“Sleep is for pussies,” is a remarkably strange thing to say, don’t you agree? It’s either nonsensical: Do they really sleep more than one would expect? Or unduly critical: Why are you suggesting the female sexual organ isn’t alert and ready for action 24x7?

Because of this I can’t believe I used to to say it so much. I was young then and I worked a graveyard shift at the University of New Mexico. Saying it was a good way to make sure I had company for my shift. Chris or James would want to go to bed at 3am instead of working till 6 and I would say with a hostile tone, “Sleep is for pussies.” And I would get their company. Chris was my best friend in the dorms and James was a really nice guy.

I didn’t sleep much last night and can’t again tonight so you see why this all might occur to me right now.

I can’t really excuse my behavior on age. I know 19 year old boys say terrible things but it’s their responsibility! It was my responsibility and I failed everyone. I failed those women especially with my habitual use of that phrase. It doesn’t matter that I haven’t said it since.

I’m so tired tonight that I’m especially embarrassed. My emotions are haywire. I’m out of whiskey too so I just have to feel them. I read in a book today that men cry an average of 1.5 times a month. Women average 5 times. Probably all that harsh language directed up their skirts doesn’t help.

James would tell me not to feel bad. James was a Christian. I never saw him fight so I don’t know if he was a pussy.

Barnaby’s name is not Jones. It’s not something I can repeat because, perhaps finally, the Law is there. And though I hate Barnaby I don’t hate him enough to let the cops find him. I do hate him enough to call him Barnaby Jones because I know how much he hates that. It’s easy to hate when someone makes stupid remarks about your name.

I hate Barnaby because I want to tell him about the skinny twat from back east that told me to get my story straight. I want to tell him about all the phony accents in the world not changing the fact that the limey tart is only kept on because the company wants to retain her husband and if they fire her, he might quit. I want to tell him about the chunky zit mottled girl in Seattle’s Best Coffee that said to me, “You don’t look like an Ashley,” when I got my coffee from her. I didn’t say, “You don’t look like a cunt. See how wrong we both were.”

I want to tell him that. I want to tell him that I was able to show restraint. I want to tell him that and perhaps get drunk and get into a fight with him so I won’t have to be restrained. I know he can take a punch or a kick or a quart of gin while I refuse to let him out of a small mountain resort swimming pool.

But I can’t tell him. Not because he’s dead, which is an interesting idea, but because he refuses to adopt a reliable ISP and I have no way to email him right now so we can laugh about the heftier cunt from back east who some years ago remarked to everyone who would listen that we were bisexual because neither of us would fuck her.