Here I am, trying to write in a restaurant again, to no avail. In the last 20 minutes, not a single idea has entered my head. This is usually a sign that the mind is worried, or tired, or cramping, or blank. The solution is to sink further into your body. So here's what my body knows: the smell of bacon is a good thing. The wooden tabletop under my forearm feels smooth and unshakeable, with no sticky residue of jam or salsa. Three women's voices, one high, two lower, are mingling with the rumble of several tenors and baritones — maybe, I can't tell, a bass. A little laughter, Simon and Garfunkel, sharp "Ha!" from the caustic waiter — a man whose clever play with language and unremitting good humor are what draw me back to this particular place. Muted light from a gray morning softens the plate glass windows. Hot air wafts up through a heater vent and brushes past my anklebone on its way to the ceiling.

Now that my body is located in space, my mind is noticing that one of our town's aging Lotharios has just sat down with a much-younger, sweet-faced woman who might be a musician — I can't remember. Over by the window, a guy whose 6th-grade kid I taught poetry is frowning at his New York Times.

The thing about minds is that they're built to look for connection and pattern, to draw conclusions and establish a certain kind of order. My mind has already created a torrid affaire between the musician and the Lothario, with the drama of their age difference factored in. It's speculating that the financial page of the New York Times is causing that frown, probably this guy's remaining dot-com stocks are taking a beating and he's figuring out how much of his son's college tuition just went down the drain. And the waiter is definitely in love with that new bus-girl — either despite or because of the ring through her lower lip, I can't quite tell.

You'll notice my thoughts trending toward the overlarge, the dramatic, inventing not harmony but sexual disaster and financial ruin. This is why minds are dangerous and why writing fiction is so much fun. But it's not really fair to the people involved, so let's change direction. Imagine our Lothario as a middle-aged innocent, cursed by a handsome face. He's giving his daughter advice about probable gas mileage on used cars. The frown aimed at the Times has to do with a lapse in the spelling of some obscure town in New Jersey; the kid's college fund is safe.

My body relaxes a little, and settles against the curved wooden slats of the chair. My mind casts its wide net elsewhere for the solace of pattern and order, finding it in stacked white plates, a mug filled with spoons, and six syrup bottles arrayed on a counter beside nine boxes of Thomas's English Muffins. Everything is in its place. Nobody's reputation is in tatters here this morning. All is well. And while you weren't looking, I did do some writing.