SIMON MOTH ATE 15 COOKIES.
I record this fact in my Barbie pink, Mead Five Star notebook. It is 8:30pm on a Wednesday and week 1 of the writer’s workshop in which I’m enrolled in as part of a New Year’s Resolution. I am sitting at a long, black Parson’s table with 11 other Personal Essay workshop participants, and I have been watching—discreetly through squinty-eyed side glances—the white-haired, bespectacled physicist to my right, quietly devour a formidable mound of delicate wafers. Deftly, steadily, Simon’s liver-spotted fingers hopscotch through the Pepperidge Farm sampler provided by our instructor for snacking; lacy rounds, buttery bars, twin crisps with velvet ribbons of decadent chocolate sandwiched between—none are safe from Simon’s eager maw.

(Photo credit: mconnors@MorgueFile)
And I’m a little worried. Should someone his age (what is he, 75, 80, 89?) be eating sweets with reckless abandon? What if he has diabetes like my grandma? What if those delicious little cookies that Simon’s fixedly putting to his papery lips are nothing but delectable death rockets primed to explode his blood glucose levels to atmospheric heights? What if all that sugar sends Simon flying, on one last trip through the strawberry fields of sweet crystalline bliss, only to plunge him into the perilous depths of a cookie-induced coma? What then? I can all but see the tombstone:
–Here lies Simon. He tasted of death; it smacked strongly of store-bought Milanos. R.I.P.
I unlock my tractor-beam gaze from Simon’s impressive confetti of crumbs long enough to jot in my notebook–it’s spiral wire curling through the perforated spine of 100 wide-ruled pages—a thought for further consideration:
“Is it wrong to kill your classmate,” I write, “before he’s even critiqued your work?”
…
I hold that thought. Something’s going on at the head of the table.
—-
She’s smiling as she speaks. Our instructor, Irene, her hair, a milk chocolate drape, is worn straight and long and frames her smallish porcelain face. Her cardigan is steely gray, her jewelry dramatic. From behind metal frames, brown eyes blink and sparkle. She is artsy, and young (probably my age), and already so accomplished. She’s finishing up her novel, she tells us. A literary journal is going to publish her essay in the spring, she says.
Because someone asks, Irene is telling us about the difference between memoir and personal essay. “Personal essay,” Irene informs us, “is a slice of life, usually exploring a question of what interests or troubles you.” The story length is relatively short, she says, so the audience should know why time’s spent on details. When someone asks about essay length, how long our pieces for class should be, Irene says thoughtfully, “I don’t know … I think 15 pages, double-spaced is the sweet spot.”
15 pages?! I scream silently in italics. Is she insane?
As a blogger, my goal is to condense and compress, to never exceed two pages per post. For me, 15 feels impossible, insurmountable, like climbing Mount Everest via Microsoft Word.
My stomach plunges and I feel nauseous. Pinpricks of sweat explode in my armpits. My panic is white hot.
Taking a page from Simon Moth’s book, I crabwalk my fingers toward the cookie platter. I am an emotional eater and right now that buttery square can’t make it into my grip fast enough. The middle of my confection of choice? It’s loaded with raspberry jam. When I bite in, I notice the filling quivers a little; it’s shaky inside, just like me.
On the drive home, I keep one hand on the wheel, the other wipes cookie dust from my blouse. Well that was an experience, I think. As the InPrint house—and Simon and Irene and 12 strangers and 15 nerve-wracking pages and one very strange night—fades behind the glare of my red taillights, I wonder if I’ll ever go back.
Because right now? I’m highly uncertain.

(Photo credit: Robert S. Donovan@Flickr)

















