Vacation: All I Ever Wanted

I'm afraid to step away from the laptop because I wrote today. I wrote today and it was more than the minimum of five hundred words that I can often barely produce. It was possibly a couple thousand words. I won't look at it for a while because as I was writing it I kept thinking to myself: Didn't I used to be witty and fascinating? Didn't I used to be writer-fabulous? What happened to the woman who used to offer unique, sardonic, yet oddly charming slices of humanity on a platter of cute and delivered with surprising word choices and refreshing candor? Superficiality with a black licorice aftertaste* of depth was how I got into grad school. It's how I got my job as a teaching assistant. But now look at me. I'm drinking Emergen-C on my bed and checking TMZ and Dlisted because reading just one story about Rachel Uchitel returning the hush money to ex-paramourTiger Woods probably isn't enough. Plus, Hoarders and Intervention air tonight. And I no longer watch those shows to play the I-feel-comparatively-healthy game. It's an anthropological study. Just like online dating. So, please, who has time to write? Except, of course I do. I have time to write, and I think it's starting to kill my soul a little.

The thing is, I really did need a vacation. I did. This first year of grad school pushed me more than my mother when she was trying to convince me to enter a teen beauty pageant. I'm happy to say that while I said no to my mother, when it came to grad school, I just said yes. To everything. I read until my eyes burned. I took notes on what my classmates said about my work and paid attention to the choices they made as they wrote their own essays and stories. I stole as much as I could without being obvious about it. I considered every bit of advice my professors offered and then asked them for more. I even pulled an all-nighter, and I am as much against staying up all night as I am against getting up early. I attended every thesis reading and went out for drinks with a visiting writing teacher when all I wanted to do was sleep. The extremely drunk and momentarily sexually-confused gay man touching my boobs was the only thing that kept me from taking a nap on top of the piano in between Lady Gaga and Rhianna songs. So, once the semester ended, I settled into a state of sloth because I knew I had earned it.

So, take a vacation I did. I toured the mind-numbing and restorative cities of YouTube, Hulu and Netflix. I enjoyed it so much, I went back -- repeatedly. In fact, I'm writing this post from the high thread count sheets of my tour bus -- my bed. A box fan on the floor simulates a rejuvenating summer wind that keeps me cool when I occasionally freak out about how much writing I am not doing. In a few minutes, I'll get up and do yoga. Because if I'm going to ruin my life by failing to live up to my potential I'm going to need something to fall back on. I'm counting on a nice butt. And that brings me to my other much needed distraction -- dating.

I didn't date even one person during the whole of my first year in grad school. Not even a drunken kiss with someone I knew I shouldn't be touching. NOTHING. I had my priorities. Being a prolific writer and teaching creative writing were all I thought about. Plus, there are maybe three straight guys in my program. One is sometimes single. So, yes, Stella needed to get her groove back and how. And since half of what I write about comes directly from my dating life, this was almost as good as writing. I was running low on material to feed my what-in-God's-name-was-he-thinking? stories. And guess what? After a few weeks on the Internet and a few dates later, I am happy to say I am all caught up. My confusion regarding the male brain has been restored and I had a great time doing it. And I actually still like men, which shows even more growth on my part. Wait. What am I stressing about? Maybe it's the Vitamin C or the extra sleep, but all of a sudden I feel like I've worked much harder than I've given myself credit for. As a matter of fact, I think I deserve a night off.

* Thanks to Jessica Thummel and Crow Hill for the black licorice aftertaste inspiration.