Up All Night

Apparently, "Up All Night" is the name of a song by the singularly-named Drake, which doesn't quite have the same ring to it as Cher, or Madonna, or... um... Donovan.

You've probably never heard of Donovan, because he's old school. Sigh...

I've been up all night because my circadian rhythms are decidedly arrhythmic, and I couldn't go to sleep. Fortunately, I had a bit of creative writing to do, so that kept me company. Now, I just have to stay awake until about 9:00 pm tonight so I'll be able to get a good rest in before I start work tomorrow.

TOMORROW.

Tomorrow I will be employed again.

Kind of trips me out, to tell you the truth. I've spent almost 11 months out of the last 3 years in some unemployed state or another, and that's not counting the two months of unpaid leave I took for medical reasons.

And here I was all worried about feeling poor when I go to grad school. Pshaw. I've got this whole ohmyGodI'mpoormom&dadcanIhavesomemoney? thing down pat.

But Ms. StrainedConsciousness, you protest, about what were you writing?

Look at you with your correct sentence structure! No ending sentences with a preposition for you! I'm so proud!

But I digress.

I am writing about, um, fellas.

What sort of fellas? you respectfully inquire.

Um, ones I've dated. And some I haven't. But mostly ones I have.

(around the globe, my ex-boyfriends feel a chill wind on their neck and a sudden feeling of inexplicable panic, and they wonder why).

It all started with a creative writing assignment. I wrote about a middle-aged man (who I did not date) that I met at a restaurant, and we happened to be going to the same movie. We'd had a nice conversation apres dinner, so we sat together at the movie.

We saw Lost in Translation, which was kind of prophetic, because afterward, when he gave me his business card, I couldn't figure out if his interest was platonic, or if he had other intentions.

The creative writing assignment only had one dictate: Evoke a mood of your choosing.

I evoked extreme discomfort and uncertainty, and according to my classmates, I hit the nail on the head.

The story got me thinking about other fellas I could write about. (stupid end-of-sentence preposition) Just recently, I had a spate of creativity, and I've been hard at it for the past few weeks.

Each story involves at least one man who's left some sort of imprint on my life - ex-boyfriends, that guy I had to file a sexual harassment complaint against, etc... - and a few of the stories have multiple guys in them, either because one led to another, or because my experiences with them coincided or had an effect on how I viewed the other/s.

My mom thinks I should try to have them published, and I've thought about it. But then, do I really want my family and all my friends to know everything about my various relationships through the years?

That remains to be decided...