I don’t drink coffee. And for good reason. My brain is on constant whirl. It starts from the moment my eyes are half open. My dream? What was that? What did I do? I was a lawyer? I was that. And a murderer? No, that was him. And he got off. I was all right. My health was good, even if I always had the pain deep in my back and ribs. What was the point of any of this? I was alive. Yes. I had to get to work. I had to get back to the book. How were the Leafs? Oh right. Shit.Sometimes I want to hide from my head, get into the corner of it and let it spin on itself. It never stops, whirling from the banal to the introspective back to the banal. Lots of doubt. Lots of darkness. Lots of sex. Sports too. That helps tone everything else down – the nothingness and all that. And then I do what I have to do. I eat and walk, teach and talk, email and grade, write and plan, blog and argue, reason and mount the elliptical, try to make some sense of what’s to come. And then I have a drink and think and have another and try to ride the round slow arc, going up, my arms almost out, warm and clear, and chase that well, and slump, giving in to my urge to play Texas Hold ‘Em. Watch something and something else, sleep and do it all again.