It's the middle of the night, almost four A.M. as I write this. The house is quiet, the street is quiet, the whole damn West Coast is quiet. There is a sort of low electrical hum, but I suspect that this exists only in my head. I'm basically taking it on faith that the rest of the world hasn't simply ceased to be. This is why television is so important. It reassures us, in our moments of giddy existential loneliness, that the wider world exists, while simultaneously reducing the activities of that world to the cheapest sort of spectacle. So, a mixed blessing you could say.

I've always been a "night person", in the sense that my mind is sharper at night, I feel more focused and energetic at night than in the morning, but I've never been comfortable in the dark. Darkness and quietness unnerve me. This is why I liked the city, at any hour there was always something going on, even if it wasn't always a good thing. I could go for walks at ungodly hours and know that there'd be people around, a reassuring human presence. If I walked around my current neighborhood now it'd give me the creeps, an eerie Twilight Zone feeling. Even if I stay home it sometimes gets to me. I've been known to avoid darkened rooms until morning if the light switch isn't right by the door. This is silly, of course, but I've chosen to embrace it as one of my winsome little quirks.