School Supplies, Similes, and Shame

I went to Staples yesterday because I had a 6 dollar coupon and 6 dollars can get you 25,000 staples. When you consider that just one staple can comfortably bind together 20 sheets of paper, that's 500,000 sheets or 100 reams of paper once carefree and loose now bound for eternity. What I'm saying is one 6 dollar coupon can save a lot of paper from isolation and loneliness.

Now I happen to be the kind of person who lives with the kind of person who thinks school supplies make perfect Christmas presents. She's also something of a softy, so I'm sure once I run my staples = cure for loneliness hypothesis by her, she'll be excited about receiving 3 pounds of them for Christmas. That or she'll exchange them for stationary. Either way it's fine because 1) I'm not really stupid enough to buy someone staples for Christmas and 2) this has nothing to to with my actual story. My point is, I wouldn't have been at Staples yesterday if not for the coupon. If not for the coupon, all of the more factual events of my story could have been avoided, and I wouldn't have had to belabor a too long, not funny enough fantasy about buying staples at Staples.

So I'm standing in line with my 3 pound bag of staples (obviously staples don't really come this way, but the image of someone standing in a checkout lane with a bag of 25,000 loose staples in a bag slung over her shoulder amuses me almost as much as the image of that same person trying to load those same individual staples, one-by-one, into a stapler, so I'm going with it) and I glance over my shoulder, and there she is.

The she in question is none other than the subject of my previous blog, But Would You Walk Across Hot Coals?  The woman who inspired me to write every day, no matter how frustrated I got. The woman who offered (without giving me the chance to ask) to write me a letter of recommendation for grad school admission. The woman who I lovingly (and, as far as I know, without her knowledge) refer to as Aunt Erin. This woman lit a fire in my belly that no amount of over-the-counter, prescription-strength acid reducer could relieve. I hadn't seen her since May when I accepted an award for an essay I wrote--you know, back when I still had promise. So what did I do the second I realized that Aunt Erin was standing seven feet behind me? Did I run out of line and jump into her outstretched arms, wrapping my legs around her waist like an excited 3-year-old? Did I tell her how much I enjoyed her last book (which I haven't read because I'm not reading anymore either)? Did I inquire into the health of her husband and her dogs? No. No I did not. I didn't even think to do those things. Instead I turned my back like a girl who's 20 years and forty added pounds out of high school when she doesn't want the homecoming queen to see her in the ice cream aisle. I think, if I don't make eye contact, she can't hold my not saying hello against me. For all she knows, I don't realize she's behind me.  I conduct my entire transaction with my back to my old mentor, knowing that, as she is next in line, she will see me and recognize me. I mumble and make my voice slightly lower than it typically is. I do everything short of putting on a pair of Groucho Marx glasses (which, had I had them handy, I wouldn't have hesitated to throw on for good measure).

I think the why of my behavior is pretty obvious. I haven't written anything in months. The only pieces I submit are essays that I wrote a year or more ago. The well is dry. Not that I've been trying. Maybe I don't want to work. Maybe if it doesn't all come to me in a flash, I'm not interested. Maybe I like having money to spend and the though of going to grad school and trying to live on $12,000 a year doesn't really sound appealing to me (even under the guise of chasing my dreams). Or maybe I'm just trying to convince myself that that's the case. Maybe Aunt Erin saw me too. Maybe she turned around and pretended to see something interesting in the opposite direction, something more interesting than the look of disappointment permanently plastered to my face.