There was this one night in New York last spring: I was drunker than I'd intended to be and it got later than I realized, and that passively-aggressive bitchiness that mostly I can work around had sort of bubbled to the surface, and I was saying things that I knew were true but weren't necessarily fair because I just wanted some kind of fix. And I don't know how it got to feel like I was unravelling, but somehow I found myself transformed from a reasonable, rational person to a hysterical mess who was making no sense through sniffiling and sobbing. It lasted only a few minutes before I could catch my breath, and then, of course, we had to talk, which seemed fine and helpful at the time, but mostly what I remember is feeling like I couldn't look him in the eye without pangs of sheepishness hitting the next day.

I hate that, so I don't know why I'm telling you this story.

I just had this stupid idea that maybe, if I got out of bed and just let my fingers type and type and type, maybe, in the clicks of the keyboard and the glow of the monitor against the 10-to-six in the morning darkness, I'd find some way to dislodge whatever it is that's blocking the part of me that is so tired that even yawning feels like effort from the part of me that knows how to physically stop being awake.

I have these nights every now and again (maybe a few too frequently lately, but partly, I think my body is just rebelling against the self-imposed anti-circadian regimine I've put it on) and I don't mean anything by this.

The trouble is that I don't know what the trouble is, though, so I'm just sort of taking stabs in the dark. Literally speaking, that is.

I wanted to tell this story about the tea cozy we had in the old house, the house on Atwood Street that's now a whole other story these days. But the tea cozy: it was red, soft, in the shape of a cat. Inside it smelt sweet, like you'd expect an object whose purpose is to keep tea warm would. I know how it smelt inside because I used to wear it, on my head. I was two, maybe three. There's video footage of this -- Christmas 1984 (a tape that I don't think I will be able to watch again for many, many years, but that's an entirely other story) -- but the image of me as a small child, running around with this red, cat-shaped tea cozy on my head somehow doesn't look the way I remember it. I just liked it. It was nice. It fit my head. It was, in a way, analogous to my Mr. Doggy.

And again, I don't know why I'm telling you this, except that I don't know what became of that tea cozy -- haven't seen it more than ten, fifteen years -- but I still remember exactly how it smelt. And I miss that, somehow.