God Damn, I Feel Shitty!

For the second day in a row, I awoke at 3:00 AM. Couldn't sleep. The first day, I installed an electrical switch in the kitchen, to do something constructive with my insomnia time. Last night was worse. I awoke at three, my wife asleep and insensitive to my aspirations, and I just wanted to die. I began thinking of hanging myself with my think black extension cord, only to reflect on the difficulty of making a proper noose with such a cord, and the near necessity of going to a hardware store and buying a proper hanging rope.

It wouldn't be the first time I've bought such a rope. The first two time were in New Jersey (the rope was in the trunk of my car for a year) and the second time was in Nice, France. The noose sat at the floor of my closet for two years, because it scared my friends if I left it on my bed.

This present depressive episode started on the beach two days ago, when the waiter refused to serve me. I confronted him and demanded a menu, but I never was able to get even a bottle of mineral water, settling instead for fresh coconut water from the ambulatory vendors with the hammer-spike coconut openers.

That's when I started feeling depressed. What is wrong with me that they will no longer serve me at this restaurant? What did I do?

My wife reassures that this is simply who year-round residents like me are treated when the tourist season comes, and restaurant waiters are desperate to make the big dollars from the big spenders when they can. They simply don't want us to take up chairs and waiter time when the tourists have so much more money to spend.

So, maybe this wasn't about me being unworthy. Maybe this was about the ups and downs of the local economy.

Now, I understand. So, when will I feel better? And when will minor disappointments stop sending me into major depressions?

Last night, as I cut onions into little pieces to make a hamburger that was nearly inedible with two hot peppers mixed in, I imagined hacking my fingers of with the steak knife and flushing the fingers down the toilet, so that they couldn't be re-affixed. I didn't do it. I just thought it, as I so often imagine ways to hurt and destroy myself once and for all.

A couple of days ago, in this same bad mood while crossing the street, I walked slowly and silently dared the cars and a bus to hit me. The mirror of a passing car struck my arm, but I wasn't hit by the passenger bus.

Life is so ironic. The terminally ill people who want to live on cannot, and terminally depressed people who want to die instead live on incessantly.