Everybody’s got a fix. I have a few. Some are well-revealed already.

Smoking. It’s my guiltiest fix. I’m thinking about giving it up publicly and writing through the withdrawal. But not yet. Talking about and thinking about quitting always makes me want a drag. Coffee, even when I’m not nearly tired. It’s my comfort food. Well, it’s nearly food. Hot baths in the middle of the night.

Writing. Dancing in my living room with my eyes closed. Walking Murphy. Playing hide and seek in the apartment with Murph. Playing tug 双 war with Barney with Murphy. Everything with Murph.

For relaxing, my cleaning frenzies. A photograph I’m really happy with. Writing letters to friends. Painting, which I don’t do nearly enough. I lose myself in the colors, in the brushstrokes, in the composition, in the smell of oil paints. Modeling in clay. I love the smell of clay. I love the feel of clay even though it sucks the moisture out of your hands like nothing I’ve ever seen.

A nap in the rain. Sometimes I hope that the rain will come down, just so I can take my favorite kind of nap. The smell of clean sheets. The smell of summer rain on the street. When I have insomnia and I can’t sleep, sitting on the floor in front of the couch, Murphy beside me, watching season one of 24. It’s art. Or Office Space. Perhaps it’s not exactly art but it has some of the best lines ever.

Reading some of my poems. They are postcards from my past. Getting published. It’s food for my vain and insatiable ego.

Sour Skittles. Twizzler Sourz. A&W Onion Rings.

Reading in bed. All night, if I’m lucky. Those nights that I’m up all night, the fifteen minutes of pre-dawn, where the sun hasn’t quite accomplished the horizon but the sky brightens.

SS