Tuesday

It s 2:00 a.m., and I can barely keep my eyes in focus, much less keep my brain clear. It s Tuesday now, but to me, it s just a really long Monday. I stare at the painting on the wall across from my desk.

It s strange that I ve been sitting at this desk for a week now, staring at this painting, but I never actually looked at what I was seeing. In the painting, a middle-aged man stands with his back to me, looking out his front door. He is wearing a loose, light-blue shirt and pants that could be either his pajamas or some strange, oriental-looking outfit. Outside his door is a vast ocean no land, just endless ocean. And it s hard to judge exactly how far down the water is. Perhaps he could step out his doorway right into the water, or perhaps it s 20 feet below the house. Either way, the painting makes me feel unsettled. I wonder why the painter gave the man those blue pajamas, why he painted the man s house that ugly, pastel yellow, and why this man has ocean outside his front door. It almost looks as if the man himself is wondering these same things; as if he just barely discovered that out the front door of his pastel-yellow house is endless ocean.

I look back at my laptop s screen and see that my query has completed. I searched for all IP addresses that hit the Web site more than...