It's a known fact that if you spend a lot of time (more than ninety seconds) contemplating the mystery of your own existence, you will become confused and disquieted, then alarmed and panic-stricken (this is where the pacing begins), finally settling into a condition laypeople colorfully refer to as "hysterical twitching" but which credentialed psychologists from Arizona State more accurately term "existential freakout." The whole process can take less time than it takes to heat up some Hot Pockets. Or that kettle corn I like, from Jolly Time.

I wallowed in such pointless meditation last night as I lay awake in bed, the usual insomnia. I normally try to avoid such thought patterns because really what's the use. I'm going to solve life's most mysterious conundrums while becoming helplessly twisted in a blue percale sheet covered in dog hair? Not likely. I also tried to refrain from thinking about my sister's cancer surgery and what a jerk I am for not returning her call. What's percale? She left me this slurred voicemail, announcing that she's home from the hospital and would love to hear from me. I listened to it a couple of times, she sounds so damaged and unwell. She had 70 lymph nodes removed as well as a portion of her tongue. I cannot dwell on these stark facts. How thoughtless of her to saddle me with such an obligation, can't she think about anyone but herself? I will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid awkward and emotionally difficult situations. I'll flee on jet skis, I'll obtain fraudulent passports, I'll hide in a woven basket from Pier 1 that can be used as a clothes hamper or just a decorative whatever. I'm glad that when someday I collapse from a heart attack and fall between the bed and the wall in an awful folded death crumple that I won't be the one who finds my body. I feel sorry for whoever does, it's very unfair, someone being forced to deal with me in such a situation, all the post-death rigmarole, the kind of terrible situation that I myself spent a lifetime avoiding, to such a degree in fact that you could call the avoidance of such grim situations the very theme or subject of my entire life. There's a Henry James story in there somewhere. I like to think that if you truly love someone, have the right kind and amount of love in your heart or wherever love resides, then you will dispose of their remains and make all the necessary phone calls and arrangements without a lot of childish fuss. Childish fuss is sort of my stock-in-trade, I should work on that. Maybe I will rise to the occasion as I get older and the people I love begin to sicken and die. It's something to shoot for.