Journal entry: Monday, July 17.

Took meds at 7:00.

Sophie had her bath, played for a little while ' until 9:00 pm, give or take. She fell asleep clutching her teddy bear, Henry.

Valerie is out in the living room grading papers and listening to Grey's Anatomy on the television.

It's 10:00. I'm exhausted. I'll write again tomorrow. Good night.


Journal entry: Monday, July 17.

11:20 pm: Shiloh (the cat) lobbed herself at my head while I was sleeping. She's really old and I think that she thought that I'm a really big catnip mouse. I'm not. I started bleeding from my left ear so I went to the bathroom, cleaned it. I've got a bandage covering my lobe and another on my right cheek.

11:30 pm: Back in bed but the blood from my ear was leeching through the bandage and onto my pillow. Got up, changed bandage and pillowcase.

11:37 pm: Back in bed again. I tried falling asleep but I ended up staring at the ceiling.

11:55 pm: I'm walking through a tunnel of light. At the end of the tunnel there is a threshold opening onto a field full of marigolds and daylilies. There's a beautiful woman wearing a silky nightie. She's lying on her side on a bed. Her thigh and hip are exposed and she's sort of squinting at me. I'm in a Serta commercial. "I feel really relaxed, don't you?" I ask the woman. She doesn't say a thing but continues to squint. I turn around to see if there's a deer light behind me, or a solar eclipse or the flash of an atom bomb. Nothing. She's just being sexy. I'm dreaming.

12:02 am: The commercial's over. Spek (a dog) is scratching at the door to go outside. He's good about letting me know when he needs to go out, but very annoying because he slams himself into the back door. It sounds like someone trying to break in.

12:08am: If we were to be broken into I would be grateful, at least, that the criminal would be self-sufficient. I wouldn't have to bother so much; Spek's still scratching. My attempts to redirect him by ignoring him have failed to have the response I was hoping for. I go to the kitchen to let him out. Thunder (a dog) got out of the kitchen and is on the bed. She's supposed to stay in the kitchen with the others but squeezes out from under the gate. I need to add this to my 'to do' list.

12:09am: Spek moves from the door and is huddling in the corner of the kitchen next to Rosie (a dog) and Bhakti (a dog). I yell at Spek because that was just plain mean. My face feels hot. Bhakti is nervous and moves towards the door. One out. "Spek. Outside." Two out. Rosie stands up and moves to the other door. 'Rosie, outside.'� She turns her back to me and my face goes flush again. 'Rosie, outside.'� I'm repeating myself now. The hell with it.

12:10am: Rosie's blocking the door between the kitchen and living room ' blocking my way. 'Go lay down Rosie. Move. Move. Move'� I sidle past her, scraping my cheek against the tall gate at the doorway. The scrape hurts and also yanks the bandage off. I'm still bleeding so I go get another bandage. I can't go to sleep while the dogs are out because they are loud and rude at night. I sign on to the Internet.

12:12am: Bark. Bark, bark. Bark, bark, bark, bark. I rush into the kitchen to yell at Bhakti and Spek to shush. Rosie didn't move to her regular spot. After I got up I quieted the dogs down and went to get another bandage ' this one for my knee. Falling over Rosie also caused me to slice my elbow on the tile top of the kitchen cabinet so I need to bandage it, too.

12:15am: I sit back down at the computer. Spek scratches at the door and starts to bark. Back to the kitchen. 'Rosie, move!'� Spek comes in - Bhakti, too. Good. Log off the Internet and back to bed.

12:19am: I'm in the tunnel again. Shit. No, I'm not. Rosie's prattling around the kitchen making click clacking sounds. This means that she's got to go to the bathroom. If I don't get up now then I'll have a shit mess to deal with later. I hate shit messes. They make me gag and shudder. Back to the kitchen.

12:20am: Rosie's at the wrong door again. I step over her. She's excited because she needs to go outside. She needs to go outside, but she doesn't want to go outside. I'm standing at the back door. "Rosie. Come here." She's got her back to me so I say very firmly, 'Come!'� She turns her head around and looks at me. We had to have one of her eyes removed last year so she's staring at me through only one lens. She appears to be mocking me. Her tail is whapping the refrigerator really hard making the jars inside rattle ' an irritating jingle that I feel in my spine. "Christ. Rosie! Come here!" She's got her back to me again. I hate when the dogs turn their backs to me.

12:23am: I carry Rosie outside and shut the door. She turns around to me and glares.

12:24am: Now I have to wait for Rosie. I sit down at the computer again. What's on Google Video?

12:25am: A current of air slips through the kitchen. Some unseen, mysterious phantom or a fruit fly and the boys start barking again. "Bhakti. Spek. Hush up. Quiet!"

12:26am: Another current of air. Or maybe it's that thief I've been waiting for. Will he take the dogs, I wonder.

12:30am: Crack. Crack. Crack. Oh, what now. I go to the kitchen ' again and retrieve a Tupperware lid from Bhakti. I let Rosie in but now Spek wants to go outside. Bhakti follows Spek. Bhakti always follows Spek. Goodbye.

12:40am: Shiloh needs to go out. Meow. Hush. Meow. Hush. Meow. Hush, I'm coming. Meow. 'Shiloh, hush.'� I open the front door this time to let the cat out. She doesn't want to go outside. Her food dish is empty and she wants to eat. I pour her some food. Shiloh's bizarre. She growls at you when you feed her, touch her, look at her, enter the same room that she's in, open the door to let her out, open the door to let her in. She growls and hisses all the time. I hate it when she growls when I'm feeding her. It's rude.

12:41am: I sit back down at the computer. No. No I don't.

12:42am: Spek is in again, as is Bhakti. Where's Rosie? In her sleeping spot. Good. My vision is starting to blur. I go back to be-'�I go back to let Shiloh out.

12:43am: The bed feels very nice.

12:45am: Mm. The tunn... no. Thunder's up now and traipsing around the living room. Damn dog. She's going to pee on the floor. I don't want her to pee on the floor so I get up once more.

12:46am: Thunder, out. I've got to go out with her though to chain her up. She's a jumper and a runner. I built a three-foot fence and she jumped it. So I built a five-foot fence over a larger area and she jumps it. I am reminded of this right now and I trip in the dark over her lead. I fall, again, but manage to catch myself before I go all the way down.

12:47am: I'm back on Google Video and watching Parcour ' Russian street climbing. It's an underground 'sport' where people, men mostly, run about the urban landscape like they're Spiderman. I admire their abilities and remember fonder times when I was in shape. They're probably well rested, too. Bastards.

1:00am: Yelp. Yelp. Yelp. Did I mention that Thunder, besides being a jumper and a runner, has yelper on her resume? It's not a bark. It's a yelp that rests in the upper registers of the musical scale and sounds like the high note on a bagpipe. My head is spinning and I feel like I want to die a slow, merciless death. Isn't that what's happening to me right now? One dog that crashes into the door; one glares at me with her one good eye; one follows without an opinion. Thunder yelps. I have to go let Thunder in. God help me if the little queen should have to stay outside. Bhakti, stay. Spek, go lay down.

1:05am: I'm back in bed again and Shiloh is meowing at the bedroom window. She can do this until sunrise. I don't want to listen to a cat in my damn window meowing until sunrise. I won't be able to sleep with that damn cat in the damn window until sunrise. On my way to let her in I crack my pinky toe on the couch. I stifle my pain in a throw pillow to block out the tears of pain. A grown man wailing like a newborn at one o'clock in the morning mixed with delirium is not a pretty sight.

1:08am: Get in the damn house.

1:10am: I'm back in bed and floating on a soft white cloud. I lay down again and things are going very dark. Ah. I must be dead.

1:27am: Bang. Bang! Bang! Thunder. Damn dog. She's scooching out from under the gate in the kitchen doorway again. I meet her in the hallway - back to the kitchen with you, you scurvy thing. Latch the gate again and go back to bed

1:30am: Resplendent sleep.

1:50am: Sleep?

2:15am: Sleep. Please for frikkin' crap's sake, sleep. I'm wound up again and can't sleep. All I can do is lay there and stare. I lie in bed running through tonight's farce and then start thinking about bills, and marshmallows and really big Juicy-fruit candies battling really small Emperor beetles and I think about how colorful that might be in a black and white world. You know, if the sun is just right the color looks like a sonnet. Beautiful. I wish that I were a marshmallow. That would be nice. Soft.

2:37am: MeowMeowMeowMeowMeowMeow. What now? Shiloh, go away. Isn't this how things started tonight, you and my head. Meow. 'Go away.'� I shove a pillow towards her. Her screech startles the dogs. Hush! Shiloh, hush. Boys, quiet! Oh my frikkin' God!

2:38am: Shove Shiloh off the bed and listen to her growl at me again. Go to kitchen and make threatening gestures at the dogs.

2:42am: Bed. Oh, kill me, already; the neighbor's cat - outside the kitchen door and the dogs. The dogs. Hiss. Bark. Bark. Hiss. Bark. 'Boys, quiet! Quiet! Quiet! Quiet! Quiet!

2:43am: 'Dad?'�

Oh for God's sake. '�Sophie, go back to bed, sweetie. It's early. You've got a long time before you need to get up'�.

2:45am: 'Dad, I can't sleep.'�

'Try, honey, try. Just close your eyes, okay?'�

'Okay.'�

2:47am: 'Dad? It's not working.'�

'Keep trying. Just close your eyes.'�

'But it's not working.'�

'All right. How about if I read to you a little bit. Do you think that will work?'�

'Okay.'�

3:25am: Sophie's out. Good. Click, clack. Click, clack. Goddamn Rosie.

3:36: Clean the kitchen floor. 'Go lay down! Get down! Down!'�

3:45am: Let the boys out.

3:48am: Let the boys in. 'Stop your barking. Settle down.'�

3:55am: I can't take it anymore. Eyes are closing and I'm dizzy. I lie on the couch and read. I fall asleep around 4:30. Ah'�.

5:45am: The alarm goes off.

5:50am: I'm online at Serta.com trying to see how my dream might have ended.

Yes, I believe that there was more than one shooter. Yes I think that there's something in Area 51 they are not telling us. And yes, I believe that my pets conspire against me and take great relish in seeing me in a perpetually sleep deprived state.

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