At 7 AM, I press the snooze button and crush a pillow onto my head. I am not ready for the day to begin. Today will be long and exhausting and yikes I don’t even want to think about it.

At 7:30 I grudgingly get up and shower, eat some scambled eggs for breakfast, down a glass of cranberry juice and walk aeggs3.jpg few blocks to the Wood Street station to catch the Yellow Line. I read an article about the mayor meeting with the current co-presidents of Students for a Sustainable Pittsburgh. I get off the train at Forbes & Murray.

At 9 AM I walk in the front doors of the small but welcoming office of the Pittsburgh Women’s Foundation and do paperwork until 3. It’s electronic paperwork (which never fails to crack me up), but boring and tedious as always. Why did I major in English again? Why not computer science so I could work for one of the dozens of software development or Internet behemoths in the city? Why not business so I could work for one of the companies here who are big into telecommuting and encouraging success among women and minorities and community development?

3 o’clock rolls around and the five students in my afterschool program arrive. Shante shows me the latest story she wrote for her fifth grade English class – it has a big “A+” on the top and she thanks me for helping her get her ideas out on paper so she could write the story she really wanted to write. Madison pulls her notebook out of her book bag and tells me, brown eyes wider than plates, that today at recess she thought of a great play she could write and perform with her schoolmates. I work with Maria for half an hour on a new poem she’s writing for her mother’s birthday and when I walk away she’s still scribbling down notes and ideas. I am reminded for the millionth time of why I decided to major in English.

I walk back to the Forbes and Murray stop, swept along by the crowd of workers eager to get home and spend time with the people they love. I notice the mural on the wall celebrating the history and future of Squirrel Hill, all bright colors and smiling faces. I listen to the melodies wafting through the air from the violinist on the next level down. I squeeze into a train car and actually read the advertisements for once – a neighborhood festival in Homewood, a new restaurant in Uptown, a new citywide field hockey league is forming. I get off the train at Wood Street again and ride the elevator up to our cozy apartment where I’m greeted by the cats. Frank’s already making dinner and it smells delicious. I can’t wait to dig in.