I'm sick. Combined with the jet lag, I feel fucking awful. Not sleeping much-- last night was the first night since i've been home (which was friday) that I was able to sleep for more than two consecutive hours. Dozed off on the couch and Kel just left me there, afraid that if she woke me up to come to bed, I'd never sleep again. This is my presumption, as I'm typing this at 7:40 in the morning and she's not up yet, but it's a safe bet. Now if only I could sleep past 5 in the morning, I'd be in good shape.

The jetlag makes me dizzy and tired a lot, whcih is kind of a neat thing to experience, in a way. My eyes don't work properly. Everything on the periphery is blurred. Add the sickness to that and they just burn all the time and take twice as long to focus on anything. Typing is a bitch. My head throbs all the time. I have thinking to do, and work to produce, and I cannot hold two thoughts together for more than the most fleeting of seconds. I am done with brainpunishment. I want my head back.

Meanwhile, it's been ten years since Bill Hicks died (well, almost; it'll be ten years at the end of the month). I don't know that he ever found the peace he looked so hard for, but if you listen to RANT IN E MINOR and realize that he knew, while recording it, that he was dying... maybe the closing line from RANT carries more weight than we want to admit:

Lift me up out of this illusion, Lord. Heal my perception, so that I may know only reality.

A lot of people vibe on Hicks' anger. I don't, and in fact find his first two records really hard to listen to. From ARIZONA BAY to RANT, though, something changed in him, in his voice and his presence. Anger tempered with mercy, perhaps. A shouty, bitter man reborn as a weary spirtualist. I hope he found what he was looking for.