20 Hours At Home, Part 1

12 AM - Buzzed off a birthday celebration I had to leave early to catch the last train southbound. There was a cute girl at the bar that made me think of my last girl. I am morose, and for lack of a cigarette, I spend the train ride reading fifty pages of Stephen King's "The Waste Lands," a book which features a monumental train ride. When I realize this, I can sense the walls of reality closing in on me, so I put the book away. Outside the window there are no tall buildings, only hills, and trees, and rows of houses that have space for yards. I'm far from the city.

1 AM - I get off at Mountain View, the train stop where I used to board the train when I was in high school. Here is where I met my good friend, here is where we bought out first porno rag, here is where I was sitting when he strolled up wide-eyed one Tuesday morning and said unconvincingly that planes rammed into the World Trade Center. I catch a taxi and ride home. My parents are gone for the week. The house where I grew up is all to myself. The street is quiet. I hated being here all summer - hated everything about suburbia - but now there is something quite comfortable about it. It is so peaceful. I want to grab a blanket and lie in the middle of the street, and watch the stars. I wonder for the first time if I was not born to live in a city.

1:45 - I have an appointment at 9:00 and I will have to drive to get there. I should sleep. I watch "Friday Night Lights" instead. This is the third episode of the second season, and it is much better than the second episode, which was much better than the first episode. In a sense, the show is suffering from the same fatigue as "Heroes" - both had first seasons which built to a defining climax (for "FNL," it was the State Championship; for "Heroes," saving the world); now, both shows are struggling to find a new overarching path. "Heroes" has the ratings to spend time on a narrative comeback; "FNL" will probably fade.

2:30 - Fall asleep, worrying that I won't fall asleep. Which comes first - insomnia, or the anxiety about insomnia that spurs insomnia? I hate the chicken and the egg.

8:30 - I wake up from a splendid dream feeling like I maybe slept four hours. I put on my gray warm-ups and a T-shirt my brother gave me for christmas, one of the only two T-shirts I own that weren't bought cheap in some foreign city or handed down from the family closet.

9:00 - Physical therapy is very often painful. I have terrible posture and an inability to relax many key muscles - lower back, stomach, calves. Half of PT is comfortable massage, the other half muscle-twisting pain. Because the physical therapy helps wuth the pain, I keep doing it; because it doesn't cure the pain completely, it also makes me feel very depressed, and trapped. There was a time when I didn't feel as if my body and mind required constant care from professionals. That time has passed, for me. I don't think it will ever return.

My physical therapist asks me how things are going. Groggy, wanting to sleep, I say Fine. She asks, Have I seen the girl? No, I say, I haven't seen the girl.

10:00 - Blessed release. My physical therapist reminds me to do my stretches. I nod, knowing that I won't and then will feel bad about not doing them. I feel too tired to feel sad. I feel numb, and yet I cannot appreciate the numbness - I cannot just be. Consumed with self-hatred, my leg and back muscles screeching, I go to Lucky's for a bunch of chicken strips, and go home and cover them in Tabasco, and watch "30 Rock."

11:30 - I have an appointment at the Apple Store to replace my electronic cord. The appointment is at 12:30. I don't like driving to that area - it reminds me too much of the summertime, and of high sprung emotions that I don't like to think about. But I need an electric cord. I feel like I have a cold - my nose is stuffed and my throat is sore. I speak to a friend on the telephone. I watch "Chuck" on my mother's computer, but pause it before the the credits are finished. I gather my computer into my bag, rub the stubble I haven't shaved in days, and consider my arms, which are long and skinny and not particularly useful. The dark weight in my mind presses tears against my eyes. I hold them back, then realize that I am alone in a house on an empty street, and then I collapse, and I sob.

I do not know what I am so sad about. It may be the girl, or memories of my childhood, or my misformed muscles that cannot relax. As I lie curled on the floor of a kitchen, a young man without a real job with long hair who spends much of the week reading and writing in coffeehouses, I worry, not for the first time, that I am becoming a cliche.