do not stick hands in cage

When I worked at ILM, I had a sign that said that hanging on the wall behind my desk. I have no idea where the sign went. I should find it, and hang it around my neck.

I am having one of those mornings.

Stepping away for a moment from the obvious--that exactly a week ago at this time I was wandering numbly around my apartment thinking about MonkeyScientist tightening his seatbelt on the airplane and wondering if he dared pinch the flight attendant, and that I have moments of intense sadness at his absence that no amount of streaming German radio can ease--the attentive reader will note that I am awake before noon. Awake, indeed, before 10 am, which usually only happens if I'm going to fly or vomit or some combination thereof.

I've actually been awake since 6:47. The same attentive reader can guess why; I'm not going to belabor the point, except to say that I just left a voicemail for the property manager to talk about noise abatement measures and the possible implementation thereof. Anyway, I've had three and a half hours of sleep, and have that sort of undercooked feeling as a result. You know the one? Less sleep, and at least I would be in a useful fight-or-flight hyperactive mode. More sleep, and I would be human. But neither is true. I'm just raw and groggy.

And there's this thing going on...it's part of the reason I didn't just go back to bed when Tarzan and Jane finally finished upstairs. You see, I am trying to have a copy of my show reel made. This should be an easy process. But it's turned into, in my mother's words, a clusterfuck. Explaining the whole thing would be boring, so I'll break it down into key words: bad dubs, missing one-inch master, lab screwup, expensive transfer of the wrong master to DVD, expensive shipment of said DVD from Detroit to SF, howling in Snufkina's living room, late-night chorizo sandwich, vivid dreams, news that original master did in fact occupy space at facility where the reel was assembled...and then was sent last April, for some inexplicable reason, to an advertising agency (excuse me, they're marketing consultants now) with whom I have no relationship, where there's an excellent chance it was destroyed.

So I need to take my bad VHS copies to Monaco Lab this morning, and try to talk them into giving me a credit, and then putting that credit towards making a DVD master from the one sort-of-okay VHS I have. Then I need to come home and write the resume and cover letter to go with it, which terrifies me; I hate doing those things. Yes, yes, I'm a writer, yes, I know. It's not any easier for us, I think, than it is for anyone else. Maybe it's worse.

This is a means, I keep telling myself, to an end. Get dressed and get out there and do it already. But I just want to go back to bed.