I think I might be addicted to coffee, as opposed to merely very very fond of it. Lately I have been getting a cup every single morning at work and today, when I went off to the museum without first imbibing, a nasty headache developed later in the afternoon that would not be banished by a certain pair of baby blue tablets dissolving into my blood. As addictions go, it’s at least not a particularly expensive one — but I am wary of someday falling prey to the dreadful sounding “rebound headache,” when caffeine no longer serves to keep at bay the boa constrictor that sometimes winds itself around my skull.

I have snakes on my mind, because today I had such a lovely 15 minutes with the hognosed snake — I can’t tell you. I’ve gotten very comfortable handling him, and it is such a pleasant feeling to have a warm, smooth, slithering creature winding itself about your hands and forearms, tightening gently to keep itself from falling, raising a curious head to taste the air around your fingers, sliding over your wrist like a friend. I’m quite sure the hognosed snake would rather be somewhere else, possibly dining on a toad, during our little sessions together — but for me it is a rare brush with a different kind of life, a very vital sort of life that doesn’t have all the boring, annoying human apparel laid over it — life distilled to sensation, impulse, and reaction. Holding that animal makes me feel connected to the old earth it ought to be gliding over; its body touching mine, I feel like a time-traveler. And I feel filled with a thousand thousand questions.