Chapter 43

Journal Entry for Tuesday March 24, 1998

It's good to be home. The actual discharge process started at 10 a.m. yesterday, but I didn't get home until 2 in the afternoon. Every time I started to doze off during those four hours, I'd get woken up, so I wound up sleeping for six hours once I got home. Because of that, I wound up staying up most of the night. Let me tell you, late night TV has nothing on primetime.

I kept telling mom that I would be fine home alone if she wanted to go to work today. In spit of all my insisting, she still stayed home. Normally I'd feel smothered by all the extra attention from mom (after all, you can't spell "smother" without "mother"), but in this case, it feels kind of good.

Brad and Mark wanted to stay home with us, but mom vetoed that idea on the spot. They may be truly concerned about me, but I'm glad she told them no. I don't think I could handle having mom and both of my brothers home with me right now.

Well, I'm off to enjoy one of my favorite activities: having mom change the dressings on my head. Whoopee!


Journal Entry for Friday, March 27, 1998

I thought I was over this crap. It's 3 a.m. and I've been awake for an hour and a half. I'm hoping writing this will put me to sleep. I've tried everything else.

I tried warm milk, I tried counting sheep, I tried reading, I tried reading an old calculus textbook of mom's, and I even thought about watching some old Tool Times, but decided against that for obvious reasons.

The thing of it is, I don't know why I can't sleep. I don't have any pain. I'm not really worried about anything, at least not the things that used to keep me awake.

Why can't I sleep, damn it?

I guess, for one thing, I don't feel right. I don't know how else to explain it, but I just don't feel like me.

For another thing, I can't turn my mind off. Even if I'm not worrying, I'm still thinking about something. It could be an orange juice commercial, our long distance carrier, whether there's really such a thing as non-dairy butter or what the hell goes into that egg substitute stuff you see all the time. I mean, it cooks and tastes just like real eggs!

Do I have enough arch support in my shoes? Is the truth really out there, or is that just a bunch of BS that only conspiracy freaks like Mulder believe in? Is the lone gunman theory plausible? What about the CIA/FBI/whatever other government agencies that have an acronym being in on the JFK's assassination, as well as Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr? Why do we drive on parkways and park on driveways? Why do we say it's cold as hell in the winter, and hot as hell in summer? Does hell have seasons now? Is that the devil's way of making sure everybody has a hellish experience in hell? What does real mountain dew taste like? What does plain regular dew taste like? On and on and on it goes. I wish I knew how to meditate. I've heard that's good for clearing one's head. (Of course, my source is Dharma & Greg, so who knows, after all, you can't believe everything you see and/or hear on TV).

Sometimes I wish my life could be a sitcom, where everything is wrapped up in 30 minutes, or at the most 60. Life always seemed so great for sitcom families, like that one with Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Tim Allen in it.

Guess I'll stop writing now. I'm starting to get sleepy. Maybe I can go to bed now without wondering who Carly Simon thinks is so vain. The answer to either question: Who the hell knows?


A/N: This was originally supposed to be two chapters, but the first one was much too short.

I hope everyone stuck with me through all those interesting thoughts.

Please R&R if you're still reading this. We're starting to get close to the end of this one.

Thanks to everybody who has read so far!

-Yours truly, Randy Taylor