Now that my stint in retail is coming to an end, I'm feeling the synapses in my brain fire again...this is not coincidental. For the first time in awhile, I actually sat down and read...for more than a few minutes. Over a large cup of Stardust coffee (on Winter Park Rd., near Corrine...for those Orlando natives), I devoured the first third of Raymond Carver's "Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?", a short story compilation with an old favorite, Neighbors, and new favorites of mine, They're Not Your Husband and The Idea. While the Carver formula becomes apparent--seemingly simple first names spelled just a little bit differently, some infidelity (either real or imagined), and wind, lots and lots of wind--not too many people can do more with less words.

As for other moments that jumpstarted my brain (much to the rejoicing, I'll bet, of my longsuffering Justin, who's had to hear me say things lately like, "She's got herself two children" or "They is good at that which they do"):

- a visit to Prof. Schlow of UCF days fame. The last time I spoke with him, he encouraged me in my writing and then chastized me for not coming out to my parents yet. "They'll love you just the same," he said, "You just need to give them a chance." What can I say? He was right. I thought it was about time to let him know (and catch him up on my writing progress). He's currently teaching "Cinema Survey" to undergrads, so I stopped by and asked if I could audit for the evening. He smiled and loudly announced that he had a heckler. We watched "The Witness" and discussed Set design. "Discussed" may be a strong word. Let's just say that he spoke, I took notes, and the undergrads alternated falling asleep, throwing things, slurping on cola, or talking to each other. I'm not even paying for the class. =) He says I'm free to sit in and catch a flick any Wednesday. Pretty cool!

-A bit more in "Empire Falls" by Richard Russo. This guy's great with the whole sprawling aspect of novels. He's also pretty good at characters, quirky and otherwise. It's just some of the quirks are very strange--i.e. a young girl named "Tick". Hmmmmm...life is full of choices, why was that one made?

I capped off the evening with a few stolen moments at Florida Hospital with Justin. The stuff he has to do as a nurse makes my head spin. I took a few moments to read his book on assessing strokes and I met words I've never even thought could be strung together from the current collection of root words, suffixes, and prefixes...but, nonetheless, I bet he could rattle off definitions at will. Amazing. Cute too.

We then ate some rather blase Chicken Teriaki. Yet, somehow, this doesn't dampen my enthusiasm about today. =)