Midnight oil spill.

About this time of year is when I get to enjoy some quality jet lag.  It's also the season for obsessive thoughts.  Combine those two things, and you've got yourself a truly magical cocktail!  Suddenly wide awake at 2:00 AM apropos of nothing?  Splendid!  Let's take this opportunity to ruminate on everything!

You know that thing you forgot seventeen years ago at a time when it was really, really important?  Well, you're god damn well gonna remember it now!

You recall that time you were talking some long, tall shit to your ex while you were completely hammered?  Of course you don't!  But you sure as hell remember everyone telling you about it the next day!  Enjoy!

Oh, about those inappropriate feelings for your coworker... well, we're just gonna throw some neurotransmitter kerosene all over that shit.  It'll drive you right to distraction!  And we're gonna make sure that you feel guilty as hell for even having those feelings!

Hey, remember that man you shot in Reno?  Just to watch him die?  No?

You know that graduate degree you've almost completed?  In education?  Don't forget: you still can't spell "necessary" on the first try!

Do you remember what you have to do tomorrow?  Not so much?  Great!  You aren't going to, either!

The foregoing are just hypothetical examples, mind you.  Well, that "necessary" thing is all the way true.  But I never shot a man in Reno.  I stabbed that fucker... with a herring.  Johnny Cash never shot a man in Reno either.  Nevertheless, I have my own sundry parade of gnarly, cracked-out beavers gnawing away at the log I'm supposed to be sawing peacefully.

I don't relish being alone in the dark.  Granted, there is another human sleeping next to me.  But I can't very well be waking my dear housemate to chase away my trite demons.  As H.P. Lovecraft states it so eloquently in his 1924 story The Shunned House: "one who sits by a sleeper is indeed alone; perhaps more alone than he can realize."  Right now, it's my brain vs. the world.  Well, actually, it's more like my brain vs. itself.  Either way, we're fresh out of sheep so let's count failures instead!  This lifetime of unlovely memories will be our wallpaper in hell.  All the more reason to stop kicking puppies* for yuks.

*The author would like to stress that no puppies were actually kicked during the writing of this blog.