I sit around and beg God to give me energy, but all I find is the will to go to sleep. But sleep is hard to find these days. I’ve always been a notorious insomniac. I awoke at two in the morning and couldn’t fall back asleep. Too much worry. I’m sure that most people live with the same affliction. Only the cruel sleep soundly. Their evil deeds keep the rest of us awake. What if I’m wrong?

People ask, “How do you sleep at night?” when someone does something dastardly, like he lives without a conscience. And I’m sure some people do. I’ve slept next to those who snore their little brains out, and I grow envy over their slumber. I want to plug their noses so they’ll awaken abruptly, and then I’ll say, “Join the club.”

Thoughts were whirling in a cave last night in my humid room. I remember sleepovers when I was just a boy. All the other kids would fall asleep, and I was the one boy up. What was wrong with me for being so nervous in the company of others when I was trying to sleep?

I rubbed the back of a white dog in the coffee shop. I feel half awake and adrenalized. The day has broken. The sun is out. Another relentless morning as I listen to people chatter behind me about something. I can’t tell. It’s so loud in here. They’re playing a country song above the people’s voices.

I go through writer’s block and feel inertia in my bones. What a splendid problem. My job has robbed me of my imagination. I can’t think of other things.

I’m staring at a fellow’s cowboy hat at the table ahead of me. It’s white and made of straw with a sticker on the back that says, I’m stuck on H2O. A water enthusiast. Good.

The dog wags its tail next to me and howls at his master on a lazy Friday. I have to work later and make phone calls all morning. I wish I only had to send emails because I can’t stand to talk to people over the phone. Don’t most people hate it? I can tell. Text and emails are much more simple, aren’t they?

But anyway, the August air is hot and humid. The heat won’t end until October. It’s impossible to bear another two months of this. But I’m made to complain about anything. That’s what I’m here for. I’m a complaint machine. I file my complaints here. I’m cantankerous by myself but show a smile to others passing by who wave at me, such as a guy from Marin County. He’s arguably homeless, but he wears a lot of different clothes and looks as if he showers. He wears a heavy backpack every day in the coffee shop. He goes to the same customer and chats him up. And the customer gives him money to buy more coffee. It’s like he’s his benefactor. What would he do without him? The man gives it to him like a human feeding bread to a pigeon. The pigeon comes back for more and wants more than yesterday. It only adds to the problem. I haven’t given him a dollar. I fear that he would start depending on me.

I sip my coffee and drink my water, thinking what a daunting day is ahead of me, so much to work to do and not enough time.

An old man had to pull his pants up because his underwear was showing.

“No one in the US wears hats,” a woman says behind me.

“I heard Joe Biden got criticized for wearing a hat.”

What kind of comment was that? Why would he be criticized?

“Simone took the gold.”

Yes, it was her second gold medal.

Now they’re talking about equestrian. I tried watching it last week. All it was was women on horseback, making their horses dance on the field. I thought she would make the horse jump hurdles, but the sport must’ve changed.

They’re playing Four Non Blondes here, that old song from the nineties. Now it’s another folk song, or what they usually play here.

Anyway, what am I gonna do this weekend but sit around and relax, play tennis, and write, look for new jobs? The job market is rough. I read that now is a good time to have a job but a bad time to look for one, which is awful news for me. I guess I’ll have to live with what I have for now.