Night at the Hofbrau

We’re at the Hofbrau, a local pub just one mile down the road where smoking indoors is still legal and small children roam the bar as if in their own backyards. Never mind that I look overdressed in my teacher clothes and have to prop the emergency exit for fresh air, we’re having a good time and it has everything to do with the servers and their long o’s and unabashed love handles. It’s winter and life is fat and cold here so why not make a week-long celebration of Mardis Gras and while you’re at it, throw in a menu of tropical themed drinks and bar-wide trivia displayed across the TV screens for all to see.

The filmmaker that I’m dating is an avid pool player and this week we’ve upped the ante, relocating our training rounds from Hemingway Dormitory on the school campus (where we do laundry and play pool for free) to this, our local bar. I’m getting better at the tough shots but it still takes me a few rounds to warm up, which, by my calculations, is also the same cost of washing and drying several loads of laundry. It’s a high cost but the coaching I get the filmmaker is well worth it. Mark my words: by semester’s end I’ll beat him best 3 out of 5 without scratching.

The intensity of this relationship is working a sudden mess on my routines. I’m not getting 8 hours of sleep a night. I’m not getting as much writing done. I’m not getting as much reading done. I am, however, still working out, still teaching the best I know how, and perhaps most importantly—having a good time. But I made a vow to use my time wisely this week, attempting to get back to what I will call LBTF (Life Before The Filmmaker) or—that first week here at Interlochen. The past few days I’ve made good on my promise to myself with regard to my reading (which directly feeds my writing) and today I felt rejuvenated to sit at the keyboard again, finally able to envision myself pounding away. The keyword, of course, being envision ,which means I still have the work of the first sentence ahead of me.

Alas.

I am like a needy child with this desire to write. If I go more than few days without attending to some in-progress story or essay or more than a few weeks without starting something new, I am apt to throw mild tantrums that turn ferocious with absurd swiftness. I am deathly terrified that something bigger might come along (aka a boyfriend) and steal my time. Yet I’m perfectly willing to envision myself with a life partner, which, it turns out, is all too heavy to address at this juncture with the filmmaker, though the question knocks around every corner like an annoying sibling evesdropping on conversations. It is wonderful and stupid all at once, and haven’t so many great things in life started out just that way?

God help me. I need to get into a short story pronto and escape this absurd hunger.