a factor in many years.

it can be as simple as shampoo. or laundry detergent that isn't what i use.

my sense of smell has always been keen. i smell things before other people. i smell slight variations in scents.

so if a boy has passed through my space, i am aware of it.

and no boy is passing through my space.

and no matter how much time passes, i can remember what each boy in my life smelled like.

and to this day, when i smell those scents, i am transported back to them again.


the sun smelled like tea tree oil sometimes, because he put it in his dreads. but he always smelled like speed stick. the clear brown one. i have used it on and off since before i met him, just because i love it so much. but he smelled like that.

coffee smelled like pantene. and i know he liked sandalwood. and burned a lot of champa. but who didn't, in that circle? i used to burn it in my car and my room. everywhere i went, i wanted that smell. i bought champa oil so that i would smell like that, but it just wasn't the same.

it is my absolute favorite smell. vanilla is a close second. coconut might tie vanilla.

the bartender smelled like clean laundry, but it was his cologne. joop for men. i worked with this boy who wore it years later, and it used to make me crazy.

chris smelled like aspen. it was high school. i can be forgiven.

my dad wore cool water forever. i liked it so much, i used to wear it.


what can i say? i've always liked boy smell. so much so that i often partake.

i broke from that a while back.

forever my favorite perfume was angel. but i can't afford it. well, couldn't. so i stopped wearing it. before that, briefly, i liked rush. but it was too sweet, and too many jersey girls here smell like it, so i'm now completely over it.

a few years back, i discovered egyptian musk. nina had me hooked on china musk since nineteen. she had a bottle in her car that was green oil with a white lid. that was the best one. henry honda smelled like that. on the same token, my car has a bottle of egyptian musk in it, which spilled out, so now my car has that smell.

i alternate now between a warm amber perfume that is spicy and comforting to me, and coconut vanilla musk, which smells like a day at the beach: warm skin, suntan lotion.

i found this bottle of sandalwood oil when ever and i got married and moved up here. we stopped at south of the border, and in their gift shop, they had this oil. it smelled fantastic. it was the best sandalwood scent i've ever found. but the lid wouldn't seal, and now i have two boxes of bathroom stuff that smells like the oil, and no bottle anymore. i don't know if it can be replaced. but the first couple years i lived here, that is what i smelled like. something about it reminded me of my grandfather. the hair cream he uses. top brass. love that smell.

at kit's the other day, i found a bottle of sandalwood perfume that she has. but it smelled much better in the bottle than it did on me.

everyday i use sandalwood soap that i buy in chinatown in high volume. i've learned that a bar lasts anywhere from two to four weeks. i wish it stayed on my skin, but it just doesn't. the smell when i'm in the shower is one of the best things about getting out of bed in the morning.


other than my own smells, and boy smells, there are other smells i love.

the way my favorite aunt's house smells for instance.

the way my clothes smell when i'm home and do laundry there.

the way my car smells when i remember to buy those cans of coconut scent that only last for a few days.

the way my apartment smells after i clean the floors.

i love the smell of breakfast cooking, minus the eggs, despite the fact that i never eat it.

i love the smell of a hot oven, with sweet things baking inside.

from the time i was little, i loved the smell of pumping gas. i always used to leave the windows down when i fill the tank. but i think i'm outgrowing that one.


there are a lot of things i love the smell of.


it's after two.

at least now i'm tired. i have to go to bed early tomorrow night, because i'm up at 530 on monday and tuesday.

i hate thinking about work on sunday. i hate having to prepare a day early.