In the past twenty-four hours:

• I learned that someone I knew had committed suicide.
• A toilet exploded in my face.
• I spent fifteen minutes, desperate for caffeine, behind a man who unloaded Canadian change at a cafe and had to be informed that he was actually in the United States. He responded by spending another seven minutes going through his American change, trying to figure out the difference between a nickel and a dime. This was just after I received the phone call that someone I knew had committed suicide.
• I sat on a three-hour bus ride with a bunch of obnoxious frat boys. It took a deranged 2,000 word story written on a laptop, involving brain creatures, dismemberment, ash entities, and other horror elements, to stay sane throughout this regrettable trip.
• I witnessed a blind woman hold a crowded bus hostage by misquoting the American with Disabilities Act and demanding that the bus depart dramaticaly from its route. She was so terrible that even her friend was apologizing for her. The driver of this bus, however, was utterly professional. One of the best I’ve seen. But this kind of thing wouldn’t be tolerated in New York.
• I had a Strawberry Julius. This wasn’t so much traumatic, as it was strange.

I should point out that the past 24 hours were not all bad. But because of these strange circumstances, and the fact that I’m conducting an interview tomorrow morning, I hope you’ll allow me a fourteen hour reprieve or so before I post new material. Much of the above is funny in hindsight, and I will probably laugh myself to sleep. But I’m knackered from all of these ontological developments. Which is not to suggest that I’m a noble man. I do have a considerable amount of stamina, but sometimes too many odd things happen at once. Some gentleness is in order, but I’ll be back sometime soon.