Thanks for all the emails. Yes, I’m okay. Yes, what I relayed did happen. No jokes, no bullshit. And thank you for your thoughts and suggestions. They mean a lot. I’m genuinely touched.

I find, amazingly, that I’m at a loss for words. I find myself enjoying the outside world with more passion than I’ve ever had. (Thankfully, it’s a sunny day.) But I’m now constantly looking around to see if another cop car is coming. I’ve been wondering if what I did was really wrong. I’ve been wondering if I’m really guilty. I have no idea if I’m going to be fined. I called in sick with a bullshit excuse and I don’t know if anyone there is reading my site or if I’m going to be fired because of this. I’m ashamed to tell them what happened. And I also discovered this morning that the cops had taken all the money I had in my wallet. Thankfully, it wasn’t much. (Hilariously, they left the emergency and probably expired condom I’ve had in there for months. Who knows what else is missing?)

I’ve replayed the incident many times in my head and one of the lines I explicitly remember was one of the cops saying, “You think you can do anything you want?” Ironically, this is the exact same thing bullies and malicious people have told me throughout my life. And I’ve always responded yes.

The audio file I was working on last night still remains paused at the point I left it last night. I’m hoping I can get it finished before the end of the day.

For now, I’m being exceptionally gentle to myself and staring into space a lot, thinking of all the other people the fuzz has thrown into the hoosegow for equal or lesser charges, contemplating the absurd level of force and paperwork from last night, when they could have just told me to go home or given me a warning.

If there’s an upside to all this, as I told a friend of mine this morning, some dormant anarchist impulses have risen to the surface.

I haven’t decided whether to contact a lawyer yet, but I do plan on filing a complaint with the police department. For now, I just want to rest so I can go to work tomorrow and concentrate on my job. I’ll probably know how to proceed by Monday.