Dear Diary,
It's me, Diane. But I suppose you knew that. Ha ha!
Well, a lot has happened to me recently and I thought I would share it with you, because I have to share it with someone, as most of it is so humiliating I have been unable to tell a soul.
Dr. Sloane dumped me. Yes, after two years of the sweetest, most refined courtship, culminating with our engagement, he abandoned me - running back to his ex-wife, Barbara. The same one he told me was cold, unfeeling, and didn't understand his cultivated sensibilities.
But that's not even the worst part. The worst part is that he dumped me in a beer hall. He did not even have the decency to come back and dump me to my face.
I'm ashamed to say I have not even been back to his office to confront him and gather up the remnants of my life with him there.
He's a fucking asshole.
But it's okay, diary, because I am free. And something wondrous has happened to me. I finally feel brave enough to do what I've always wanted to do - to stop living in a glass tower, and to descend into the seething throng and live amongst the common man.
I was offered a job at the beer hall - yes, the same one Sumner dumped me in - and now I'm a serving girl! I finally realized that if I want to be the writer I always espouse myself to be then I must live amongst the unwashed rabble. Did Hemingway write from the confines of his drawing room? Did Faulkner bar himself from the teeming masses and make his astute observations on human nature from the deck of a luxury cruise ship? Au contraire.
And thus I begin my life as a chronicler of blue collar Americana.
I wouldn't say I'm the best waitress in the world, however, the people there are already giving me much fodder for contemplation.
There is the Coach, possibly the sweetest, and dumbest, man I have ever met. He is a modern day Trinculo with a halcyon heart and, dare I say it, my second chance at having a father.
Then there is the other waitress, Carla -she of barbed wit and bawdy passions. I sense that once I'm able to crack her fortress-like defenses, we shall become best friends.
Oh, and I shall not forget one of the regulars, his name is Norm and would you believe it everyone calls out 'Norm!' when he enters the establishment. I call him Norman. He has already given me several gem-like nuggets of dialogue for my novel. I suspect he will be a major character.
Well, that's about it, diary. I feel like I'm forgetting something, but…
Oh, yes! There is the pub's owner and bartender, Sam Malone. I haven't gotten to know him very well yet. I'm really not sure he will make a good character - I don't know anything about sports, and can't imagine having a former athlete in my bailiwick.
There is really not much to say about him. He's a decent-looking enough fellow with a mop of hair of indeterminate color. I don't take much notice of him to be honest.
Okay, well, I did glean he is rather tall. And yes, I guess if you were one to concern yourself with such things, you could say that he has a rather well developed anatomy. Not that I would notice.
And once, I happened to catch that he has very deep blue eyes, sort of the shade of the Aegean, off the coast of Kos, but only in the autumn.
Oh, and did I mention that he flirts outrageously with me?!
Diary, it is the most pathetic thing in the world. This poor wretch thinking he MIGHT stand a chance with me. PUHLEESE! It is to laugh!
But while we are on the subject - and I plan to get off the subject soon enough because there is really not much to plumb here - I have the oddest and most overwhelming sensation when he walks by me that I want to softly bite his shoulder.
Please do not tell anyone because I have NO idea what that means.
Occasionally, the fantasy extends to his neck, but I fear his pungent cologne would make me faint.
I have also occasionally taken note that he has long tapered fingers and thick curly chest hair that peeks mischievously out from his V-neck shirts. But like I say, I don't pay much attention to him.
Often, when I am giving him an order, he leans over the bar and stares at me so intently that something catches in my chest. It's a sensation I have never felt before. It must be revulsion.
And oh yes! I have never considered myself a rapier wit, but something about the bartender brings out my devilish side. I've become a regular Dorothy Parker around him. There is little that he says that doesn't provoke a most scathing riposte from me. Of course, he tries to launch his arrows of sarcasm as well, but I deftly deflect them.
He is no brain. I have the deep suspicion that he is woefully undereducated and has possibly never read a book in his life unless there was 'throbbing' or 'horny' or 'schoolgirl' in the title – most likely, all three.
He considers himself some sort of a ladies' man. Of course, all of the women who flock to him are of the tawdry variety – thick brained, grotesquely top-heavy, and barely able to form a sentence or coherent thought.
In short, he is mediocre, crude, vulgar, and bordering on profane.
But I am being too harsh - he was nice enough to give me a job where I can hone my writing skills and he lets me read at the bar.
I plan to only be here for a month, two tops, because I can't imagine what would keep me there longer. Certainly not the company of the bartender because, like I said, he essentially repulses me.
The oddest thing though - sometimes I feel like slapping him and kissing him at the same time.
Oh, now I have to lock you up, diary, because I couldn't have anyone ever reading that.
I also feel like grabbing a fistful of that cascade of hair on his head and twisting it within my fingers and pulling - hard. Then I would grab the side of his smug face and run my nails over those cherub lips of his and smash my mouth down on his very hard - just to teach him a lesson.
Oh my god, what am I saying?!
This is starting to sound like the Marquis de Sade - which may not be a bad thing, I don't know. I picture myself more Jane Austen.
And can you believe that the other day he had the nerve, the absolute unmitigated gall, to tell me it was obvious that I could not stop thinking about him?!
What on EARTH would give him that impression?! I have not had a half a second's thought about the man. Not a quarter of a second. I would sooner write about Cliff the postman than him.
Yes, okay, diary, I know I have spent several paragraphs writing about him - but that is just to make my point that he is completely and utterly not worth writing - or thinking - or anything about.
Okay, I see what you're saying. Perhaps I'm being a tad ironical - I'm not obtuse and see that I'm being comically contradictory. You're starting to get on my nerves, diary.
Did I tell you about Carla? I have a good feeling about her.
Oh, also, I forgot to say! The bartender, Sam Malone his name is, did I say that already, actually tried to KISS ME IN THE POOL ROOM!
Naturally, I flipped him onto the pool table. Thank you, Practical Feminism 101.
While he was lying there, stunned and in glorious pain, I had the most unsettling desire to lean over and grab him by the buttons of his shirt and tear one off and hurl it across the room. I also felt like sucking on his chin.
Just an aside, diary, the way he stalks around the bar reminds me of a panther in heat. Not that I know what that would look like, exactly, as zoology is was never one of my majors, though perhaps I should look into it.
Okay, I'm going to let you go now, it appears I've run out of things to say. I'll update on Coach, Cliff, Norm, Carla and the regulars tomorrow.
As for the bartender, I don't have much to say about him, as I said. I hope I have reiterated that firmly, because this is the last you will hear about him. Stop asking about him because it will get you nowhere.
I do wonder what sort of woman could ever fall for a man like that though. She would have to be almost clinically insane - or bordering on imbecilic.
It truly astonishes me - nay, offends me deeply - that he manages to seduce so many of them into his bed.
I wonder what that is like.
I mean, I don't WONDER. The stray thought has occasionally, fleetingly, like a gossamer butterfly, or perhaps the most barely perceptible atom, traversed my neurons.
Well, diary, I'm sure it is something I will never know - THANK GOD!
I can't imagine a woman having any self-respect in the morning after succumbing to his juvenile and callow affectations.
I mean, yes, I'm sure that a good time is to be had while the passion is burning - but once that flames out, what is left? The memory of a lustful symbiosis so intense that you can't help but claw back desperately for more, and more, and more?!
What kind of life is that, I ask?
Anyway, diary, I have taken up too much of your time.
Norm said the funniest thing yesterday. I've forgotten what it is, but it was hysterical. Something about beer.
As for Mr. Malone, I'm sorry I could not describe him or my feelings about him in more detail because, as I said, he is far too empty-headed and sluggishly puerile to devote any reflection.
He is constantly ending his sentences with prepositions.
Oh shoot, it's almost time for my shift and I need to get to the bar.
I think I might wear a brighter shade of lipstick today, and perhaps a shorter skirt. It will be good for tips.
It has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with that stupid bartender.