Up Side

I love this office in the condo lobby. It has five computers set up in sleek cubicles with granite desktops, plus a three-in-one whiz machine that copies, faxes and prints. When it isn't jammed, like whiz machines everywhere seem to get.

I guess I really do like a room of my own, per Virginia Woolf. I can't see or hear the other residents who work here, and usually, it's only one or two others. We do hear each other sneeze [I like how the man next to me said simply, "Bless"] or sigh [the world is heavy on our shoulders sometimes] or speak in a foreign language. But it's really easy to concentrate and be productive. Just look ahead and write, write, write, fingers flying over the keyboard. It feels good.

When I'm working upstairs in the condo, I see baskets of laundry to fold [or remind Figgy to fold], stacks of bills to pay, reminders to myself about thank-you notes I haven't written. Plus dishes to wash, pots to scrub, a dog to walk, a family to talk to. A toothbrush to use, a bed to sleep on, a phone to talk into. Clutter to sort, receipts to file, plants to water.

Fortunately, H. made dinner tonight [fresh asparagus, eggs with cheese, pan-crisped potatoes, avocado, watermelon] and he is home with Figgy. So I had the freedom to be here.

Virginia's words:
"All I could do was to offer you an opinion upon one minor point—a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction; and that, as you will see, leaves the great problem of the true nature of woman and the true nature of fiction unsolved. I have shirked the duty of coming to a conclusion upon these two questions—women and fiction remain, so far as I am concerned, unsolved problems."

I wasn't working on fiction tonight but on a magazine assignment, for money, that might help me get to working on the fiction. Don't know. Not sure. Haven't given up the dream, and have a good story line in mind. Thank you for being there to listen.

Good night.