I am sitting in a coffeeshop and there is a boy in the coffeeshop sitting in a table opposite of mine and we both looked up and looked at each other at the same moment and it was really unnerving and I immediately looked down and opened my computer even though before I had been reading a book.

I am reading a book of short stories for my fiction workshop. We pulled authors names out of a hat and that was the book we had to read, but my book is perfect for me right now. It's called "Self-Help" by Lorrie Moore. A lot of the stories are written in second person and are instructions on how to do things. My favorites have been "How to be an Other Woman" and "How to be a Writer." Coincidentally one of our prompts this week was to write a "How to" guide. I had to pick a different prompt. I picked the prompt where you find a picture of a person and pretend someone has just asked them what they want most in the world and we have to answer in 400 words or less. I posted that below.

The problem with being anywhere is that sometimes the wrong things happen. I'm in a coffeeshop and Iron and Wine came on and I like Iron and Wine except a lot of times it makes me really sad and I don't want to be really sad. I want academic music. Like, I'm studying with a cute hat on type of music. Like I'm filling this role of me in a coffeeshop, drinking tea, with too many books and a computer and an umbrella because it's raining. I think about how I want to write things, but everything that comes in my mind is sad and then I think how I want to write happy things, but I don't really want to write happy things, because I don't really want to read anything that is happy, even when I am happy myself.