I’m falling asleep over coffee because I woke up early today. Usually when I don’t sleep it’s because I’m restless or there’s too much on my mind. I’m a vampire of sorts, minus the blood drinking and leather jacket, which I do have but don’t wear. I hate the way it doesn’t fit. The collar is too big. It was my graduation present, actually, and I probably thought it was cool when I was 17. I love jackets. Somehow I feel naked walking around in public with just a shirt on. Jackets have pockets which solves the problem of what to do with my hands, a real problem that needs to be solved continuously as I go through my day. I’m anxious or nervous most of the time and I feel like I’m being watched unless my hands are busy. It doesn’t make any sense but that doesn’t really help. Most of the time I can rationalize things that make me uncomfortable, but I can’t explain the restlessness of my hands. 

I like watching people. There’s something very immediate about observing others. Some people like to make up lives for them, imagine their backstory or create fantasy scenarios to figure out what they are like. Maybe it stems from envy, this habit of trying to live through the lives of strangers. I don’t do this. I just watch. Today I saw a couple kiss goodbye as she went to work and he went somewhere else, I don’t know where, I didn’t have much of a view. It was cute, she was much shorter than him so she had to tilt her head up and stand on her toes. Their first kiss was terrible, too quick. He wanted another one. She didn’t notice at first. Really, their second kiss wasn’t much better than the first, but quantity sometimes does make up for quality. They seemed happy together, which was nice to see. I wondered briefly how long they had been together and what else they did together. They parted ways and I diverted my focus elsewhere. No point in lingering. There’s other people in my view now and I can watch them. That brief glimpse into someone else’s life, that’s enough for me. I don’t need to linger. The moment matters because it is real, and no more extrapolation needs to take place. 

I’m trying to get better at being present in the moment. Too many years of living through my imagination have taken a toll on my social life. I don’t get out enough. I’m still not used to being in public without that ever creeping feeling that somehow everyone is watching me. Somebody must be watching me, someone like me, imagining where I’m going or what I’m thinking. That’s okay, I can handle that. Maybe they are trying to be better at living in the moment too. 

A man tied his dog up while he went inside and when he came back two girls stopped to pet the dog. You can tell a lot about a person by the way their dog acts when left alone. I think this man is a good man. 

I’m still yawning, trying to read, trying to write, but I’m too tired and the thoughts aren’t working for me. All I have to do is stay awake until tonight. I can’t afford to take naps in the afternoon or I don’t sleep at night. I got myself into that vicious cycle a couple weeks ago, staying up late to finish an assignment. Around four in the morning I realized that although I was almost finished I was writing the wrong topic. There wasn’t enough time to start over so I improvised. I ended up doing pretty well. You can improvise a lot on a paper if you’re clever. You can improvise a lot in life if you’re clever. 

The real secret of writing isn’t to be good at it, it’s to be consistent at it. Inspiration is really just a matter of making connections between ideas. I’m not afraid of the blank page the way a lot of writers describe themselves to be. What stops me is trying to write the same thing for a long time. Eventually I just get bored with what I’m writing and I don’t want to do it anymore. That’s the real struggle because the ultimate truth about writing is that you’re trying to create a singular work over an extended period of time. Every day you might be a different person than you were the day before. It’s hard to be consistent with what you do when you’re not even sure if you’re consistent with who you are. Personality doesn’t change, according to psychology, but your personal construct, who you view yourself to be, changes all the time. No wonder artists go a little insane. Imagine trying to will your reflection into being based only on how you feel about yourself that day. You’d be left with a schizophrenic self-portrait that only vaguely resembles a person. At least that’s how I see it. I’m working on a novel but the story keeps changing on me faster than I can write it down. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not complaining, just trying to reflect the experience. 

Still, I can always fall asleep in coffee shops. It’s comforting to know there are places where you can be surrounded by people and still have your own personal space without feeling even more lonely. A lot of the time being in a sea of people can be worse than being alone. This isn’t the case with coffee shops. Maybe it’s the smell, maybe it’s just the environment of like-minded people. 

Bookstores also offer comfort. This time I know it’s the smell that does it for me. Call me crazy but nothing smells quite as good as an overabundance of paper and ink. It’s bad for the planet and we should be planting way more trees than we are, but at the same time, we have a recorded history of humanity that you can hold in your hands and that’s amazing. I’ve become too cynical. I’m trying to realize how amazing so many things really are. You can change your world just by changing your perspective and it’s even free. 

I’ve noticed a trend in my work lately. Everything I write seems to revolve around the question of identity. Not so much in an existential manner. None of my characters are screaming at the cosmos, demanding to know who they are and why they exist. Instead they’re dealing with very real, very practical concepts of identity. Why do they fit in where they fit in and not somewhere else? Do they fit in? Does anyone fit in? Does knowing who you are in an existential way actually benefit anyone or are we better off accepting that we are who we are and knowing that our self concepts change throughout our lives, but our personalities can remain the same. If you think you’re different, are you? If your friends tell you you’ve changed, has something been lost? 

I’ve left the coffee shop and now I’m back home. I’m no longer tired so either the caffeine has kicked in or being home just results in me being bored enough to want to go back out again. 

I’m basically a dog.

Except I’m allowed in coffee shops, where I can yawn and read a book and get some work done and I’ll be comfortable not knowing what to do with my hands.