Sobriety, dear reader, has been a trip.  Not the fun, kaleidoscopic kind where you’re riding a wave of serotonin and questionable decisions, but the kind where your brain decided to chuck a I.E.D into your circadian rhythm just for the fuck of it.  In the early days, I became what I can only describe as “insomniatic.”  [Yes, I know it wasn’t (previous to today) a recognized English word, but I found the English language to be lacking in this specific instance, so I created this neologism.  You’re welcome.]  Sixty-two hours.  That’s how long I was awake.  Sixty-two hours of raw, unfiltered consciousness.   It was like being trapped in a David Lynch film, minus the jazz and creepy dwarves.  Fascinating, sure, but also the kind of fascinating that has you questioning the nature of reality itself.

Then came the dreams.  Those annoyances had been gone for decades, and they weren’t missed.  But they’ve come back now, in 4K resolution, Dolby surround sound, and full fucking Technicolor.  And they sucked.  Not in a “wake-up screaming” kind of way – I don’t do nightmares, thank you very much – but in a “why is my subconscious so goddamn annoying?” kind of way.  They were petty, irritating little vignettes that stuck to my brain like gum on a hot sidewalk.  But last night?  Last night, my dreams finally got their act together.  They started with a delightful little scene of vengeance – me, absolutely eviscerating a certain pitiful bitch who had the stupid audacity to approach me in a restaurant.  It was glorious.  Then, a hard cut to something far more wholesome: a dream about the release of my next book, the one I’m about to hurl into the publishing void.  No spoilers, of course, but let’s just say I woke up feeling like a goddamn superhero.

That feeling didn’t last.  Because, as is the way of the world, reality came knocking with its usual bag of horrors.  The news of the antisemitic terrorist attack in Australia hit like a liver kick.  Utterly vile.  My hat’s off to the badass who wrestled one of the attacker’s guns away – and act of courage that deserves more than a passing mention.  Would that he had finished the job, though.  My thoughts are with the victims, their families, and my Jewish friends around the world on this first day of Hanukkah.  It’s a bitter reminder that the world is still full of monsters, and not the fun, fictional kind.

On a brighter note, let’s talk about Shirley Jackson.  Today marks the birth of one of the most ferocious minds to ever put pen to paper.  If you didn’t read The Lottery in school, stop what you’re doing and fix that.  It’s a short story that will slap you across the face and leave you questioning everything you thought you knew about human nature.  And then there’s The Haunting of Hill House, a gothic masterpiece that opens with one of the most chilling paragraphs in all of literature:

No living organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream.  Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more.  Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone. 

Chills. Every damn time.  That opening is a masterclass in atmosphere, a slow, deliberate tightening of the noose before you even realize it’s around your neck.  Jackson dissected the human condition with the precision of a surgeon and the malice of a cat toying with its prey.  Suburban conformity, psychological terror, the uncanny – she turned these into her playground, and the results were nothing short of devastating.  She was, in every sense of the word, a literary badass.

I aspire to write something even a fraction as haunting, as sharp, as utterly unforgettable as her opening paragraph to Hill House.  Until then, I’ll keep hammering away at these keys, dreaming in 4K, and occasionally indulging in a little dream-world vengeance.

Here’s to Shirley Jackson, to the courage of those who stand against Islamic-extremist hate, and to the strange, maddening, beautiful journey of sobriety.  Stay weird, stay wild, and for the love of all things holy, stay awake for less than 62 hours at a time.

Happy Sunday, Merry Christmas, and Happy Hanukkah.

N.P.: “I Stay Away” – Alice In Chains