My therapist and I are talking about my post-traumatic stress disorder, specifically related to September 11. I’ve been thinking a lot about it lately, and that’s mostly because I’ve acquired a real taste for apocalyptic entertainment, whether it be my obsession with The War of the Worlds (the book or the movie); with the TV shows, LOST and the new, improved, Battlestar Galactica; or comic books like Y the Last Man (which, like Snakes on a Plane, tells you everything you need to know in the title).  

I have an inexplicable craving for the feelings that come out of losing everything like this—not in the Goth, “I-am-the-Crow” way, but in the way everything changes and there is a single-minded focus on survival. I think it might either be an almost addictive reaction to the extreme situations I was in, or it might be like looking at pictures of the World’s Ugliest Dog—it’s hideous and awful, but you have to keep staring.  

I don’t know. 

But since I don’t want to be too much of a bummer, let me tell you what happened this morning when my alarm clock made its horrible, daily yowling sound. When I reached over to pound on it with my fist like I always do, I was blocked by a fat black pussycat who was pressing his paws as hard as he could on the snooze button. That’s right, Magik was trying to turn my alarm clock off. These animals are getting too smart for their own good. Thank the heavens that Newcastle has a mind like a steel trap—that’s been left out in the rain for a week and beaten with a hammer.