Morning News Crews: We do more before nine a.m. than some people do all day. But then we pass out in a pile of dry cereal dust around quarter to three, roll off the couch and just hang there upside down until the dog begins licking us before it too collapses into some kind of sugar-induced stupor. At least I think that’s why I woke up french-kissing the family poodle. (He smelled of Fruity Pebbles.) Either way it was a bonding experience I don’t regret, even if I do have a sudden urge to piss on every mailbox in the neighborhood. But that’s not important right now. What IS important is that I finish this entry before bedtime rolls around. Look, it’s almost seven already! Hey, where’s my sleep mask?!?

A-hem. Sorry to go all Tarantino back there. I’ve just been a little on edge ever since I started working the overnight shift. Hmm? Yeah, I know it’s only Monday, but I’m three hours in the hole already! Understand, I don’t get a lot of sleep to begin with. (These screeds don’t write themselves.) I got a caffeine habit, a writing compulsion and early onset of that weird old man thing where you wake up at dawn and wanna plow shit. Turn all that upside down for a week of overnight shifts and you have the makings of a mid-Wednesday breakdown. I can’t afford that! I gotta move an eighteen year old into her first dorm room on Friday. At this rate, I’ll be even more zombiified than the rest of the hollow-eyed Dads schlepping trunks and comforters up a non air conditioned stairwell! What will the children think? Ahhh, it doesn’t really matter. By then I’ll be so brain-dead I won’t be able to discern between a grateful hug from my oldest child and a terse invitation to leave campus NOW.

Why, already, my density is intensifying. Earlier I was napping at an especially long red light and when the inevitable horn behind me began blowing I awoke to find three dried-up I.Q. points stuck to my chin. I can’t spare those! I’m already a decade late on a book I’m supposed to be writing! I use to yell out answers (in the form of a question) during Jeopardy! each night. Now I need flash cards and a service animal just to get through Wheel of Fortune! WHEN WILL IT STOP? Better yet, forget I asked.  It’s damn near eight o clock and I’m late for the hay. Somewhere out there a grassy overpass is in need of a pre-dawn camera crew and at this rate I’ll still be typing when the producers start counting down in my ear. Soooo….

Kill that light, would ya?