  Sleep tonight is simply not forthcoming.  I can’ t do it,  don’ t know why.  I’
m not even tired.  It’ s a stark and frightening contrast to the vast amount of sleep I’ ve been getting lately.  This weekend has spanned the bizarre.  I have discovered perhaps the weirdest situation I’
ve ever encountered,  to wake up in a drunken near- stupor only to discover my little concrete reinforced hole in the wall room is completely dark and the entire world is still,  silent.  Waking up drunk and disoriented,  sweating to the bone,
 in the middle of an incredibly lengthy power outage is harrowing experience,  and an incredibly harrowing and humanizing experience,  especially when paired with the task of attempting to hold yourself upright with one hand on a moving door,  while the other is blindly fumbling for a light switch,  failing to realize why the lights won’ t come on and hoping that whatever is forcing its way up from your stomach is landing somewhere within the vicinity of the toilet.
 But that’ s not the greatest of my news.  My computer is at least once again in a state of connected success.  Thanks to the help of a friend,  the process of elimination,  and the ability of Windows XP to allow another user to control your machine regardless of distance.
 So I felt better about that.  I woke up this morning hungover,  smelling horribly,  and clearly able to point out just when last night shifted from writing some marvelous stuff for my second novel into a drunken escapade that involved me killing the last third of a bottle of bourbon and decimating a pack of smokes in something close to two hours.  Dan woke me up Monday morning,  thankfully a holiday,
 and we ended up going out to get something to eat,  the first for either of us,  sometime around two.  Just prior to going out,  I cranked out this poem,  Post-
Bohemian Experience Separation Anxiety I sat inside today.  The lights were off,  The stereo was a dull roar.  Poetry in lyrical form did its best To keep the party going.  And me,  I just wondered,
 “ How bad will the sunlight be?  It’ s our enemy.  You know that,  right?
 The sun refuses to hide the lies,  That liquor and smoke Really do make real boys Out of wooden dummies.  And daylight truly was an enemy,  and still is,  as I’ m getting myself ready to transition back to a nocturnal existence.
 I don’ t know why,  I do my best work at night,  after the day has already assailed me.  Around 14 months ago,  I was staying at my parent’
s house in scenic and oh so quaintly rustic Lancaster Pennsylvania,  the Amish capital of the world.  I discovered my pattern then,  between avoiding contact with K,  I’ d wake up around one or so,
 lift weight,  tune into MSNBC,  track the market until close,  eat dinner with the family,  settle in front of the television,  start drinking,
 around eleven or so I’ d start on the liquor,  and make my way to the computer.  I’ d write for hours,  go to bed sometime close to when the sun was coming up,
 and get up around one or so to do the whole thing over again.  I knocked out an entire screenplay in three weeks this way.  I’ m sure I could have done it sooner if a)  there was more liquor in the house and b)  I was allowed to smoke in my room.
 But,  they were the most favorable circumstances I’ ve yet encountered for writing,  and because that is the path that I’ m embarking on in just a few short days,  I seem to be readying myself to return to them.
 Because I work in this manner,  sunlight is the enemy.  Dan and I disappeared all the way to Round Rock so that we could go to Barnes and Nobel.  We drove for over an hour just to go to a bookstore.  That’ s the way things are done in Texas.
 The gloves were off for both of us.  No one was safe today.  It’ s as if we’ ve declared war on the entire rest of the world.  Not that we’
re outwardly rude,  but that we have little to no care for things that don’ t make sense to us.  I haven’ t been this way for a very long time.  We raised a good bit of hell today in a Walmart.
 We were a ruckus with a shopping cart as I picked out groceries.  I’ m not going to be able to eat the mess hall for much longer,  not that I do now,  but I need to have food in the room.  N’
s coming down tomorrow.  It’ ll be the first time I’ ve seen her since last May when I made a stop up at West Point to drop off a copy of a screenplay and to sit over coffee.  It was raining that night and I was walking.  I got stuck just off post,
 Jordan not being able to drive across the river and pick me up.  I ended up crashing in a hotel room.  I write a lot in hotel rooms,  but I didn’ t have anything to write with,  so I just lay in bed and smoked cigarettes.
 I write a lot on trains too.  I think it’ s the impermanence of the locations,  I know when I’ m in a hotel or on a train,  in a plane,
 going somewhere that I won’ t be there for long at all,  and while I’ m there I might as well make the best of the situation.  Maybe that’ s what gripping me now.
 This place,  Texas,  is soon to be gone for me.  Soon to be over with.  We were sitting in Whataburger today,  and remarking on the flaws of the world.
 Written in blue on the largely orange and white cups are the words ‘ When I am empty please dispose of me properly’  but for some reason,  at a glance,  perhaps because I wanted it to be something meaningful,  I didn’
t see those words,  I saw ‘ Where I am exists because I believe.  How on Earth I got those words off a cup,  out of a pseudo- kind reminder to not litter,
 I’ ll never know.  But I did.  Where I am exists because I believe.  Food for thought.  It turned out to be one hell of a weekend.
 Where I am exists because I believe.  Where am I?
