Numbered Days

Hey, have you ever been in the middle of a brawl between two warring factions of greasy douchebags with waxed eyebrows, several of them bleeding all over the fucking place, and suddenly say to yourself, "Self? What the fuck are you doing here? You've got a book deal. You're getting paid even when you're not doing this, so why are you doing this?"

No?

Right. Of course not. I suppose I was probably the only bouncer in the club having that thought, at that exact moment. If fact, I'd wager I was the only one in New York -- in America, for fuck's sake -- to whom such a notion had occurred at that point in time. My perspective, here, is unique. Shouldn't that be telling me something?

Eight hours of my life I'm not getting back. Eight hours closer to the deadline for the manuscript. Eight hours closer to the rest of my life, and how'd I kill it? Arguing with jerkoffs in an alleyway somewhere in Manhattan, dreaming of books, my after-work bagel and my goddamned bed, into which I'm about to sink.

Why do I even bother?