Midnight has got a lot of different meanings. It used to be I'd never even see a clock strike midnight, or eleven post meridiem for that matter. Then there were countless days when midnight was the midpoint of my waking hours. There were quiet midnights, and loud obnoxious midnights. Sober midnights and drunken midnights, midnights that couldn’t care less and midnights where everything seemed to ride on a timeless sense of drama.
This midnight sucks. It’s sweltering in my room. The heat feels like a thick woolen blanket that’s set to pull moisture out of my skin as rapidly as possible. I don’t like this sensation. An electric floor fan, once a provider of sweeping respite from the heat, now seems only to shift the heat across my body. Sleep has become a distant memory, a taunting mirage to this desert traveler.
When one can’t sleep, it’s best to put the mind to use.
I take this time to reminisce about midnights past. I loved the ones living alone, downtown hometown style. Back then I was living in a small bachelor pad on the top floor of an old brownstone that had a trendy cafe built into its entrance. Across the street, under the north side windows, there was a Romeo’s Pizza restaurant that always seemed to get busy around midnight. I remember it well because I could never afford to eat there.
Midnight above Demitasse. That was the name of that cafe. The Demitasse. Always made the apartment smell funny. Not like a cooking smell, but something else, something just pleasant enough to remind me of home. The noise from the parking lot of the Romeo's was sometimes noticeable above the stereo speakers of my father’s old hi-fi and whatever drug abuse I was inflicting on myself at the time. Midnight was the perfect time for strange people to drop by and come down off what they were on or go up on something they’d just scored. The apartment was a haven of sorts for those types. Those were my “friends”.
Midnight. The witching hour. I’ll never forget that episode of the new Twilight Zone show, where the parents of some kid turned into monsters at midnight, just for a short while (long enough to scare the viewer half to death) and then back into regular humans again. I used to get real nervous around midnight after watching that episode. It’s funny how media can affect us like that. Instill fears where previously none existed.
Midnight with Cimmaron Benjamin. I remember the midnights in his Pleasure Dome on Cook Street, just up from the Village. The Pleasure Dome of Cimmaron Benjamin. We called him Cimmy, and he was my first real dealer of things narcotic and exotic. I remember him taking me on a mushroom trip that stretched long past midnight and into the waking hours. I remember us passing the homes of the sleeping and laughing long over the shmucks who had to wake up and work for a living. You worked harder than most shmucks, didn't you Cimmy?
The thing I remember most about midnights is the nagging feeling that I should have been in bed.
I should be in bed.
I WILL BE PHYSICALLY HEALTHY UNTIL THE DAY I DIE
I WILL FINISH MY MBA PROGRAM
I WILL FOUND MY OWN SOFTWARE COMPANY
There's something spiritually re-affirming about daily affirmation.
Isn't redundancy grand? Particularly when it involves a system of redundancy.
What is it about entertainment that keeps us from doing what we should be? How did ancient man feel when he first discovered that he could amuse himself by just staring into a fire? Were there reams of cave people that died out because they couldn’t leave the fire to hunt and forage? Did we end up with hide-potatoes that got all lazy and fat?
It's been a week back in civilization and I’m starting to feel the effects. Didn’t do much today, managed to get the run in and that’s about it. Scrapped all the other plans in favor of staring into the fire.
I’d like to write, and only because I saw Mike Myers on a television program advocating for the practice. It seems like a simple thing to get into. Just practice, practice, and practice. Much like the guitar, the pen can become a great instrument in practiced hands. I guess a better metaphor would be a keyboard. You know, the kind you type on and the kind you finger for musical creativeness?
I can hardly keep my eyes open. It’s funny how an entire day of doing fuck all really drains a person.
I've decided to do a daily affirmation in these journal entries, and you’ll have to forgive me because I know that they’ll certainly become monotonous.
I WILL BE PHYSICALLY HEALTHY UNTIL THE DAY I DIE
I WILL FINISH MY MBA PROGRAM
I WILL FOUND MY OWN SOFTWARE COMPANY
That’s it. I’m just keeping it to the three but telling the world. That’s right, anyone with an Internet connection anywhere in the world can see this. I have a lot to live up to. The world is now expecting me to do what I’m saying I will do. I can’t let the world down now, can I?
The Wayback Machine only recovered a few entries from this period. There was a glimpse into some of the others on the archived home page. –Ed.