I just feel like words.

It’s like a craving for chocolate, or seaweed, or popcorn after walking past the movie theater, catching the soft edge of its salt and oil smog. The warmth of that smell is an edible thing. A flavorful thing. You, almost, could be satisfied just to pause there indefinitely. Drinking in the aroma. Satisfying your soul with it.

But then, of course, you’d remember that the smell is not the popcorn. Your heart would break over the cruelty of a world that could tantalize you with such wonders and yet deny you even the smallest claim to them. And you would have to choose: withdraw or enter?

Thus I stand with words right now. They follow me around at work; creeping into my notes, tripping around the edges of my tongue, and tangling with my thoughts until I can hardly concentrate. The warm weather is not helping. Today was so bright and green, it felt like the 15th day of Spring instead of the beginning of True Winter. Far be it from me to complain though, I like all days, and it is only fair winter has its cold ones to balance out the heat we get in August. Still, the cold has had a bite this year. A vampiric bite that clamps in and refuses to let go, draining you of all healthy marrow and replacing it with brittle steel. You can not merely bundle up more if you wish to defeat it. You must employ outside aid against this foe. Hot drink by your hand (properly capped, of course) and the oldest, heaviest, warmest laptop you can find to balance on your knees.

Between the gothic cold and the false spring, my mind has been all a buzz, in a true excess of words, and so I have done some creating to purge them out. I got an excellent dumpling book for Christmas, and crimped my first batch with surprising ease – although my arms were sore for the next few days. Pathetic. I have ordered my garden plans, and my garden seeds. I have started another sewing project to add to all the other ones I have languishing untouched in my little green room. And I have tried instagram.

The trouble started when I realized I couldn’t change my language. My browser is in Japanese and, sometimes, sites, in an attempt to be helpful, will mimic that. Most of them are thoughtful enough to provide a handy language picker in their footer for when things are Not What They Seem. Not instagram. But then, it is a picture site, so words aren’t really necessary. I set it up, followed a few people, uploaded a profile picture, and then put the app on my phone. Yes, the app annoyed me pretty instantly, but only with all the little-normal things that are assumed nowadays. It wasn’t until it stopped letting me use the app without a phone number that I gave up and uninstalled it. Then I un-gave up and went back to my computer . . . . and found that my account no longer existed.

True Story.

I probably could have summed that whole debacle up with a gloomy photo of the login page saying, in red Japanese, that my username wasn’t in their system, but the words would not have it. Paint with us, they almost screamed.

And so, here I am, making another practice sketch. Letting my words play here and there across the page. Maybe here is not a place I can stay in everyday – maybe too much page is as bad for a person’s soul as too much popcorn is for the stomach – but as long as the words whisper to me amidst the silent days, here is where I will be.