Don't Feed the Deranged Squirrels
Don’t Feed the Deranged Squirrels… I don’t know about you, but there are rodents in my head, several of them, pulling circus stunts on wheels that go around and around but get neither them nor me, anywhere. Obsession, compulsion, addiction, worry, plotting, scheming, meticulous record keeping, pattern making nonsense. I’ve lived long enough and come far enough to know these are simply squirrels. Sometimes rabid, anxious, ferocious squirrels with absolutely no power to protect me let alone serve me or make me happy. Lately, I’ve been coming to identify them - made up stories, narratives I tell myself to explain the antagonistic ghost pains I feel: inferiority, rejection, insatiability, failure, et al. I eat. I barrage my lovers with inquiries and accusations. Sometimes out loud. Usually in the screaming silence of the night. I run, for miles, in place - as metaphor of course, but also quite literally - on a treadmill - t...