Insomnia-fueled blog.

I’m a little tired, literally and figuratively, of going to bed at 10 p.m. sharp only to lie awake for hours, take sleeping pill after sleeping pill, only to wake in a fog at 5 a.m. and face another 14 hour day.

So tonight, rather than give in to the little man in my head shouting “You need eight hours sleep” (even though I never get eight hours sleep, the lying bastard) I’m instead going to treat you to a late night blog.

By “you” I mean literally the one person who reads this crap regularly. You know who you are.

Hi, mom.

SUPREME COMPLIMENT
Tonight was the first night of my Creative Writing course at Normandale Community College. You might think someone like myself, who blogs nearly every day and writes a column for a newspaper, would be busting at the seams over this opportunity. However, it scares me a bit silly, frankly. Taking a class means structure, weekly deadlines, reading, and worst of all…gasp…PEER REVIEWS. Peer reviews are bad enough when they’re truly your peers, but I’ve found that at school, “peers” are actually 18-24 year olds fresh out of high school, living with their parents. I’m not saying I’m above the fray, I’m merely saying there’s a bit of culture shock there.

That said, I’m a bit excited. We’re covering poetry to begin with, and poetry doesn’t do it for me, which is why I’m glad to get the opportunity to give it a shot. Our teacher is a published poetry author, and she made the prospect of writing prose sound interesting because poetry seems to be a bit of a free-form type of deal. No real rules, at least for the stuff we’re writing. So what the hell, maybe we’ll discover the heart of a poet lurks beneath this jaded shell.

That of course assumes there's a heart to begin with. I am conservative, after all.

Part of tonight’s festivities was the obligatory class introductions. The instructor had us write about ourselves and read it to the class. I was very pleased that my recitation elicited frequent bursts of laughter from the class. The teacher said that I have a gift for humor, and I told her “You call it humor, I call it just plain sad.”

One gentleman suffers from panic attacks and had one as he gave his presentation. I wanted to hug the guy and let him know he's not alone. He was incredibly brave to finish his introduction and I hope he does well in the class.

I received a tremendous compliment from a classmate who sat next to me. Her name is Lea. She’s a 20-year old native of Africa. During class break, she said that she loved my speech. “I learned English from the British,” she said, “and your writing reminds me of them. You have a very British sense of humor and vocabulary.”

I was enthralled and humbled. For those who aren’t aware, I discovered science fiction writer/humorist Douglas Adams when I was a teenager, and I have consciously or unconsciously tried to emulate his style at every turn. To hear that I’m pulling it off from someone who “knows” was an awesome feeling the likes of which is hard to convey in words.

It’s funny, just today I was shaking my head over some of the utter crap that passes for writing these days. The newspaper I work for has several other columnists, and frankly I just don’t get most of them. Any of them, in all honesty. Not to say I’m any better; I count myself as a nobody working for nothing just like everyone else. But at least I try to inject a little personality into my writing, even if no one in the St. Croix Valley “gets it.”

Tonight made it clear that I’m on the right track, and even if I’m not currently writing for what will ultimately be my target audience. To know that even one person appreciates what I’m trying to accomplish means the world to me.

To those of you out there in blogland that have encouraged me, I thank you as well. And to my wife, who had a grand total of 30 minutes with me today and I still managed to be a crab, I express my utmost appreciation and love.

THE CAT
Yesterday a fairly prominent website featured a photograph of a kitten that was born with one eye and no nose. He was in a person’s hand when the picture was taken. He lived a day.

The cat pictured here is a different cat. I don't want to further exploit the cat in question.

The picture made me extremely sad. I e-mailed my pal Jules (whom I haven’t seen in way too long and I ask to forgive me, I still love you Jules) and asked if it affected her like it did me.

She wrote back and said that it didn’t really bother her; that it was a freak of nature and things like that happen every day.

I thought about it some more this afternoon on the way to school, and in fact was in the middle of recording a voice note about it when I started crying. It probably had more to do with the stress in my life than the plight of a deceased kitten, but still, I just couldn’t stop bawling. I thought about this little guy, not 24 hours in this world, born in a hopeless, helpless state. Did he feel pain? Are cats even sentient? Did someone cradle him in their hand until he passed so he at least knew that while he was here, even briefly, someone cared? Did the fact that they plastered his picture on the Internet convey that they were the types of folks who wouldn’t have comforted him and instead took the opportunity of his short life to get their 15 minutes of fame?

When I was a kid, my grandpa died. My dad was very upset about it and hopped in the van and drove to West Virginia for the funeral. I recall that I wasn’t really affected by it; I didn’t know my grandfather well and didn’t really share my dad’s grief.

That afternoon my cat, Fireball, brought a gift to our back door. It was a tiny baby rabbit that Fireball had hunted down. As is a cat’s wont, he laid it at my feet proud as could be. The problem was, the rabbit wasn’t dead. He was immobile, gasping for breath, and his insides were coming out of a hole in his side.

I was beside myself. I showed him to my mom who said there was nothing we could do. I remember that I took him to a nearby park and sat under a tree, stroking him and talking to him, trying to let him know that someone else on the planet cared about him, even if I couldn’t possibly understand his pain. He died and I buried him.

Another time, much later in life, I was playing a gig in Hopkins on a stormy night. Rain was falling in torrents. As I loaded up my truck at 1 a.m., I saw a small object moving on the ground. To my horror, it was a baby bird—quite literally not a day out of the egg—struggling for life. He had apparently been washed out of the nest by the rain. He had no feathers; he was merely a writhing, helpless little baby.

Not an hour before that I was onstage blasting 80’s metal to a crowd of friends and strangers. Suddenly I was faced with the prospect of wondering how—if—I could keep this bird alive. That was all that mattered and I rushed hom.

I tried to keep him warm during the trip. I remember that I reeked from cigarette smoke and sweat, was saturated by rain, and was overcome with unbearable sadness and futility not knowing what I could possibly do for this precious little life that had been entrusted to me.

I got him home and put him in a shoebox with some towels to keep him warm and I stayed up with him as long as I could. The next morning I awoke, and unsurprisingly but still horrifyingly he had passed during the night.

I buried him in a secluded spot near my apartment and a friend was kind enough to join me for the occasion.

You’re all aware that sometimes I’m overcome with the futility and meaningless of life. One moment I’m writing a sarcastic essay about the failings of the Post Office, the next minute I’m in a fetal ball wondering how we got here and why we exist.

Sometimes, though, it’s the little things that really throw me for a loop. Just like the rest of the world, I trust the earth to continue its complicated dance through the cosmos day after day, year after year, for millenniums innumerable. But when I’m faced with the death of a tiny, helpless, seemingly insignificant creature, that’s when I truly question my place on this earth and the meaning of life. It sounds insane, but sometimes I’d rather that Creation had never been conceived if only to spare one more innocent creature the pain and puzzlement of a short life ended under catastrophic but unpreventable circumstances.

Sometimes I don’t want to feel so much. I want to anesthetize myself and just take solace in the moment; enjoy a little peace for a change. In the movie “American Beauty” a character sheds tears as he tells of how sometimes he sees so much beauty in life he can hardly stand it.

Sometimes I see so much sadness it and pain it seems to be more than my heart can possibly take.

Even if I couldn’t be there with him, I want that kitten to know that he was loved. That even if I didn’t know of his brief existence while he lived, that I do now and I loved him and I would have comforted him if I could.

Like Natalie Portman’s character said in the movie “Garden State” as she buried a departed hamster, “Goodbye, Jelly Bean. I hope you liked me.”

I like all of you and value you more than you can imagine. Be good to the people and pets in your lives.