Dizzying Highs Terrifying Lows

Stuck in the man cave all evening, working through the last 40 pages of reading for a last class. I also got an internship researching certain kinds of murder that stem from repressed sexual tensions. Totally unpaid, but so far very rewarding.

My good days are officially over. I have a final project due in less than a week and a presentation to go with it. After that, a four day cram session for two exams the week after. I am rocking out to Alabama's Roll On and thinking about my family. I don't know when I will see them again, but I am certain that it won't be this year.

The in-laws came into town for Thanksgiving. I got absolutely nothing done over the long break and am now scrambling to catch up to two weeks behind everything. I did manage to help put together a 1000 piece puzzle. The wife went to Mass with an 80 year-old woman from work. All I need is early onset Alzheimer's and I can officially enter my twilight years. Maybe the seasonal effective disorder will help speed along the process.

In other news, it is fucking cold out. The sun goes down at 4:00 PM. I am living in a vibrant city full of art and culture, but all I want to do is go home and go to bed until Spring. This is living. I have sat through several presentations at school in the hopes of a free lunch. In my decision to choose the legal profession, there is the idea that networking is critical to a successful career. That, and the ability to work an 80 hour week for 51 weeks a year and not develop a debilitating drug habit. What in the fuck was I thinking. I live like a nursing home resident and study like a neurotic teenager with overbearing parents. Ugh.

On a positive note, I have been having some of the weirdest, most vivid dreams of my entire life, which brings me back to a story from my youth. I remember specifically that once a year, every year, I would have a dream recounting my adventures from the entire year. This happened from the age of eight to about twelve, then puberty hit and I am sure the sudden discovery of masturbation destroyed that section of my subconscious that kept these dreams rolling. But I digress. At eleven, I began writing my dreams down. The journal has long since ended up on a burn pile along with the fifty volumes of shitty Bukowski tribute poetry that made me think I was special in high school and the first three years of college. Anyway, writing the dreams down helped me remember the dreams to this day (I should really be writing about the dream I had where Hitler conquered a small town in western Missouri in 1974, then started the first successful wholesale chain store dealing specifically in Japanese tentacle porn... too soon. Too soon.).

Anyhow, at 11, I had my dream of the events of the year. Freddy Krueger was chasing me through a convention center. Booths were set up displaying key events of the past year. That prick bully who screamed like a four year old girl when I bloodied my own nose in front of him and flung three red drops on his whiter-than-white catholic school uniform shirt laughed from his booth as Krueger disemboweled him. My dog Moses looked up at me from a display of my parent's old living room, audibly farted, and laid on his side as I ran by. Krueger was stopped by the funk. I saw Einstein sitting on a silver throne, holding a glowing crystal I assumed was an atom. He said something to me that I don't remember, but I was put at ease. I woke up. I was standing in the hallway. Apparently, I had become a sleepwalker.

I remember this because a couple of weeks ago I was watching television late into the night. A channel on the rabbit ears plays movies from the 70s and 80s and is the only thing on that isn't an infommercial after 1:00 AM. A movie called the Dungeonmaster was on, starring the guy who played Bull on Night Court as Satan. It sucked, but it was better than a perpetual loop of Snuggie commercials. Anyway, about halfway through the movie, there was a scene where the hero and his love interest were trapped in a wax museum of history's vilest abominations. There was a werewolf, Jack the Ripper, an African, and... Einstein. Sitting in a chair. Holding a glowing crystal. The hero threw the crystal at the animated werewolf and Jack the Ripper, as tribal spears whipped overhead.

My childhood was a sham of shitty movies.

I still sleepwalk.

But only when I am hammered.

Then I piss on random things.

Last time was a couple of weeks ago when I crashed at a law school buddy's apartment. Half in the carpeted hallway, half on the hardwood kitchen floor. On the other side of the apartment from his bathroom. If I had crashed at home that night, I would have made my own toilet with the precision of a spitting cobra lancing a Cheerio.

At least I've got that going for me.