The Rom-Commers

by Katherine Center

FYI for nonwriters: blue versus black ink is an essential identity issue. Much like Coke versus Pepsi, or the Beatles versus the Stones, or college-ruled notebooks versus regular.

Truth! Bic Black is the way!

There’s a joke that writers “don’t like to write—they like having written,” and that must be true of some writers. But it wasn’t true of me or Charlie. We liked the process. We liked the words. We liked playing around and trying things. We liked syllables and consonants and syncopation. We liked deciding between em dashes and commas.

I don't like to write, but I can. When I wrote with my coworker, it was fun and not like work at all.

It wasn’t easy, exactly—but it was fun. It was work that felt like play.

“Because the bad thing you’re worried about is never the bad thing that happens.” I took that in. “It’s always some other bad thing you’re not expecting. Right?

Make eye contact, because that’s what alphas do. Stand up tall, because it summons a sense of pride. Keep your movements simple and direct to show that you aren’t flustered. Lift your eyebrows so you look unconcerned. Take deep breaths because they inflate your chest and hide your collapsing soul. I wrote down a cryptic list to remind myself: Stand up. Lift. Breathe. Inflate.

Poor Emma

“Whatever story you tell yourself about your life, that’s the one that’ll be true.”

You believe what you tell Yourself!

“So if I say, ‘This terrible thing happened, and it ruined my life’—then that’s true. But if I say, ‘This terrible thing happened, but, as crazy as it sounds, it made me better,’ then that’s what’s true.”

All we have is what we have.”

“and they lived happily ever after” is trying to con us into thinking that nothing bad ever happened to anyone ever again. But that’s never the way I read those words. I read them as “and they built a life together, and looked after each other, and made the absolute best of their lives.”