I had to spend two days in the penalty box for unhumanlike conduct. I had a nasty bout of insomnia that left me a bratty, self-pity-filled baby. I figured the Internet didn’t need any more of my self-indulgent babbling about turning into a basement-dwelling gas station attendant. I know I didn’t.
I’m out of the [...]

I am not sure what is the worst part of being away at 3:07 a.m. It could be, well, being awake. It could be having Wham’s “Last Christmas” stuck in your head on repeat. Or it could be that you have just realized that until Friday if someone had asked you who sang “All The [...]

Dear Jodi,
It’s your fault, stupid. You were kind of cold and a little droopy-eyed and you wanted to be alert for tonight’s writing workshop. So what did you do? You ordered that cup of hot, delicious coffee before class.
COFFEE AT 4:30 P.M.? Are you new? Your battles with me, sleep, are legendary. Have you [...]

Fuck, it’s 11:09 p.m. and I forgot to go to bed early. I hate when I do that.

For the past week or so someone has been doing some in-depth research here on iwilldare.com about the TTHM. I don’t know who it is. It’s been fascinating watching the mystery searcher plunder through seven years of archives.
The mystery searcher is not the legendary TTHM. I asked him. This has, of course made the [...]

I’m on the verge of becoming one of those people who apologize for not writing and bitch about having nothing to say. Yeah, I hate those people.
But instead of that, I will tell you about how I scared the shit out of myself last night. I was stumbling up to bed at about 11:30, [...]

It seems as though I woke up on the melancholy side of the bed this morning. Last night I had a dream about Ben Jones, a boy I loved in college. The dream was so fun and full of that special chemistry that makes you feel hopeful and alive that I was saddened to be [...]

I’ve reached the stage in my yearly mid-summer battle with stress-induced insomnia where I refuse to turn on the lights or get out of bed no matter how much I’m not sleeping. It’s the stubborn phase, and it’s not pretty.
In fact, it’s downright bizarre. My mind has started this new weird thing when we’re not [...]

At this point in my insomnia career, I’m pretty adept at knowing when a bad night’s gonna hit me. I can feel it in the spinning of my brain, in my inability to concentrate and the compulsion to pace endlessly around Supergenius H.Q.
I had such a night last night. I did everything I was supposed [...]

You know nothing good is going to come of a night where the topic of rectal bleeding includes the words gobs and gobs. Really. I’ve come to the conclusion that most writers in my class are sick fucks. Ashes in hotdishes? Marbles in dead mom’s mouths? Rectal bleeding? Mortuary sciences?
I’m like Suzy fucking Sunshine compared [...]

The incessant chatter of my inner voice is driving me ape shit. I don’t know if it’s PMS (pre-menstrual syndrome) or PSS (pre-story syndrome) as the symptoms are generally pretty similar. I have a short story due soon. Maybe in a week or so. I can’t quite remember. But that is beside the point.
The point [...]

My brain has accomplished a feat that has stunned even me, the owner of the brain. I’ve been on an emotional rollercoaster this week. Like I told my friend Mel at lunch today, I’m so manic and moody that I’ve even begun to annoy myself.
So tonight while I was trying to watch Top Chef and [...]

I haven’t slept much in the past few nights. I’m not sure what my problem is. I don’t feel stressed out, but my not-sleeping seems to be saying otherwise. I think I’m worried about my next short story. Not so much the writing of the story or coming up with an idea, but finding the [...]

I should be sleeping, not hovering above the keyboard in the Fortress of Solitude wrapped in the buttery butter sheet and listening to Ben Gibbard sing “You Remind Me of Home.” It’s Chuck Klosterman’s fault. I’ve started reading Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas and it got me to thinking [...]

as a non-morning person i must believe that this sudden rash of 6 a.m-ness (and by sudden rash i mean, well, today) is just a side-effect of having slept entirely too much during my bout with the flu. there really is no other excuse to explain why i’m sitting here at 6:34 naked in the [...]