Kara's legs awkwardly folded up into the faux leather rolling chair like a stuffed animal with gangly limbs humorously placed on furniture. Her head wrested on a grubby hand complete with chipped nail polish as she stared slack-jawed into the monitor in front of her.
"AND THAT'S WHEN I DECIDED TO QUIT MY JOB SELLING WOMEN'S SHOES, AND MAKE YOUTUBE VIDEOS ONCE A DAY, EVERY DAY, FOR FOREVER. THAT'S HOW I FOUND--AND EXECUTED--MY DESTINY. Namaste."
When did inner-work become so loud and manic?
Kara clicked out of the Tab titled--in all capital letters: CHANGE YOUR LIFE INSTANTLY BY DOING THIS ONE SIMPLE THING EVERY DAY. Her fingers absentmindedly ran the length of her jaw, stopping to pick at any bumps on her skin.
DING!
Kara glanced over to her phone, to a notification that read, "Aileen Loved 'I can swing by your place tomorrow after I leave the office.'"
Cool. She ran her thumb across the screen and tapped around until she was three photos deep into a social media feed. She had no clue how she arrived there, and no ability to recall what she had just seen. Repulsed at her inability to think twice about opening an Application like a chain smoker tapping a pack of cigarettes, she chucked her phone across the room to her bed. It missed.
Fuck. Kara's eyes were then met with the taunting quote on her notebook:
"I nearly always write just as I nearly always breathe." - John Steinbeck
A tinge of guilt settled in, she hadn't even sat down with her "Morning Pages," an exercise in writing and artistic meditation she had gleamed from the first sixteen pages of a book on "honing your creative spirit!" A book she had also given up on after said sixteen pages.
John Steinbeck was pretty hot. Kara felt another pang of guilt and quickly typed into the nearest search engine, "Did John Steinbeck attack any women?" A quick scroll through the snippets of articles written on the late author made note that the answer to Kara's question could have easily been deduced had she done any of the course reading. She clicked out of the search to avoid a run in with mild anxiety.
"Inconsistency is the only consistent thing." Kara remembered this quote from the technological hub--dare she say salon--of her teen years: AOL Instant Messenger. More specifically, as the Away Message of a girl two years her senior and ten fold her idol. Tall, quietly confident, in a relationship with someone equally as attractive. But the most alluring part about Kylie was the praise she received from every faculty member even orbiting the English Department. Every class Kara had sat in had some piece of writing by Kylie being used as reference of what an "A+" paper looked like. The compliments spoken about her were the adolescent equivalent of buzzwords like "Up and Coming" or "Writers to Watch."
DING!
Kara was brought back to the present moment. She clicked to her email. No Unread Messages. She clicked to her second email. No Unread Messsages. Her Twitter. No Notifications.
That last tweet seriously didn't get anything? She expanded a dumb one liner comparing cardboard boxes to her absent sex life and tapped the simply designed Trash button.
She clicked to her bank account and scrolled through her most recent purchases.
"I SPENT HOW MUCH ON MY WEBSITE?!"
This would serve as the inspiration Kara needed to fulfill her dreams of becoming a writer.