This year's achievements (thus far):

-Drinking gallons of tea.

-Surviving a hurricane and a blizzard, both with Internet still in tact.

-Watching the sunrise at Montauk the day after the apocalypse.

-Reading all of the Harry Potter books and seeing most of the movies (because really, what was the point of book two?).

-Watching all of Game of Thrones, though I've yet to see a particular wedding. This is intentional. Oh, my Starks.

-Making new friends, yay!

-Living off of a steady diet of Clif bars, rotisserie chicken, salad, noodles, and iced chai.

-Navigating the subways solo.

-Booking an impromptu plane ticket to New Mexico four days in advance.

-Surviving 13.1 miles and living to tell the tale!

-Obtaining an agent!

-Coaching more state and regional champions, what what.

-Participating in/hosting a pool party.

-Learning how to be an organized, less-hoarding human (still a work in progress).

-Recreationally waking up at hours in the single digits.

-Successfully ordering clothing off of the Internet.

-Getting published on a candy cigarette box.

And

-Paying my bills like a Lannister.

Down in Africa

Instead of insects, I like to pretend that the beating of wings against the window screen belongs to rain.

...

(And crikey, I've owned a smartphone for a year today!)

This is one of those nights where

if my mind's a highway, then you can count on me driving down it. Aimless but moving.

Nightlock, nightlock, nightlock

As soon as we're done with one apparatus, there's a six-year-old who always, without fail, asks where we're going next. Sure, they all want to know. But she's especially persistent.

"Why?" I asked her.

She rolled her eyes in her six-year-old way. "I need to know things."

I feel you, kid. It's all up in the air right now -- where will I be living? With whom? Where should I be living? What am I working toward? What's the right move? I'm more on my way as a writer than I was last year at this time, certainly. But as a physical entity, I worry about retrograde motion. 

Can I has home, plz?

barefoot blue jean nights

As I backed out of the driveway under a humid night sky, I missed my old car. Bold red exterior, black fading to gray on the inside. Heavy on the gas pedal, light on the modern technology, slow to cool or heat when the weather was the opposite outside. We did all right by each other, driving over those bridges and back roads. You know what I mean. The sort of places that understand you.

N.

When you’re standing on the subway platform at 5:47 in the morning, surrounded by other people in numbers and neon shirts, the train comes in on the tracks across from yours. Through the windows, you see people with places to go, even this early on a Saturday, in clothing that covers all of their limbs. Reading newspapers. Taking naps. Maybe still drunk. Maybe wishing to be drunk.

You’re not nervous. Not yet. The train rolls past, still a novelty to you, country girl, and as the sparks strike against the track and the steady blue bleats against the tiled walls, you’re not sure which one is the lightning and which one is the thunder.

conquering the moon

My mind feels untethered today save one or two final strands still connected to earth. If you cut me loose, you’d find me drifting over the surface. Close enough to brush, but not close enough to keep me.

I wonder if I should make as many sweeping decisions as possible today. Take that Sisyphean boulder and knock it right off of the edge of eternity. See what happens next. 

Especially the constellations

I have lived in so many places the past few weeks. Months. Years. Mental relocations. Colorado winters, working those mountain roads, bending their curves to my will. New Mexico heat and red earth, a sea of slow time burning. Pennsylvania towns that make my alma mater’s home look downright thriving. Here, the sun dazzling that water and beckoning it up, up closer to that road.