This pic I took during yesterday's sleeplessness; not long after finally getting to sleep, something woke me up, and this was the view out my bedroom window. Today, approaching 6 am, I find I can't sleep again. Drats. I feel like I have too much, and not enough, on my mind. This pair of cats howling in some other-worldly battle down in the vacant lot isn't helping matters much, either.

The too much part is all this swirling depressed sadness that just won't go away - memories of holidays from the past that were quite good, and those that were rather tough; growing alienation from my family, which I didn't help much by dropping out of sight all last week; and that "I'm about to hit my mid-40's and haven't had a relationship in close to 5 years" thing that just won't let me get more than a day's peace lately. Not enough on my mind? Well, it's the realization that I don't have one, single, solitary thing to look forward to. Nothing in the future, near or far, that keeps my mind moving forward; no planning, no hoping, no giddy anxiety. Just numbness, and the slighly bewildered "why do I bother getting out of bed each day?" feeling.

As it turns out, I do work tonight, New Year's Eve. Not that I would've had anything else to do. But it's Wednesday, the night I've grown accustomed to looking forward to seeing BurritoMan, and there's no reason to believe the man will get his almost-weekly burrito fix tonight at 9:20. Even if he was a loser like me, with nothing to do, I doubt he'd come by. Being a loser like me, he might be smart enough to not let it be known that he's a loser like me, and just keep me guessing for another week.