and it has a little red button.

I took the plunge and finally signed up for a creative writing class. I was so excited to finally be at a place in my life where I can figure out what I want to do and just decide to do it. This has been a long time coming, let me tell you. So I put on my oldest, rattiest and most-loved sweatpants, made my favorite kind of tea, applied my crest-whitestrips and sat down to write. This is how it all went down.

Okay, click here to log in.
What the fuck is my password again?
Oh okay, yeah. It's the same one I use EVERY SINGLE TIME.
Hmmmm okay, announcements.
AH! First assignment.
 
Fuck shit fuck.
Why did I sign up to take a FICTION writing class?
I don't know jack shit about fiction.
 
First assignment:
The Six-Things Exercise
"The idea is to relax and play a little as the writer you've come here to be. Basically, we're asking you to make short journal notes, with a writer's eye and sensitivity, about six separate things each day.  Something like: "wind clanking the boat halyards at the marina" or "the chipped handle on my coffee mug." Every day: six new things, especially during the first week.  Then, each day, you expand ONE of those six things notes into a 20-to-50 word piece.  The expansion can add descriptive details, internal thoughts, or context that begins to threaten an explosion into full-blown story. In this forum, you'll post one or two of those EXPANDED daily entries, to share with fellow students.  Nothing formal or polished, just very short and informal items during this first week."

 
(frantically scans the living room)
Hmm okay, I can do this. I just have to jot down thoughts about random things.
The... remote control.
It's....black.
And it has a little red button.
The red button reminds me of...
THE DEVIL'S SOUL.
 
I mean, fuck. Did I mention shit fuck? I cannot do this.
 
To make matters even worse, I went ahead and started reading what some other people were posting.
One classmate wrote: "The familiar whitewashed cinderblock walls forge a fortress of rooms and cells, muffling the faint yells and slamming doors. Reluctant and uninvited guests check-in; the check-out date determined by their crime or court holidays. Upon arrival time arrests and the walls heave with rushing air under obscene fluorescent lights. The guests sleep on a thin gray pad. The room comes with cable and free meals, although some complain about the guest standing in the shadows on the third floor. The one who never departs?" Another one: "In an otherwise dark room, one lone gold star on the Christmas tree has caught a distant light and glows with warmth."
 
I can get down with the second lady; she and I could be friends. First lady can go fuck herself with her stupid, creative story about a haunted hotel. I mean, when she reads my epic piece about a button on a remote control that reminds me of the devil, I'm sure she'll just be eaten alive with jealousy.
 
I would rather strip naked and walked down the middle of the 405 freeway than try to do this exercise.
I would prefer to stick a fork so far into one eye that it comes out the other eye than to do this exercise.
I would rather bare my naked, bleeding soul to the whole of the internet about my failed marriage, cheating ex-husband and general failings in life than try to write fiction.
 
Not only does fiction bore me, I'm not good at it. At all. Everything I try to write about comes back around to me and my life experiences.

 
In the end, this is what I ended up writing. And it's bullshit because it's totally not fiction. But whatever.
 
She never knew avocados could mean so much. The not yet, not yet, not yet, eat me immediately, too late nature of the avocado might as well have been the theme of her life. Rock hard and inedible one moment, swollen with mold the next. How did she never realize this before? She was a fucking piece of fruit.
 
 
Annnnnnnd I quit. Thanks for playing.