In Plato’s Phaedo, Socrates likens pleasure and pain to nails binding the soul to the body, resulting in a heavy, stained, monstrous identity, ultimately incapable of achieving the spiritual transcendence due to a true philosopher. Neon Daze is a raw record of the days when my mind dissolved into my body, or rather into my son’s brand new body. The footnotes, added a year later, attempt to explain the struggle and shame of articulating such bodily thoughts verbally. Neon Daze will be published by Victoria University Press, Wellington, in November 2019.