I have come to terms, more or less, with the upsetting fact that I will never be comfortable, a physically and mentally comfortable person. How can I achieve a state of calmness and quiet repose? I am fidgety and fussy, years ago they would've called it neurotic. I lay on my bed reading, and everything is fine until I notice the sequential tiny itches traveling around my body, a deranged cavalcade of itches, I try to ignore them but finally I want to scream. Blankets get twisted around me as I try to sleep, I writhe and struggle, my thoughts race, my feet do a little pedaling thing. I hear strange noises, I am convinced there's a bug on my arm, a dry patch on my ankle must be soothed or I will go stark raving bananas right this instant. My clothes feel wrong, or a troubling asymmetry in my appearance makes all of human endeavor pointless and infuriating. And so on in that tiresome vein, into the night, the trivial amplified to the apocalyptic. Absurdly, I am highly intolerant of this kind of nervous restlessness in other people. Maybe I just can't stand it when I finally get some peace and then someone else starts in, it reminds me of my own default state when all I want is to escape myself.

In the past I've been instructed to give up all caffeine and other stimulants of the nervous system, pertly assured that this is certain to help. When I was twelve years old, my mother would bring me hot coffee in bed on school mornings when it was still dark. I don't think the caffeine is going away anytime soon, nor do I believe that's really anywhere near the main issue. I've always just been this way. I'm not centered, no one who knows me would ever murmur "there goes one centered motherfucker." Then again, people who do put on airs of being centered, or emotionally grounded, whatever you call it, those people always bug the shit out of me. If there's one thing I hate it's a spiritually grounded person wearing one of those amused little smiles, like all the trouble and strife you puny humans cause one another, how poignant, how unevolved. Fuck you! I actually do prefer someone slightly on edge. I just wish I could relax easier, turn it off when I wanted to. My brain won't switch off, ever, thoughts bubble up to the surface and effervesce nonstop, and my body won't leave me alone. And no kidding, if my legs don't quit it with the waves of internal tingling I predict a banshee wail of frustration and torment.

I look at my cat Sam, if he was any more relaxed he would literally dissolve, and I feel such envy!