I really should sleep, but the sensation of burning acid in my gullet makes me wary about lying down supine again. I suppose an extra pillow should suffice, but I’d have to dig through the disaster that is my bedroom.

So instead, I’m sitting here—as usual—tip-tap-tapping away. Truth be told, the living room is not in much better shape. One of these days I may actually get things somewhat organized, but that day is probably not going to be today.

I did take some Pepcid. I’m hoping it’ll kick in soon, and I can get some sleep.

The compact fluorescent bulbs actually seem to generate the exact kind of light that the old incandescent bulbs used to. It’s still this patently artificial light, and it still gets warm in here, but I suppose that’s probably mostly because of the computer, and not really the lights any more. But sitting here behind closed blinds gives me the illusion of living in a vacuum. I could open my door one day, and whoosh, out into the starry void I go, forgetting that this was all an elaborate holographic projection. Well, I suppose that’s why real space ships have airlocks.

I would really like very much to be back to a somewhat normal state. OK, maybe normal is a bit much to ask. But at least maybe normal for me.

I found myself thinking back to all the hours I’ve spent by myself, and being OK with that. Those are actually pretty few and far between, but they’re there in my memory if I fish around long enough. It’s only in the last six years that I’ve had at least one constant companion: my iPod. I was quite sad when I had to put it to rest last January, because it stopped being able to connect to my notebook. It has, of course, since been replaced.

So yeah, it’s just been me and the music, really.

And there are moments when I’m by myself listening to the music playing, speeding past all the other cars on the freeway at 80 mph, and I’m filled with a feeling that I can’t quite put a name to. I would probably call it joy if I were more familiar with it.

This late afternoon, as the sun started its inevitable descent into the sea, I drove out of Coronado like a bat out of hell, and up the I-5 past downtown and Old Town, intent on my mission.

I have, on the strong advice of A, E, Bn, and lately, S., been trying to catch more sunsets.

So I slid into a parking spot off of Sunset Cliffs Blvd and gazed at the blazing orange orb, slowly plunging down below the horizon, leaving a bright orange afterglow in the otherwise nearly cloudless blue sky, and for half-an-hour afterwards, I was mesmerized by the incoming waves. Each tiny wavelet looked like a dark droplet arising spontaneously from the back-lit, silvery sea, then quickly evaporating, and when lots of little wavelets merged together, a real wave would come rolling in.

But as Nelly Furtado is wont to sing, all good things come to an end.

I just realized that it’s pretty much wake-up time on the East Coast at this hour, and thank God I don’t have to be at work until 1 p.m. tomorrow later today. I’m not sure what possessed me to stay awake. I’m hoping that it’s a good spirit rather than a bad one, but you know me, I’m always awaiting catastrophe.

One of these days, I would like the universe to prove me extraordinarily wrong.