I'm meeting a girlfriend for coffee in one hour, but I've settled into my usual seat now, with a red eye nearby, hopeful to form some words into logical, if not poetic, sentences. I had thought it would be busy in here over lunch, but it's just me and the two baristas (I can't help but think of Suzy and her fear of introducing herself to the barista she sees every week).

I haven't written anything substantial in a few months now, and it's making me feel all kinds of squirmy and incomplete. Writing has always been how I work through and make sense of everything. So when nothing is coming out I feel: less than.

Right before I left for the coffee shop a friend sent me the name of a book of writing prompts that she thought might help me out of my dry spell. I promised to give them a go once I was settled in.

Instead, I'm writing here.

I'm beginning to think that the problem is not just that I'm not writing, but that I have far too many ideas; far too many memories begging to be documented, that I don't know where to begin. And so I don't. I simply don't start.

It kind of reminds me of how when someone asks how you are, we always respond with the socially acceptable "fine, thank you" when it fact we could be feeling the exact opposite. If we're being honest, there's much more to it then that; but we know they're not really asking the way we wish they were.

"How are you?"

"Good, thanks."

And now I've gone off on a tangent...

Anyways, what I'm trying to say is that I'm sitting here in this coffee shop, hoping that the powers at be send me something, anything, to get me out of this slump of mine.

But if that fails, I may as well go order a second coffee and introduce myself to the barista.