Who needs a Monster? Not I. After pulling yet another all-nighter where sleep eludes me and I deal with my own crazy thoughts, some form of energy drink is wasted on me. My eyes feel tired but, other than that, I feel remarkably awake. The being awake all night thing doesn’t really bother me; it’s the total waste of a day that is to come that annoys the crap out of me. It will be lost with a nap—maybe quite short, but a nap nonetheless. Lethargy will follow, along with the annoyance with myself that I don’t feel like doing all those things I promised myself I would. Ah! Now the Monster makes sense.
I would prefer to sleep through the night, but recently this has become somewhat of a problem. My mind has been working overtime and, annoyingly, I don’t appear to have gained any results of any meaning. All I am doing is creating problems, and that is something I would rather avoid. Of course, the lack of stepping out of the house for the last ten days or so hasn’t helped. I did manage a short walk down to my local shop yesterday and I hated every moment of it! I kept my head low, was polite when required, and was grateful to be home. I did it to try and break the cycle. Today I shall try again; success is not guaranteed, but I have to make the effort.
Throughout the night my mind has been concentrating on photography. It is, of course, just one of the reasons I need to get out. However, I do have plenty to do with regards to images I already have and what I want to do with them. This can range from slight edits to working out the best format to sell them—if, indeed, I do. The selling thing I actually find quite hard to pin down. I like the idea, but I am not very good at that sort of thing: you know, fixing a price, finding a decent printer, and dealing with customers. Just the thought of it starts me worrying and feeling overly anxious. I find that crazy because I know it would probably give me a great deal of satisfaction, but there you go—it’s who I am.
Other things are also there, swirling in the fog. I think about all the usual ho-hum stuff that we all think about and probably have sleepless nights over: you know, money, bills, and all that. I also think of… well, lots of things really. Nothing is in any particular order or on any particular theme (usually)—just stuff. It all mingles together and is sometimes interrupted by a memory or a face, totally at random and sometimes most unexpectedly. Tonight, two come to mind. First, a guy I used to work with who causes me much anger and frustration. The anger is directed at him and the frustration at myself for letting certain situations and events ever happen in the first place. I am going back over ten years, and yet it haunts me even now—more so, it feels, as I pick at it like an old scab. The second is a place, dear to my heart, that I miss terribly. This one is more a vision of what once was—an image captured and held deep within my mind. It is an image of autumn and wet leaves, that earthy smell as the summer’s growth now lies decomposing on the ground. That and more; it’s wonderful and sad all at once.
Even as I write, things continually show themselves briefly. Some are not good, and I feel my own demons and monsters having fun with me and doing their best to have me play their games—something I shall avoid, in part due to the help and distraction I get from writing this all down. Fuck them, is what I say to them tonight. Fuck them and all they do to pull me down, you little bastards. There is only one Monster I want to be dealing with today, and it comes in a can.