• 5:32 AM: Startled awake by exploding head syndrome.  I am fully dressed, sitting upright on my couch.  In one hand, an uncapped black Sharpie is gently dangling from my left hand.  A de facto hoist exists in the form of my stereo's remote control, prohibiting my jacket from syphoning a pool of permanent black ink.  The pen has gone dry regardless.  It's the third I've lost this week, alone.  My spiral notebook is nowhere to be found, so I reach for the Moleskine on my side table.  Subsequent examination reveals a faded and crudely scrawled message to no one; hence, my assumption is that the intended addressee is either God or myself to read in a fully-awakened state.  Consisting of only two words, the second of which being "off," brevity will later prove apt and effective.
  • 5:39 AM:  Shuffle through my bathroom drawer for old Trazadone prescription.  Planning to spend the day in a coma, I retrieve spare set of dark brown sheets from linen closet. Nail over bedroom window: commence hibernation.
  • 5:57 AM:  Stomach ripples with a pained growl.  The orange slivers from last night's cadre of old fashions fail to sustain sleeping pills.  Kitchen inventory reveals (2) packets of Whataburger ketchup; assorted tea bags and Sweet'N Low; (1) slice of bacon and three empty boxes of Fresca.  Luckily, clothes are still on.  Grab Wayfarers, Red Sox cap and truck it to the donut shop.
  • 6:02 AM:  Somebody has stolen my car! How could this have happened!? What about all the gates!? Sonofab
  • 6:02:56 AM:  Discover the Beamer I have perpetually failed to return from last week's test drive.  Life is bittersweet.
  • 6:58 AM:  Finish half-dozen donuts filled with various cremes and jellies.
  • 3:45 PM:  Friend calls. He's perturbed that I danced with his "girl" most of the night.  I'm perturbed that the night I decide to fly solo, I run into the same people I'm already with nearly every weekend.  It's bewildering to me that these "men" insist on having Miller Lite-fueled sausage parties around dimly-lit dance club tables while their counterparts are getting their sexy-on... yet wholly amusing when they bum-out because their uninvited single friend shows up out of the ether to grind a lil' ass.  Y'know, "sorry, but I'm not an insecure eunuch?"
  • 3:46 PM:  As it turns out, he just wants to know if I'm holding.  I tell him I'm not.  I am probably lying.  I'm probably very generous with my party favors around this guy because we've been friends for nearly a decade.  I'm probably pretty frustrated at the fact he never reciprocates with his own imbibes due to his current financial hardships.  After all, he doesn't have a job and he's living with his parents.  Actually - he's living on the top floor of his parents luxury lake house.  But I don't have a job, and I have to pay rent and for my own food.  I also have to pay $300 a month for my anti-seizure prescription.  Earlier in the week, he stated how his parents pay that much for his medication... if that's what you could possibly call goddamned Propecia. So... no I'm not holding, you goldbricking prick  *click.*
  • 7:30 PM:  Wake-up and I need some fresh air.  Drive to Wal-Mart for new pack of Sharpies.  The store is relatively vacant; the clearance Halloween candy and fall decorations begin to make me feel homesick.  I'm standing alone in an aisle, hovering over a fresh shipment of Christmas snow globes.  Individually, I wind the dials and listen to the tiny bells chime gentle classic holiday melodies.  In fleeting disassociation with reality, the sliver, red, green and gold-colored decorative baubles emit warm translucent rays of light through garland.  I have forgotten why I am even here; I am feeling the four walls of my existence constrict around my body; I am feeling my ribs slowly break, each fractured end piercing my lung.  I am crying.  I think of her, of them; this time of year, of traditions ever so fond, and... so... inexplicably gone.
  • 7:55 PM:  Bail. Break into a semi-sprint trying to reach the parking lot before tears come faster than the swipe of my hoodie's sleeve. I nearly plow into a well-groomed man before traversing the security posts.  In my condition, I fit the archetypal mold of a shoplifter.  The gratuitously smiling greeter halts me with his gratuitous smile; I pray that snot has not yet reached my two-day's worth of unkempt pedophiliac mustache growth.  He introduces me to the unconventionally prim man whom I narrowly averted bowling over in my adolescent female haste to leave.
  • 7:57 PM:  The former COO and current Vice Chairman of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. likely purchases a small bottle of liquid hand sanitizer before heading back to Bentonville, Ark.
  • 8:30 PM:  Lights out for another 12 hours.           

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