String man.

I need to write. Coffee was drunk, Sula and Lo and I wailed into each other at a round table heavy with computers and coffee and leather and paperwork. We are only in our twenties and yet we wail like fifty year olds. I love it and them. We met on a whim (the only way we meet) and in between all the griping and hand flailing and guilty glances at afternoon sun coming in through the window reminding us all where we should be, we watched each other as time slithered away like a snake in the grass. Strings of New York, Montreal, the East, the West, Barcelona, Berlin. Where will we land? It is only starting to dawn upon me that life is a series of take offs and landings (thanks for that old Jenny Lewis). But really, I am either here, or there, or in midair. Life is the strangest.

Today I woke under one hundred layers, wearing clothes in bed for the first time in a long time, and got up once to put on Wire on vinyl, and rose once more to flip the record. I want someone to do that for me. For the rest of my life, I want someone to do that for me. As obvious, I am a complete mess and avoiding the studio like the plague. Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock. Time slipping, I lay in bed with ankles barely grazed, wrists hardly touched, the back of the neck completely abandoned. I am thinking of my sister who is set to be married to her man. They are in love. He flew around the entire world to take a knee in sinking sand to tell her with a ring. She said yes. I said "yesssssssss" into the phone and I hope she heard my happiness through the crackle pop of time-change translation. There are one million strings in my head presenting themselves like a fistful of offerings clasped tight. Loose ends ready to be plucked from the bunch by pincher fingers. You know when you draw strings to make a choice? This is how I feel. I am also filled with piss and vinegar and fire and squirrels.

I NEED TO GET THIS BEAST INTO THE MAIL. I think I just needed to write down my state: I am a lunatic.

Two people sit beside me slipping in and out of French and English and I cannot help but think of one of the strings of potential dangling patiently in and amongst all the rest. The string that stands for an awkward (but welcomed awkward) new French life, a challenging Autumn, an exciting Winter. Will I stay or will I go? Will I ever learn to dip in and out of two languages in between sips of coffee? I hope so.

Too many strings today. Speaking of which, I am ready to go back to the studio now to print strings on my brown package soon to be home to all of the work that I am sick of inspecting. A brown paper package wrapped up in string.

This is nonsensical. I am going home right now, I am going to clean up the last of last night, fold the hundred blankets, straighten the flyaways, put on some tea and dance like a maniac while Wire plays at top volume.

Somewhere, someone is flipping the record for their girl. Not today Madge, not today.

That's okay. With wrists untouched, with the back of the neck left wanting, with a too-long body and not long enough hair, with a wild spirit and a conflicted heart, I am going to finish.

But for now, I will simply exist untouched.