My thoughts are like dust, which would settle themselves and rest were it not for the fan or random flicking cat tail to stir them back up again. For now they are floating around the room, for the most part lacking form and shape. I should get up and do something; perhaps the dishes, or a shower would be nice, or I could pack myself up and go for a bike ride. But I can't peel myself up from the couch, from the movie I'm not watching, from the dust I'm trying to collect and decipher as it lands on my windowsill.

And so consequently there is not much to discuss today. I could tell you about the hair cut I plan to get; a chic bob that hits just below my chin and A-Lines up the back of my head. A brave move on my part I'm sure, because my hair hasn't been that short since junior high. I could tell you how I'm attempting to learn French; successful in the reading and recognizing words, massive failure in pronunciations. I could tell you about my black coffee, something that's always been an old writing standby for me; it is where I turn when there's nothing else to talk about.

Black coffee. It is (narcissistically?) one of my favorite poetic metaphors. I began taking my coffee black on my Senior trip to Disney Land- that morning I was desperate for a cup that, once the pot was set down in front of me I gripped it and slammed it down, refusing to wait for the cream and sugar. Shortly following that same year my parents divorced, and I had separate 18^th birthday parties, separate graduation parties, and soon stopped speaking to my father altogether. I became somewhat of a minimalist; I looked at life and all that had been ripped away, and chose to help these demons along and did away with the rest, accepting only the bare essentials. I wanted nothing of frills or pleasures. The only pretty thing I prized was my white Orchid. I listened to a lot of Bob Dylan and fantasied about one day hitting the road, leaving my life behind like dust discarded dust from old worn out tires. Where would I go? Colorado to live with Teresa. I'm sure she would have set me up in a tent next to her garden. We could have built a fort in her living room and I could have been happy there for some time. I was so ready for this that I packed up my clothes in my red suitcase, and used only those, lived out of it, for months. Love now meant nothing to me, and I was convinced that I would die alone, on a mountain top, raising llamas, and that when I died it would be so cold that I would become a sort of Ice Mummy. Anyways, Coffee was the bare essential; creamer was the fancy extra. I've since reconciled myself to having a bounty, a plenty, a cup that is full. It wasn't easy; when love and marriage came a long I didn't know how to behave for quite sometime. But I've adjusted, and sometimes take creamer and sugar in my coffee, but it still is only when I'm feeling fancy.

-A.baker