Under my bed there is a shoebox, and in that shoebox there is an incredible tangle of cables. I have tried my best, numerous times, with varying methods to sort them. I have used velcro and rubber bands, I have spun them and tied them. Invariably they end up a pit of snakes, a tangle of black, slightly sticky due to the floors they have swept over time.

These connections are impossibly important and varied in length, quality, abilities and, naturally, functionality. Towards the bottom there are broken cables from years past--my first 10' cable that hooked up an Epiphone SG to a tiny amp, the connection frayed and needing to be re-soldered, et al. I keep them together, mixed, ultimately making every trip to the shoebox more challenging, but it seems unfair to be so instinctively qualitative about something so scientific and yet so clandestine.

I would rather make my life more challenging than clean out the even the broken pieces of the things that got me here. And I think that's okay.

Some days it's just hard not to feel tangled.