In the wee hours of the night, in the twilight of dreamland, when I�m not really sure that I�m still awake but I haven�t quite let go of consciousness either, I often have my deepest thoughts.

It�s a surreal time: My eyes have adjusted to the dark, but colors are beyond their reach. It�s a world of silhouette and shadow. Noises are somehow amplified � ice cracking and tumbling in the freezer, the wind tickling the leaves of the live oak in the backyard, crickets sawing away amid the St. Augustine.

I don�t remember half of these post-midnight epiphanies upon waking in the morning. Imagine the frustration of remembering that you had perhaps the revelation of your life � if only you could remember what it was.

Well, Monday night was different. I remembered.

I�d climbed into bed and turned off the lights, wishing yet again that there were a switch I could throw to turn off my thoughts. I thought about how my life these last few years could be likened to a tornado in a jar.

You remember those? Around 3rd or 4th grade, we had a science project where we took cleaned mayonnaise jars, removed their labels, filled them with water, and before screwing the lid back on, carefully inserted Monopoly pieces � the dog, the red and green houses. Then, after sealing the jar, we picked it up and swirled.

The pieces got swept up in the vortex, only to tumble slowly, ravaged back to earth. I remember that none of us could manage to get all the houses righted again.

That was my thought Monday night, that my life was a tornado in a jar. That just as soon as the wrecked pieces were settling, something happens to stir the whole thing up again.

It�s an insane existence, I thought, when good and bad news causes the same destruction, the same anxiety. What I wouldn�t give for a year of boredom, a year with nothing to react to.

And then it hit me: I�m sane. Life is bipolar.

That, my dears, is epiphany. It�s bumper sticker quality. I�m thinking about running down to Kinko�s and getting a t-shirt made. I�m trademarking it right now: I�m sane. Life is bipolar. (TM)

It�s perhaps the most comforting revelation of my life. And I remembered! There�s got to be a way to milk a little money from this nugget of wisdom. And if I keep remembering, I could establish a whole cottage industry of Andyisms (TM)�

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