A Night in November.

Standard Disclaimer: Due to the saturated scope of the World Wide Web, this excerpt from my life has been heavily censored and edited, more for my own amusement than to protect anyone, as no one was innocent. It is up to you to decide what is true, and what is fiction. Read on.

I am tired. My body aches with exhaustion after a long day, but there must be a few words said before I escape into sleep, that greatest of nocturnal pastimes. The world is quiet here, in the space of my old living room, save but for the slow hum of the washer a few rooms over, and the steady clack of my keys. Nothing stirs but me.

I was startled awake this morning by the dog, who was so anxious to chase squirrels outside all over creation that she careened into my bed after doing six or so laps of the U.S. proper. She's a frenzied little thing, except during thunderstorms. Then she hides under the bed.

Being a college man, I was quick to divine all sorts of scrumptious things we had to eat at home, and settled on half a loaf of banana bread and orange juice. Food always tastes better when you aren't paying for it, I'd wager.

Then, in the spirit of not paying for things, I convinced my mother to give me a long-overdue shearing. It was a mistake. Although my hair had not been cut in more than two months, I was far from a Nazarene, or even an Amish. But cut she did, on a kitchen stool in the driveway with all creation watching. My only consolation was that AC/DC was playing in the background.

My brother had long since been impressed into service as far as mowing my girlfriends lawn by this point, so we went there next. Although shanghaied, I've not yet heard him complain of it, as he's paid a high bounty and is fed on top of that. While he toiled at the yard, I toiled on a puzzle of an Italian mountain villa or some such nonsense. We got everything but the sky, and by that point the popular opinion was to just slide some blue construction paper in and frame the sucker.

 After that I was on a holy mission to resurrect my computer, which had, at this point, been virtually dead to the world for four days hence. My hard drive was toast. Bought a new one, brought it home, yanked the old one out, shoved the new one in, and after much sweat, blood and tears, it is now officially functional again, for the moment. My faith in this old clunker has been shaken, true, but I'm hoping in a comeback. Both for it and my bank account, that is.

Now, as that miracle has been attested to, I can sleep. Good night.