Reliving the Crazy

I have an essay due tomorrow. I've been putting it off forever, but I finally have to write it. To inspire me to work, I was looking through journal entries from the spring, when the Oilers' playoff run helped me get through my final exams. There were only one or two from that week, as I was too busy attempting work, but the craziest one was from Thursday night, June 15. It's a little necessary to post parts up here. Keep in mind that this was written while I was still in a compromised state.


"It's two in the morning now. In the past 68 hours or so, I've gotten about eight hours of sleep. The cause is my English final. We were assigned an essay on Monday. It's due in 7 1/2 hours. In 7 1/2 hours I have to write another essay. We were given eight possible topics for our in-class part of the exam, meaning we have to plan eight possible essays, meaning eight outlines- eight thesis statements and 24 topic sentences. In 7 1/2 hours. I haven't prepared any yet. I also haven't studied for my math final outside of class. I have that in 5 hours and 45 minutes. I have to start getting ready for school in 4 1/2 hours."

"I'm saying this as objectively as I possibly can. There is scientific basis to it. I think I'm losing my mind. Sleep deprivation does that."

"I went down to the kitchen to make and retrieve more coffee. While making it, a mosquito landed on the cabinet above the coffee pot. I was deliberate and cautious in my planning of its death, but too much so. I moved the coffee pot out of the way and the mosquito suddenly took off and disappeared somewhere over the sink. It scared the crap out of me. I started seeing bugs everywhere in the kitchen. I think four things caused this. One, I always see bugs out of the corner of my eyes because I'm paranoid. Two, I'm losing my mind. Three, the fan above the light was casting crazy ass moving shadows that reflected off of everything. Four, there actually were a fair amount of bugs in the kitchen. I affirmed this. While waiting for the coffee to be done brewing I pulled a chair up to the counter and slumped over. I listened to the coffee being made and felt somewhat intrigued self-despair to keep awake. While I was objectively despairing, I said in my head, 'Thank god for the Edmonton Oilers'. After a few times I snapped back to reality. What would the Edmonton Oilers do? I had to do the work, no matter how crazy I was going. I was sane enough to know that."

"When I had finished my cereal I stood basically in the middle of the kitchen to drink the coffee. The lights were being shadowed. It was then that I probably saw the most bugs. I saw a lot of things, little wisps of steam coming out of the sink after I looked at my coffee and such. I smiled and joked to myself that I might as well be useful and hallucinate that Ryan Smyth was there. I actually tried but it didn't work. I saw the fuzzy outline of my reflection on some surface and wondered if I could hallucinate him at least there next to me. There was some shape next to me, maybe the door, but it looked a little like it was moving closer and it was creepy so I stopped doing that." [By the way, it wasn't just the reflection that was creepy there. What the hell was I doing? If I were Smytty I'd get a restraining order or something against me.]

"I think it was sometime around then that I started to hear the hockey game. My dad, asleep, had the TV on to some show possibly on Comedy Central. I swear, all the voices sounded like the OLN announcer. I heard him say "Pronger carries the puck by his man, shoots, scores" almost calmly. I scampered out to the hallway to see if they were replaying the game or something. Nope, just the random show. I smiled. It had sounded very real. Then the game sounds got more persistent. I heard the name Peca a few times, Hemsky maybe twice, as well as Andrew Ladd. In the beginning I was humoring it and stared at the stove absent-mindedly, trying to picture the game the announcer was describing. There was no real flow. It said the name Ryan Smyth and I perked up instinctively. That started to worry me. The sounds then got too bad. The announcer kept talking, but it was all gibberish. He said, "Game one, game two, game four". I heard a puck ring off the post. It was entertaining at first, but it didn't stop once I knew it wasn't real like the peripheral vision bugs."

I don't want to be too self-indulgent with all of that. At the time I was just trying to write down what was going on so I'd remember, but once I re-read it I just wanted to share it.
Now, after this MASSIVE distraction, I have to write my essay. Damnit.