The Last Two Weeks

Uncomfortable. More so than usual. Much more so.

Waking up is hard. Not as bad as going to sleep, but still not easy. The days go on and on, disconnected. A fog of term papers, test scores, and impending change. These things amplified by the cold. The cold. The cold. It gets through the lines of defense I invested in. The gloves, the jackets, the shirt, the shirt, and the other shirt. The hat. The moisture from my hands crystallizes in my gloves. Popping joints feel like surface ice run over by a semi.

How long can you stay awake in bed before the futility overcomes you? An hour, two, three, six? Tumbling like a weed. The fung shui of drifting off. North to south, east to west. Build a nest of blankets. The couch, the bed, the floor. None seem to work.

The paper to be written, the poem to be revised, the concept to memorize. Using you tube to watch the same episodes from the same sitcom from childhood. A kind of safety blanket at this dark hour.

The traffic lights are sentinels. Invested in keeping order where it isn't needed. So human. Red, yellow, green, yellow, red. A car hasn't been this way for an hour. Red, yellow, green. Sometimes a car pulls up to a red light. A brief pause to check for cops, then right on through. Red, yellow, green.

The closed signs buzz and it's deafening. It almost feels wrong to look through a shop's window. The tools and products laid out as their master demanded. Still, the quiet louder than the sign, each item stands, designed for people and only as they see fit.

Of course, the real temptation is to commit a crime. Just to break up the march of tedium. Nothing fancy. Smash a window, steal a statue, maybe turn every doorknob until one opens. Just to have a problem. A real genuine, tangible problem. Running from sirens, the thrill of being shot at. Never to be told. Just something between you, the victim and the police report.

There's no salvation in this scenario. Occupy yourself until the union opens. Sleep on a bench. Go to class with bleary vision to feign interest.

October was bizarre, November was a dirge. December, a time of purging through spiritual malaise and memories from summer with the pain filtered out.

Is this normal? Does that matter? The cigarette burns out and Phillip Roth loses my attention. It's too late to read and too early to sleep. I speculate on his college years. Did he all-nighter like this? Smoking and caffeinated until he was brilliant? Dehydrated more and more with each stroke on the typewriter.

I should've done a lot of things, I did do a few, none of them were me so I digress.