Experiencing Technical Difficulties

If there’s a better, more efficient way to go through life than the way I have been going through life for the past few days, I frankly cannot imagine it. Here are just a few little snippets:

-I hardly ever sleep at all anymore, so during those special times when the sky goes all darky dark and normal people engage in what I assume must be very pleasant REM cycles, I lie in the dark and stare at the wall. After awhile, I turn and stare at my desk. Then when that gets boring, I turn and stare at the wall some more. In the meantime, thoughts are volleying through my head at an absolutely unbelievable speed. It’s fucking Wimbledon in there, people. This goes on for hours and hours and hours and then suddenly it’s time to get up. My functionality decreases by about half every time this happens, and it’s been going on for something like a straight week.

-During the day—ah, yes, the day, right after the night during which ordinary people enjoyed a refreshing rest and not a bout with insomnia that would normally require a cause of not less than five consecutive Stephen King movies—my brain periodically shuts down. Really. I can hear it. Whirr. Silence. Dark. Blank. No brain activity. Usually this happens at a really great time, like when I’m in the middle of writing a column that’s due in an hour, or paying bills, or having a conversation with my boss.

-My frustration is becoming a physical being. I call him Tony. He’s big, strong, well able to overtake other, less endowed mental characteristics like “organized” and “pragmatic” and “not an alcoholic.” Tony is argumentative and selfish, constantly wanting all of my attention for himself. And he gets it, too, because he gave “emotional control” a sound beating last week and I haven’t seen it since.

-I just started dating a fantastic person who, like me, is in the process of losing his mind due to titanic levels of personal stress. I’m pretty sure that’s why we’re so happy. If becoming insane together isn’t romantic, then I would like to know what is.

-Running is the only way I can relax at all right now. That would be fine, except for two things. It is getting darker earlier, so even if I go running the second I arrive home, the sky grows dim around me in a matter of minutes, almost like God is screwing with the stage lights. I wouldn’t mind running in the dark, only I keep having this vision of myself getting a) shot in a drive-by, b) mugged… of my iPod (seriously, there must be better targets out there), or c) killed with a meat cleaver and hacked into thousands of bite-size pieces for the millions and millions of dogs I already have to accommodate during my run, inasmuch as they refuse to get out of my way even when I’m coming right at them and they can obviously see me. And God help me if I kick any of them. Not that I have. (More than once, that is. Look, it was an accident, lady. Let it go.) In other words, they are already in my way and messing up my momentum and I really don’t see why I should also have to be their dinner. All of this is more likely to happen after dark, when the people who might come to my aid are engaging in what I assume must be very pleasant REM cycles.

Oh yeah, the other thing: in my admirable quest to find “The Zone,” attainable only by running far and fast and past one’s dinnertime, I have torn blisters into my feet the size of potholes. Running is less enjoyable with bloody socks, for the record, but more fragrant.