It’s been a long time since I wrote anything. That feels weird to say out loud. But I’m 37 now, and despite this luscious head of hair I’ve maintained (and feel an unjustified pride in, like I did something to earn it), despite my youthful features and lithe yoga body (which I did earn), I am in fact approaching 40. What does that mean for you? Probably nothing. You aren’t me. If I’m lucky it means that stark number carries weight, like there is no way one could live most of four decades and not have acquired some sort of wisdom. I’m not sure about that. “I would like you to take me seriously,” I seem to be saying. “I’m not sure why you would, since you don’t know me and nobody has recommended me to you, but maybe you can relate to a dawning awareness of mortality? Maybe gravitas is a form of accumulated interest, born of the principal investment of time? Maybe this accretion is why people buy and read and enjoy books?” I don’t want it to mean any of that. What I really want it to mean is that we are friends. I want to be embarrassingly earnest, to look you in the eyes, see you in your sadness and your sacred little joys, and in sharing mine in return bring comfort to us both. I want to touch and be touched, because I am getting older, and I’ve learned the wisdom that time is short and other humans are all we have. I also want to make some money before I am actually old, and poor, and sick. So if you could pay me some money for this, this touching you didn’t ask for, I would appreciate it.

Shit.

I’ve ruined it again.

Now don’t blame me, it’s not my fault, I never wanted to sell art. This is global capitalism’s fault, that rocket of human misery our species is riding straight into the sun. And yes, obviously do blame me, because I am an idiot and an asshole, sometimes, like everyone, who ruins things with good intentions and doesn’t know how to navigate a world of exchange where money is an end unto itself and people commodities to be networked and utilized. What I wanted from writing when I was a lonely adolescent, and what I want for you and from you, now, hasn’t changed: I crave connection. I’d like to touch you, and be touched by you, in a way that is neither necessarily physical nor financially remunerative. Sometimes I think it happens simply as a by-product. There’s no real point to this effort—there’s no “real point” to any of it. Life just is, and then it isn’t. But I think the effort alone has to mean something. If nothing else, failure is interesting. And if I try to honestly spill this out in words, if I push the fear of failure away and really try, maybe something will happen, some alchemy I don’t understand can take place in this labyrinthine mess of language and spilled half-thoughts, this endless mumbling ramble—maybe you can get to know me a little, and if I’m very good, and very lucky, maybe you can feel a little known by me in return. The takeaway is this: I’m happy you’re here with me. I’m aging, and scared, and beautiful, and absurd, and that’s something you and I have in common. Hello, you. We’re practically touching right now. I hope that’s okay.