girls that never diary: week 72

GIRLS THAT NEVER DIARY is a (temporary) series where I try, once again, to create a daily writing practice. This time I’m also trying to reset some of my associations around writing, because my brain is tired of only wrestling with things that hurt me whenever I sit down to write. I’ve started writing these little diaries in my notes app, and they have mostly been helpful in that they get me to write something, and also in that they help me, when I reread them, answer the question for myself about what it is that I actually do all day, as a freelancer with barely any relationship to routine, as a writer who isn’t writing very much these days. I’ll send these out once a week until my brain is fixed.

FRIDAY

My alarm goes off at 8:30. Kwame sent me his notes on my manuscript and they’re so helpful that I get emotional! I get changed and take my laptop to a nearby cafe where I get an iced coffee with cardamom. I do my Arabic homework for the film class (watching a clip from Adieu Bonaparte and doing a corresponding worksheet) until Basma arrives and we alternate between chatting and working. I order a beef fateer for breakfast and set up the event page with Hala for our next Paperheart retreat. Once I get to a stopping point I say bye to Basma and walk to get my eyebrows threaded, then walk home. Back at home I wash my hair and sit under the dryer cap since I won’t have time to air-dry it. Right before Fati arrives I order us vegan burgers and nuggets from Mr. Charlie’s. We eat and catch up then get changed for the evening. Chris picks us up and drives us to Reparations Club for Fati’s book launch. Randa meets us there and the three of us read and have an onstage conversation. Lots of sweet familiar faces in the audience! We’re hungry after and go to a nearby favorite restaurant with Fati, Randa, Chris, Basma, Uchechi, and Bryan, and run into Aisha there. We have a long chatty dinner where I eat salmon kebab (one of the very few salmon dishes I like). Back at home I close up my bags, set an alarm, and go to bed at 11:30.