listening to fiona apple and working on my ludicrous take-home final for development of the novel, i’m thinking about my coffee. almost every evening at the coffeehouse, i order a bottomless cup of coffee for two dollars and fifty cents. into each cup (i average about four a night) i put half a packet of sweet and low and a whole lotta milk. so my coffee is pretty pale at the beginning, but by the end of each cup it’s almost completely dark again. why is this, i’m wondering? i’m fairly confident that i stir sufficiently, so i don’t think it’s possible that all the milk would rise to the top (and i’m not sure it would do that whether i stirred or not, chemistry-wise). so does the milk evaporate? does it jump out of the cup and run away when i’m not looking, leaving small helpless traces behind as a strange, survival-of-the-fittest sort of gesture? where does it go?

at any rate, it’s a melancholy and frustrating evening, if such a thing is possible. i’m feeling particularly transparent. not peculiarly so, as i’m usually pretty transparent. but particularly, today. it’s both a source of pride and my undoing.

see, it’s words like undoing that give me the urge to quote shakespeare, as my creative writing professor does at the beginning of class sometimes. however. i don’t think i know any of it well enough, and i’d probably bastardize it beyond recognition. now that’s a consummation not real devoutly to be wished. frailty, thy name is alison. well, good night. parting’s a sweet sorrow, man.

i guess i’d better go sit down and wait for you until my coffee gets cold…