sitting at work, reading 'moll flanders', as one is wont to do.

that might be the actual opposite of the true definition of what you’re supposed to be doing at work. but. it was what i was doing.

here’s the thing. every day i dream of this life, this life wherein i don’t have to work in an office. most importantly, where I don’t have to answer the phone. that is my biggest and stupidest phobia. i can’t even explain how nervous i get when faced with a time slot when i know i have to call someone, or someone will call me. ior days, my stomach gets churny where i see it written down.

but i dream of this officeless life free of telephone commitments. i have all of the time (and money) that i need to write all over the stories and essays that i’ve ever wanted to write. i can go wherever i want with a trusty laptop, or a notebook and a pen, and write to my heart’s content, everything spilling out that has been building up while i sit in my cubicle, day after day.

but then. when i DO have free time, do i write? sometimes. but by no means always. and as i sit here in the slow season for academic texts, i could be writing in the down time. i could have filled pages upon pages every day. i haven’t. i’ve done a lot of crossword puzzles. i’ve read the bbc news site until my eyes crossed. i started at the bottom of the arts and letters daily website, and worked my way quickly to the top. today i happened upon classic literature in free e-book form. i’ve read two guy de maupessants, a really good robert louis stephenson, and realized that i really DON’T like chekov, it wasn’t just a hunch all these years. and now i’ve started ‘moll flanders’.

maybe it’s the workplace environment. the constant fear that your supervisor is standing just behind you, or that i.t. is compiling a report of the numerous websites that you shouldn’t be looking at. no music, no pajamas. no chance watching tv for half an hour.

i suppose i might just have to dream about this life until that inevitable day that someone gives me a massive cash advance to write my epic novel all….day….long…..