Or Maybe I’m NOT Tired. Maybe I’m Just Crabby.

I’ve had a moody day.  My coffee was moody, my lunch was moody, and, despite the purportedly cheerful crackling going on inside my open can of Diet Coke, I’m putting the afternoon down as moody as well.
I am frowning at the universe.
It wasn’t always this way.  Ask my mom! She’ll tell you.
“That Pearl,” she’ll say.  “She’s a cheerful little SOB.”
But I don’t feel that way today.  I feel, suddenly and overwhelmingly, like I may be failing at something.
I’m afraid to look deeper than that.
Welcome to the darker corners of Pearl’s mind. 
Downtown, even the homeless know.  I pass them, their cardboard signs, and they hold out their hands, perhaps not to receive, but to give.  I look down into their dirty, seamed palms and wonder, Were you once described as a cheerful little SOB?
The squat bald man in my head, the one who has been suggesting darkly for absolute years that the veil will soon be lifted now sits on his haunches, smoking cigarettes and blowing the smoke towards the front of my skull.
He’s very sorry, he says.  There’s nothing to be done about it.
He’s lying, of course.  He wants me to join him, but we’ve been down that road.
And there’s nothing on that road. 
It’s the lack of sleep, really. 
It’s hard to be light when weighed down by one’s eye lids. 
A new sleep medication, perhaps.  Some time at the yoga studio, for sure. 
And a call to my mom, who will remind me.
I’m a cheerful little SOB.