As is true for many writers, many of my friends are also writers. This makes sense to me; we live semiprecariously, only sometimes with health and dental insurance, only sometimes knowing where we’ll be next year, in which city, working what job, all so we can center our respective writing practices, our creative lives. I talk often on the phone with these friends; we commiserate over the difficulties of this lifestyle, and we gossip, talk through the personal and creative challenges of the moment. One such friend, J, stayed with me for a stretch of days in Brooklyn, in the studio—the terrarium—I share with my partner. Our conversation streamed over the course of almost a week; we paused for sleep, picking back up in the morning; we paused when I left to teach and when he left to work in the nearby coffee shop on the corner, then we dipped back into the stream when we came back together for lunch or dinner.