Spending all my hours indoors means no birds, no stars, no clouds. I can't remember the last time I looked at a tree, really looked at it, all the leaves or the lack of it, the branches clattering in the sky.

Everyday I read about spaces that don't exist, spaces people devote considerable time and effort into constructing, but never fully realizing, so much blood and oil and tears. I read and think about these spaces in a cubbyhole littered with coffee cups and notecards, with pen marks up and down my arms and myself dripping Post-its everywhere.

I am turning into a strange beast in academia-land, wide-eyed, sniffling, tangled-haired, wondering what would trees look like in these places that don't exist.

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