Is this, like, freakily, frighteningly bizarre?

For the past month, I've been writing sports features on everything from girls' fast pitch softball to inline roller hockey for $15 a story, but an interviewee's question yesterday made me realize: I have absolutely no idea what newspaper I'm writing for. I've written some 50 stories and do...not...know the name of the newspaper I'm writing for. I've spoken to the city editor, the paper's phone operator, at least three general-assignment reporters a thousand-thousand times (and even read the newspaper itself!) and still, STILL! do not know what newspaper I'm spooling this fluff for. What's even more unusual: I just found out I had a tumor removed 10 years ago and I don't remember that, either. A tumor...RIPPED from my body and I have absolutely nil recollection. What's more: I have no idea what I minored in at college and I JUST graduated a month ago. Is this freaking out anyone else but me?

Dude, it gets even weirder...

...For the past month, I've been having these weird nocturnal experiences. I'll be lying in bed (I sleep on a heap of mattresses, or in an armchair, or on the floor, or on a couch, or under a bush in the backyard: I'm a bit of a gypsy sleeper), lights on or off (doesn't matter), and a numbing paralysis falls over my bed. Imagine a blackout, my nerves like street lamps, winking out one right after the other. I feel my pulse thrumming through every cell in my body, as though I were a plucked guitar string. I can feel the blood in my brain thundering and sloshing up against my cranium. Needless to say, I'm terrified, limbs sheathed in ice, brain humming like an extraterrestrial space craft, body pulsating, fairly palpitating. Then I start hearing voices. Not in my head. Literally hearing. I mean decibels, sound waves. The voices crackle in and out of coherence, like a space opera on an antique cathedral radio. Maybe I hear the chaos of untold legions (demonic entities? Martian forces?) thumping around downstairs, their pandemonium resonating through the floorboards. Or sour nothings whispered in my ears. I see things, visual hallucinations, as well as aural. Characters from Dante, from Robert Grave's mythology books, or John Carpenter and George Romero movies. With an almighty effort of will, I snap my body out of the grip of this nocturnal visitation, try to return to my normal sleep cycle, but it's remorseless, recurring and recurring. Visions of Hell, crackling flames, imminent death. Needless to say, this is not a pleasant experience. We're talking biblical anxiety attacks.

Isn't that weird? Freaky deaky. Mmm-hmmm. A real head-scratcher. Maybe it's, like, preemptive Alzheimer's. You think? P.S. I can't remember my password on this site. Hmmm, the mystery thickens.

First of all...

I love you all! Sorry. So, so sorry. That was the mania talking. I sometime experience errant bursts of exuberant emotion. Yes, I most certainly do have hypnogogia, and in ample doses. 30 to 40% of all people, according to MY Google Search, experience it sometime in their life. I experience it 20-40 times a month. It's because I am, A) an insomniac. And B) Bi-polar mixed. That's right, I--Little, old Lantern--have Sylvia Plath syndrome. Only I have a much severe case. At least she got a break in the monotony, pingponging between funks and highs. I, on the other hand, experience both depression and mania at THE SAME TIME, ALL THE TIME, EVERY DAY, EVERY MOMENT. Cool-O, huh? I have, in the past six years, been on 35 different anti-Ds and anti-Ps. I've run the antidepressant alphabet, from Alvyrin to Zyprexa. I've been on pills that've slapped an extra 90 pounds to my 100-pound frame. I've been on pills that give me small seizures every time I get horny. I've been on pills that rob me of my equilibrium and pills that make me go to the potty 250 times a day (that's known as bloody-hole syndrome, colloquially speaking). My primary symptoms are: hyper speech patterns, delusions, paranoia, IBS, irritability, occasional hallucinations, suicidal thinking, the works. Not that I'm depressed about all this (believe me, the mania takes care of that). Unfortunately, it does make my anti-social and a bit of a loner, meaning that, in order to find the social acceptance I so dearly crave, I have to seek...other sources. Like last night, I snuck out of the house round midnight, spent a couple of hours gathering toads and then told them all about my day, for three hours. They were very attentive. Why am I telling all this to you folk, instead of to some quack? A) You guys know me; I'm Will; remember? Cranky Will, Naughty Will, Feisty Will (nothing? really?) B) I have no health insurance, can't afford it (Ironic, isn't it? I'm a newspaperman, the world's most hated occupation, yet I can't afford to see a doctor for the antidotes to all those poisoned-pen letters cranks mail me) C) This is the Office Party section. You're allowed to talk about non-literary stuff here. This is a no-taboo, pure-tangential zone. This is the place where people who know each other here can get to really each other. And since you folk know me, in all my various guises and incarnations, I'm letting you know a little bit more about me (By the way, I'm writing for the Amherst Bee, I think). Furthermore...I LOVE YOU ALL!...Damn, there it goes, again. Anyhoo, to keep the self-absorption express chugging, I just graduated from college, 3.65 G.P.A. (it turns out I have no minor, go fig), and am searching for a job, financial coffers and parental pride withering by the moment. So, if y'all don't mind, keep your ears to the ground and tuned in to any potential newspaper jobs. I'm just scraping by on a couple of piddling freelance jobs at present. I NEED JOB NOW, POR FAVOR. If any of you guys are editors and want to hire a guy who knows his stuff, some stuff-shirted college boy with varied experience, please, dudinsky, give me a rink (I'm living in Titanic...er, I mean Buffalo...NY. Someone get off this doomed ocean liner). Oooh, I just bottomed out. Hmm, well, the depression's setting in. Gotta jet. Thanks for letting me pump youse guyses ears off for a bit. Laters.
Sincerely,
Bawdy Jack, Springheel Jack, Saucy Jack

P.S.

For those of you who don't know me from the old board, like this poetaster fellow, I'm one of those people who likes to turn his private tragedies into fodder for his clownish monologues. So, if any of y'all don't like rambling, Charlie kaufmanesque, fiery-blooded monologues, remember, this here Internet is a vast and mostly-unexplored (and unclaimed) frontier and you don't have to read them. You can just mosey right on round them. You won't have to go that much out of your way. When you're traveling by bytes and pixels, detours only add microseconds onto your E.T.As. For the rest of you, to quote Tarantino (who, in turn, was quoting someone else), okay ramblers, let's get rambling.

AND WILL SOMEONE PLEASE E-MAIL ME MY NEW PASSWORD OPTION, PLEASE, POR FAVOR...Um, I'm bilingual, that's all I got.

If you like what you saw here...

...go to my Web Page at http://www.epinions.com/user-jmaslinisahack

Believe me, the above is a taster, compared to the smorgasbord which awaits you.

Glad to add another groupie to my collection (I'll be sure to find a second one as soon as possible, so you don't get lonely in there).

Poet in a hat...

...Wait a second, you referred to me as a "bloke." That's an Australian expression, right? So, unless, you've got a rather eclectic personal lexicon, you're from Australia. If you are, let me just say, A) That is so freakin' cool. B) I am very, very sorry for all the brilliant thespians we Yanks have stolen from you guys. Truly, our abuse of Kidman and the like is a war crime if ever I heard of one. My apologies (this is so cool, I got chewed out by someone from Australia; Damn, I am so wasted; wait, no I'm not, lol).

P.S. In my defense, I'm not a full-blooded American, I'm a Canadian-American. Hence the good grammar, and all without the use of a spell check.