I am in Southwest D.C., lying in my girlfriend’s bed, and I want this moment to freeze and stay forever. I want this feeling to stop and hover, solid but malleable, so I can stretch it out like a tarp and wrap it up tight around my entire life.

I am just waking up from a nap on fresh cotton sheets and giant fluffy pillows, a nap wrapped in fresh green air lovingly kissed out from the hundreds of trees down here.

I love the smell of New York air — of dirty metal, concrete and a distant whiff of urine — but it’s not napping air.

I started this nap by lying very still and reading Stephen King’s Pet Sematary, a perfect horror novel that bounced right off of my sleeping face shortly after I got into the good part. It’s still here in bed for me, waiting for me to pick it up. I will, in a minute.

I can hear my girlfriend washing lettuce in the kitchen, spinning it in the spinner, scraping carrots for lunch. She set some lamb burgers out to to thaw, and they’re going to be served pink and warm in the middle, feta chunks all runny. Mine will come with a few chipotle peppers and adobo sauce from a can she keeps in her fridge just for when I am in town.

The sound of a piledriver at a construction site and a baseball game are all blending together in the distance, blurring into D.C. traffic’s ambient white noise. Birds are chirping, higher up in the mix.

Twenty-four hours ago I finished my last day at my old job. There were farewell cupcakes, and it didn’t feel awkward or forced. I’m starting a new job on May 5th. It’ll have more responsibility, more money, more neckties. It’s a great opportunity and a huge jump. But I’ll miss working with a really close friend, and unlike 99 percent of any work force in all of human history, I’ll miss my boss.

Twelve hours ago, I left a party at my former bandmates’ house. Their baby slept in the bedroom while we drank bourbon, talked about rock music and the band we could’ve been.

And in twenty-four hours, I’m going to get on a slow train to Norfolk and spend a week with my family. On that train, I am going to drink some beer and eat the nasty Amtrak sandwiches that only I love and watch The Wire for hours and hours. And in Norfolk, nobody’s any sicker than they were, nobody’s dead, and for once in the past few years, I don’t have to telecommute.

Me and my sister are gonna play like it’s 1995 all over again: she is going to skip work and we will drive to the beach together, listening to the Wu-Tang clan and that first Smashing Pumpkins record, just talking shit and carrying on.

But now I’m fully awake and my girlfriend is running the vacuum. We have to get some laundry and cook that lunch. I’d like to stay in this bed on top of the clean sheets forever, but my bladder is a fat dog with a leash in its mouth, whining like hell.

This bead on the string is moving past, slipping out of my grip and all I can do to keep it is write it down and tell it. Time to let it go, let some more pretty beads fall into my hand for a little while.