"she opened her book and her box of tools"

So....writing group. 

Last semester, I took a class about memoir writing.  It turned out to be a fairly interesting class, I produced a lot more writing than I otherwise would have.  This semester, the class is going to continue to meet, sans professor, to write and read each other's writing and comment.  I liked producing text, I liked getting positive feedback, I liked some of the other writers' writing.  But it's also exhausting, exhausting to have to interact with people I don't like, exhausting to try to figure out how to behave, exhausting to have this sort of intimacy with strangers I haven't chosen, and in many cases, wouldn't choose.  And my desire to be liked, even by people I don't like, doesn't please me at all.  And I'm not writing a memoir, I don't know how.  I can come up with these little segments, but I don't know how to write a book, I don't know if I should try.   I don't know if I want to.

If I agree to do this, I won't be able to take any classes, and this is hopefully my last semester working for the Beast and so my last semester with access to the sweet sweet benefit of extension school classes.  My first choice of classes, Bridges to JustPeace: Understanding Fragmentation and Building Coalitions for a Just and Peaceful Future, was canceled   My second choice would be Chocolate, Culture, and the Politics of Food with the charming description of  "This course examines the sociohistorical legacy of chocolate, with a delicious emphasis on the eating and appreciation of the so-called food of the gods. Interdisciplinary course readings introduce the history of cacao cultivation, the present day state of the global chocolate industry, the diverse cultural constructions surrounding chocolate, and the implications for chocolate's future of scientific study, international politics, alternative trade models, and the food movement. Assignments address pressing real-world questions related to chocolate consumption, social justice, responsible development, honesty and the politics of representation in production and marketing, hierarchies of quality, and myths of purity."

I can't do both.   Wednesday is the day the group meets, wednesday is the only day I can take classes.  

Gah.