4 back to the future

i feel like i'm back. which sounds preposterous, i know, because technically i've been back for two full weeks tomorrow. but i don't mean back in england. what i mean is that, after a shaky year, 365 days spent trying to learn how to function in a foreign country, learning how to live with the various ways in which i broke my own heart in leaving, and staring down the fact that i have now irrevocably chosen to do this, this slightly loon thing at the heart of which is the writing of a book i'm still not 100% sure i have the nerve/guts/talent/ability to write in such a way that the words i put on the page for you will mirror the story that has existed in my head all along. it was a long year. with a lot of this...

and this... 

and even, at times, this...

so that happened. but it feels like a page has turned. like i'm back. like i'm here. it's as though in the last two weeks, with this last supervision, a new plan has fallen into place and, after a year of so much slipperiness, the next five months look crystal clear. not just that, they look doable. maybe even triumphable.

and so I AM HERE. in london. and it feels just like tonya landing her triple axel...

the goal then is to survive the process of upgrading, blaze into boston in may with a guerilla warfare approach to getting jackie published, score a certain interview with a certain someone in new york, and then wind up the month- and the age of 32- in paris with the best falafel in the whole fucking world.

that is the plan. let's do this. and let's call it: five months to falafel.