My last name bears a shocking resemblance to the popular, adorable household pet. So in high school, my editor and I thought it would be brilliant, if not epic, to parody the hit song of the time, "Who Let the Dogs Out," by replacing Dogs with Katz. In high school, my column was first called "Who Let the Katz Out." Unfortunately, "Who Let the Dogs Out" turned out to be a terrible song that everybody hated - and its popularity may have spanned the grand total of one and a half weeks. In my senior year of high school, I figured that nobody would get the joke anymore and switched the name of my column to, "Look What the Katz Dragged In," because I couldn't disregard the comedic genius of my last name.

I thought better of it in college. When I started writing for The Sun the first semester of sophomore year and was asked to come up with a moniker, I didn't want to seem juvenile and parody my last name again. This was college, the big time, and I had to be more sophisticated, because college students are supposed to be sophisticated. Nevertheless, standing outside Barton for Lehman's Inauguration Ceremony, I came up with about 50 phrases that I could insert Katz into: for example, "The Katz in the Hat," "Katz in the Cradle" and "Katz, Now and Forever."

One night around the same time, my roommate woke me up in our Cascadilla dorm room and told me that I was singing parts of The Star Spangled Banner in my sleep. I usually snore - loudly - but this was a first. So I told my roommate the next day, "Hey, why don't I call my column 'Talking in my Sleep.'" I think his response was: "That's stupid." And the rest is history.

My moniker is deeper than that, I swear. Stay with me here. I've written around 75 columns for The Sun in my time here. I think I ran out of column ideas around the fourth one. After that, I spent many party-free Saturday nights perusing The New York Times, or the CNN website, or thinking about life at Cornell. In other words, I was looking for topics most of the time. I don't have all the answers. In fact, I think I have fewer answers than most people. I just write. I try to be entertaining and make your Mondays a little bit more enjoyable. I'm just honored I could do it for the past three years. One would think it's the writer's job to be confident and all knowing. In the columnist's eyes, he or she is correct. But that's never been my style; I'm that guy who writes about the Middle East one week and George Clooney's pockets the next. I'm the cabana boy who once allegedly lost a man with Alzheimer's. I don't think I'm right, and I don't have answers. Sure, I do some research, but I rarely have a final conviction. There are conservative columnists, liberal columnists and moderate columnists all over these pages. They can't all be right. Nobody is ever right. But I'm sure that each writer has some truth in whatever he or she says. That's why I don't understand why we get so mad at each other all the time. When it comes down to it, we're all just talking in our sleep.

Plus, everyone hated that Broadway show Cats.

Here come the thank yous. First, I would like to thank all of the editors I've had here. Thank you, Laura, for accepting me as a columnist, even though the first thing I wrote for the paper was about capuchin monkeys. And thanks to Erica, Zach and Carlos for making it a great experience. Oh, and thank you, Josh Plotnick, for being my Yoda.

Thank you to all my professors for making learning fun.

I also want to thank my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. And to my late Golden Retriever, Maggie, I owe a lot of my inspiration. My mom and dad stayed up almost as late as I did on Saturday nights - and trust me, they weren't partying either. They were coming up with frantic column ideas that I would subsequently reject, saying, "Do you want me to look like a freak?" Unfortunately, as you may have inferred, I for the most part took their ideas. I'm a freak. Thank you to my uncles for the criticism/advice, and thank you to my grandparents for the unconditional support … even when I traumatized them with awkward sexual references.

To my housemates: Zatch (no typo), Andrew, Dani and Alex (and Kelsey and Stephanie): I love you all. I meant to say that to my family too, but it's manlier this way. As the title suggests, I will always miss driving in the car (whether in New Mexico or Ithaca), blasting Celine Dion's greatest hits and singing along. I guess that cancels out the "manly" statement. Oops. I also could not have written most of my columns without the material you have provided, notably my piece on our household Constitution, followed by an update on its early demise. And thank you to my alarm clock/snooze button for annoying the hell out of them. College would have sucked without you guys. To all of my friends in general, I'll never forget our times together.

Thanks to the Cornell Hockey team for being awesome.

Finally, I've divided my time at college between BL and AL - Before Leslie and After Leslie. My freshman year of college was beyond great, but when I met Leslie during sophomore year, I learned that there was so much more. You have made my time at Cornell better than I could have imagined, and I can't picture Cornell without you. I hope that continues for a long time.

And in the words of Rusted Root, who sang at my freshman year Slope Day: Send me on my way.

Thanks for reading.

Josh Katz is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be reached at jdk45@cornell.edu. Talking In My Sleep appeared Mondays.

Archived article by Josh Katz