it is 9:30pm, and I have to be awake again in 6½ hours, and I basically pissed away an entire weekend off.

well maybe I’m being a little harsh on myself. I did sleep quite a bit. I also felt sick as fuck and like complete ass yesterday.

I most likely have a horrific case of gastroenteritis (yes, too much information, I know) and it feels like my intestines are trying to wriggle out of my belly, but now, since I took a 4 hour nap between 2pm and 6pm, I can’t seem to get to bed.

This sucks.

I am currently reading The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove by Christopher Moore, another of his books set in Cambria, AKA Pine Cove. I recently finished reading Practical Demonkeeping and will probably go on to read Sideways which is not by Moore, does not have supernatural goings-on, and is not set in Cambria, although it is set in the Santa Ynez Valley, which is, while farther south, still on the Central Coast. Yes, I’ve heard the accolades and the hype about the movie, but since I spied the novel at B&N (where I found Lust Lizard) I figured I’d have a look.

I’ve been thinking about the time I spent wandering the Central Coast. I worry that I spend way too much time by myself. A small part of me worries that this is completely unhealthy, and that it may very well be the first step on that long descent into clinical insanity.

Then I wonder which class of perenially single people I fall under: am I a quirkyalone, or am I a full-fledged loner outcast&the type of person that everyone worries is really a psychopathic killer.

Which is all a very roundabout way of saying: what am I doing with my life?

Despite my avowed disdain for making plans, I realize that for the 1st 20 or so years of my life, I was driven by one single goal: to become a physician. Whether or not this was a good idea or not is sort of moot at this point, but I am totally having one of those existential moments. I’ve brought this up before. If you’ve ever watched “The Princess Bride”, you might remember Iñigo Montoya’s existential quandry at the end of the movie. He had been so intent on revenge for so many years of his life that now that he had achieved it, he really didn’t know what to do with himself.

Yeah, I guess the lesson of that movie is that I could always become the Dread Pirate Roberts.

But seriously. What’s next?

Oh sure, I still have to finish my residency, which is going to be another rs and five months of ball-busting agony, but, while I am under the yoke and the whip, I figure I’ve got to have some sort of carrot leading me onward.

What is that carrot?

Oh sure, there are the traditional, normal things. Money, power, love. A good paying job, a nice house out in the suburbs, a family, 2.5 children. The good ol’ American Dream. But you and I know that I could never stand such inanity, at least not for long, and, sure, part of that is the finite probability that I will never meet someone that would be willing to procreate with me.

After all, this isn’t exactly the ideal world to raise children in. Especially not if this country regresses into a racist, homophobic utopia for fat white guys, which it seems to be in danger of doing.

But, then what?

Here is where I finally confront the heart of the matter and recognize what exactly lies inside my heart.

I guess this is the carrot, as mundane as it may be. I need to finish my residency, get a decent paying job, and pay off my loans before life passes me by completely.

And assuming that nothing manages to derail me on the way (which is basically another way of taunting God or the Fates to kick me in the crotch and give me a nice wedgie), I guess I can do this in 10-14 years. Maybe sooner if I can rein in my extravagant spending habits. And if I can keep my sex drive repressed by psychotropic medication.

Sick, sad, but effective.

Shit.

So that’s where I am. Making a decision to go down the path that I probably should’ve just gone down years ago, instead of having to face me fears of inadequacy, realize that I should actually probably pursue my dreams instead of simply fulfill other people’s expectation, and then now have to come up with an escape plan from a prison of misery of my own making.

OK, OK. So I don’t hate what I’m doing that much, but, months like these, I know that I’d much rather be writing than spending 36 hours locked up inside a hospital.

Ah well. It’s all perspective.