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TGIF Troubled Sleep

I was walking along C Street Downtown, past the Fish Joint, closed now for hours. It was around 11 pm. I was unable to sleep: tossing, turning, thinking of Sartre and my own lingering alienation (decades now) in my converted hotel room -- a kind of real-life imitation of some artful movie-set flophouse, lacking only a bare lightbulb suspended from the middle of the room, maybe a revolver on the cigarette-stained nightstand and a half-full bottle of cheap bourbon. Maybe lacking, as well, a stuttering neon sign just outside the third-floor window: O-T-E-L.

I gave up trying to recall my once-memorized chapters of Sartre's Troubled Sleep, threw my raincoat on, turned my collar to a wind that was not there, thrust my fists deep into the pockets, and followed my nose and the scent of jacaranda along the trolley tracks. Stopping into a pub on Sixth, I stood in the doorway and scoped out the bar-sprouting snap-brimmed hats hunched over shots and beers. A hostess leered wantonly at me (an uncanny resemblance to my mother) and extended a menu, asking me, "How many are you, sir?"

"One," I told her, saying nothing of the legion of warring demons within me. In my trenchcoat pocket, my fingers had closed around the empty prescription jar for my antidepressants. It had been over a week now without them, which might have explained why the O'Doul's she poured me looked like the excrescence of the post-industrial and electronic culture that suffocated me daily.

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I was walking along C Street Downtown, past the Fish Joint, closed now for hours. It was around 11 pm. I was unable to sleep: tossing, turning, thinking of Sartre and my own lingering alienation (decades now) in my converted hotel room -- a kind of real-life imitation of some artful movie-set flophouse, lacking only a bare lightbulb suspended from the middle of the room, maybe a revolver on the cigarette-stained nightstand and a half-full bottle of cheap bourbon. Maybe lacking, as well, a stuttering neon sign just outside the third-floor window: O-T-E-L.

I gave up trying to recall my once-memorized chapters of Sartre's Troubled Sleep, threw my raincoat on, turned my collar to a wind that was not there, thrust my fists deep into the pockets, and followed my nose and the scent of jacaranda along the trolley tracks. Stopping into a pub on Sixth, I stood in the doorway and scoped out the bar-sprouting snap-brimmed hats hunched over shots and beers. A hostess leered wantonly at me (an uncanny resemblance to my mother) and extended a menu, asking me, "How many are you, sir?"

"One," I told her, saying nothing of the legion of warring demons within me. In my trenchcoat pocket, my fingers had closed around the empty prescription jar for my antidepressants. It had been over a week now without them, which might have explained why the O'Doul's she poured me looked like the excrescence of the post-industrial and electronic culture that suffocated me daily.

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4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
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