Coffee Log, Year 2, Day 25

Hi.

Coffee: Breakfast Blend, Trader Joe’s Brand

All of a sudden, I started calling this thing a ‘memoir’ instead of a ‘blog.’ Honestly, it’s probably both. I guess I felt like getting it dressed up. It’s the Coffee Log’s first prom. It’s pinned and tuxed. It’s wearing one of those white flowers people pin to themselves. It splurged and got a real one, a real dead flower. Boy, what an event!

But anyway, I wrote a memoir once. It was under great duress, let me tell you. Freshman year writing class, we had assignments to write a little bit of everything. And when it was time for the memoir, the only think I could think of was ‘Eat, Pray, Love.’ I don’t much like ‘Eat, Pray, Love.’ I tried reading it once on recommendation. It read like the kind of coworker who’s always trying to talk to you about her kid’s soccer games.

The memoir I ended up writing was a bit about cooking for Thanksgiving. I was seeing this girl at the time and we’d made green bean casserole for her family. It was a total mess. I described it like that. When I first wrote the memoir, it was supposed to be funny. Charming. I was giddy. In puppy-love. Well, after Thanksgiving, that girl up and vanished from my life – no word, no letters, stopped returning my calls. Needless to say, my mood had changed. I re-wrote the memoir halfway between ‘The Stranger’ and ‘Edgar Allan Poe.’ But I kept the comedy. Can’t amount to much of anything if you can’t laugh at yourself.

Looking back, I think that green bean casserole was the start of everything: years and years of writing, a few publications, this endless damn blog. (oops, I meant memoir). Life’s a strange dish. Messy. To be honest, I’ve always hated green beans.

Novel Count: 30,740

Currently Reading: The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes

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I think I deserve something beautiful.

Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray Love