the nonstop sink.

I’ve had stuff and words swimming in my mind all day.

Today, I saw:

A boy with faded purple hair, like he wanted to get back blonde but ran out of bleach; a boy with one painted fingernail—one of those metallic-y light pearl colors, as if he thought he could get away with it; a boy in a suit pick of a glob of snow in his bare hands and rub it all over them; two girls with really cool watches (I’ve been in search!); an old friend who would have been happy to talk had she seen me, but for some reason I just walked by; a friend of Jared’s from home who looked and me and talked to me but didn’t really see me—didn’t recognize me, I guess; a girl who smelled like stale cheese and faded laundry; a boy who had a laugh like a vampire, or possibly a vampirical Santa Claus; and, three girls who washed their hands in the sink that wouldn’t stop running, but did nothing about it. I probably wouldn’t have done something about it, either, girls. Except that today is a stuff-and-words-swimming-around day, and this mindset makes me do weird things like feel obligated to fix the sink but undesirous (and I know that’s not a word, whatever.) to talk to a friend.

I didn’t really do anything miraculous about the nonstop sink—just told someone else to call a custodian.

We watched The Devil Wears Prada last night. You know the part where Andy answers her cell phone a million times instead of being with her dad, her friends, her boyfriend? Nate (boyfriend) says something to her: “The person whose phone calls you always take—that’s the relationship you’re in. I hope you two are very happy together.”

And it got me thinking, maybe I take stupid people’s calls too often. Like maybe Weird Sadness With No Name starts vibrating in my pocket and I interrupt my otherwise joyous existence to take the call. Or when Irritated For No Reason jingle jangles, I stop everything: SO SORRY! I HAVE TO GET THIS!

And WHY?

Last night I answered those calls, automatically, seamlessly, almost by accident, and decided to write. Something surfaced that I had no idea I was still problematizing (again, not a word! I KNOW!). I wrote a simple page about the crap and felt better. In trying to transfer those mysterious, wispy feelings to somewhere outside of my brain they were transformed, clarified, deepened—I got to the bottom of it. I got to write in clear words for only me to see. It felt good, like how you feel after you’ve thrown up when you’re terribly sick. Sorry to be gross.

My finals are all through and I’m about to be extremely un-busy for the next few weeks. My crazed mind knows this is coming and is starting to throw a fit, curl up in a little ball, beg, no, no, please! I don’t want to face all my demons! It worked very well focusing only on music, which you would think is emotionally revealing and all but it’s easier to hide inside it than anything else.

It’s easier to hide than anything else.

And yet you have to emerge, purple hair or no, and decide if you’re going to really see people, or just notice their stale cheesy smell.