THE GREAT GADFLY:

I Look At My Watch It Says 9:25 And I Think Oh God I'm Still Alive

No, I didn't do it.

Something kept stopping me - I had to make sure the apartment was clean before I purified its energy. I had to make sure all the cabinets were organized and that the bathroom was free of even the most subliminal soap stain and I had to finally relieve my closet of its Devil's Tower-esque mound of dirty laundry and general Gummo-esque appearance, and everything had to be in its right place and in perfect order before I could hold a match to that bundle of sage and have any assurance at all that everything would henceforth be allright.

You know what? Six months later - seven, maybe? - and I still haven't lit that damn sage. It sits in a tall, thin glass on my septic tank, crowded by dozens of sticks of citrussy incense sticks, all respectively waiting for their fragrant Joan of Arc moments.

The organization of my cabinets over the past six months has become immaculate. My closet still looks like somewhere in which a wife-beating coke dealer would hide on an episode of "Cops". I sweep my hardwood floors much more often, though I'm still horrible about mopping.

This has been a hard week. Not just for me, but, it seems, for darn near everyone.

I know two people with close relatives who have died in the past few days. My own mother went into the hospital this week, and I'm faced with the nearing dread of being the child who becomes the parent, the cared-for who becomes the caretaker, the weak chin who becomes the strong upper hand. As a special added bonus, I don't have siblings and I don't have a dad. My family is microscopic and disjointed. I don't even know that much about my mother's friends. I have to figure everything out on my own.

Dread is on everyone's lips. Dread and panic and sadness and fear. A sour smell has followed me around all week. My friend talks about junkies and terminally unhealthy people and how "the black hand is floating over them." The Black Hand seems to be curled around us all this week.

This is just how I feel.

Days get shorter.

Last night I got a panicked phone call from a sobbing friend, overflowing with sadness and fear and uncertainty.

And don't even get me started on this week's elections.

Is it the air? Is it something astrological? Is it the season? Is it the shorter days? Is it coincidence? Is it my imagination? Is it the ache in my neck that's been traveling since last week, from the left side to the right side to the left side again?

This morning at work, I got on the elevator with my supervisor, who usually doesn't have a word to say to me that isn't directly work-related.

This morning, he looked at me and said, "this has been a long week."

TGIF, kids. TGIF.

This weekend I build a shrine to solace. This weekend is comfort food, new music and DVD rentals. This weekend is writing 8,000 words for my NaNoWriMo project (I'm at a little over 13,000 words as of this writing, FYI). This weekend is letting voice mail get my calls. This weekend is finishing the book I'm reading, and deciding what to read next. This weekend is Sydney Bristow in a bright red wig and techno rave karate kicks.

And maybe, just maybe, if I can be bothered to contemplate sadness and tragedy and doom, I will torch the living daylights out of that bundle of sage. After all, trailer trash closets full of dirty mildewed socks need blessing, too.