Not Enough Hours

I’m stressed enough that English doesn’t have a word for it anymore. Not that we need one—stress is stress, and I’ve got it in every possible concentration. The problem isn’t the stress itself. The problem is that a day is twenty-four hours and everything I need to do requires about forty-eight.

I wake up before the sun, before the bats have even finished their thing, scrolling through whatever fell onto the internet while I was asleep. Half the time it’s porn and I’m getting myself off before I’ve had coffee. The rest depends on the calendar—school, training, work, whatever’s scheduled. Then the evening is usually whatever’s available: a party, someone to kiss, a friend’s place to crash, sometimes all three.

Sounds simple when you list it like that. It’s not. Not when every moment is spoken for. School’s throwing project after project at me—nightmares that crawl into my actual sleep. And I’m supposed to be posting three times a day to this notebook, reading everyone else’s stuff, commenting, networking constantly. I’ve got girls to call, family to check in on, shows to watch, people to fuck, drinks to have, drugs to sample, laundry to wash, money to make, groceries to buy, parties to attend, thoughts to process, houses to clean, music to listen to, books to read, plants to water, favors to owe. And that’s assuming I manage to shower and eat and maintain some basic hygiene. Sleep? Not happening.

So I’m making demands. Double the hours in a day. Better yet, fund the pill that kills sleep entirely. And this weekend I’m picking a handful of things off the infinite to-do list—something involving sex and zombies, probably—and getting comprehensively wasted thinking about how things used to be. Fair warning though: if anyone gets in my way right now, it’ll be fucking fatal. I’m stressed enough that I’ve got a license to kill. Preferably somewhere dramatic like a Russian airport.