Want to know what it's like to be me? (Oh of course you do - what could be more fascinating?)



OK, then try this. Wear a short skirt that's just a little too big, so that it rides up your thighs when you walk.



Carry a big heavy backpack with everything you could possibly need for the day - and more! Workout clothes, sheet music (in case you have time to practice on that keyboard in your office!) Makeup! That mail you should really open! A few pounds of books for good measure that you can read on the bus if you get bored, and a portable mp3 player.



Then, of course you've got your laptop, because you've got to get that book done.



Right. Now imagine you just got done writing at the coffeeshop and you're late for the bus, as usual. You've got your backpack, your laptop, you're short skirt that's riding up even higher because of all the stuff hanging all over you. You're also wearing not to mention your mp3 player with the earplugs that keep falling out of your ears as you rush towards the busy trying to listen to - what else "Gloria" by Laura Branigan (because you can't get enough of those 80s tunes).



Get to work late. Instant Message at least two of your friends right away to help ease the transition from glamorous writer girl rushing down the street with her underwear showing to tech editor drone. Look for e-mail from your agent praising your latest chapters. Don't find it. Look for e-mail from the Charming Canadian, who won't have sent you any because he's been spending all his time in Harborview hospital where The Other Girl is in a full body cast (what, no sex for another year?! Too BAD!) from that ice ax injury she got on Mt. Rainier.



In between doing actual job, juggle e-mail from a variety of suitors, and make three dates in the next five days. Instant message more friends, one of whom tells you you need to join Daters Anonymous.



Rush back out to catch bus for date with - ack! I don't have an acronym for this one yet! - the funny, rich, ex-Company man, who is actually a reasonable age and seems to like you and who has invited you out for a second date after your first one last week.



Hope you run into the Captain on the bus so he can drool over your tan legs in your tiny skirt (that will not be riding too high this time because you are leaving all that CRAP behind in your office), while you blithely ignore him and listen to Air Supply on your mp3 player and then whoosh off the bus to your date.



Must go catch bus now!