The odd thing is, I used to love it late at night. There's a certain peace when everyone is abed. Well, everyone other than cats and bats and rats and other night-time creatures like me. It's quiet. All those day-time background noises that we've been trained to ignore ... they're all gone. No traffic noises from El Camino, no dull roar of 747s landing at SFO, none of that. For me, it was a time to decompress from the day; unwind from the obsessive concentration of software programming. Time for a drink, and time for a smoke.
Now though, I'm starting to hate it. No work, so no stress. Well, at least no work-related stress. No work, no stress, no need for a time to unstress. No need to become human again. I'm human all the time, nowadays.
So here I am, at what used to be the best part of my day (ok, night), and it's become purposeless. I've run out of books to read, games to play, little stories to write. Face it, I'm bored. And when I'm bored, I start thinking.
I start thinking and all of a sudden, I find myself late at night, alone with my unpaid bills, my memories, and my regrets. It's become a time of if-I'd-only, what-if, and the evil twins I-wish-I-had and I-wish-I-hadn't. It's weird. I've always prided myself on my refusal to regret, but lately that sucker's been sneaking up on me. Head on, it'd end up out in the gutter with a bootprint on its metaphoric ass. But Regret, he's a sly bastard. Sucker slides up at oblique angles, never looking you directly in the eye. Next thing you know, he's next to you, patting you on the back. "Gee, it's too bad you never sold any Kana stock, eh?" he'll ask, oozing with false sympathy. "If you had, you'd be rich. You wouldn't have to look for a job anytime soon. You'd have a house. Instead, here you are burnt out with no riches, no house and no job. Man, I feel for you." Greasy bastard.
So anyways, I'm starting to hate this time of night.
