Sometimes, the day calls for a good, ol’ fashioned stream of consciousness; a vomiting of words and thoughts that means nothing to anyone, except possibly the “vomiter.” Let’s dive in …
I don’t know about you, but I had a trouble sleeping last night. I mean, do you blame me? With everything that’s going on in the world, from the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, to the acquisition of Wordle by the New York Times, Bill Murray playing golf at Pebble Beach, Kylie Jenner welcoming another baby into the world, and of course, the NFL Pro Bowl, how am I expected to “wind down” from all that excitement?
And don’t even get me started on the Olympics, that quadrennial, two-week stretch when we immediately become experts in sports and activities that 10 minutes prior to tuning in we knew nothing about? Things like mogul skiing, skeleton, curling, ice dancing and skiathlon (I know, I had to look it up too). And, by the way, the IOC apparently picked the IDEAL location this year, since virtually all the snow is manmade. And that is only one of many things that make this year’s venue questionable. (Symbolically scratches head in mock wonder.)
Yes, I’m exhausted because it was truly a weekend of things that don’t matter to me, and yet, they’re all stuck in my head, like an earworm you pick up at the grocery store and can’t shake no matter what you do or what song the Muzak system plays next as you “symbolically” scratch your head (again) wondering why your local grocer is completely out of gluten-free spaghetti, the ONE THING that was on your spouse’s list.
(Like hiccups, I know everyone has a half-assed earworm “remedy”; none of them works for me, and that’s why my twice-yearly bouts of hiccups – and I refuse to spell it “hiccoughs” though I do prefer “doughnuts” over “donuts” – tend to last at least an hour, and also why I’ll have the Neil Diamond ballad September Morn stuck on “play” on my internal jukebox for the next three days.)
And, because I couldn’t stop thinking (about everything from Wordle to slope skiing and eventually, to what the hell is a Platinum Jubilee, anyway?), last night I couldn’t get to sleep. That, of course, made me think more, about more things, some important, most not. And I have yet, in all my years, found a decent remedy for that.
Some people get up and do stuff when they can’t sleep. I don’t. Nor do I take sleeping aids. (I feel that could be slippery slope for me.) Instead, I simply try harder, willing myself to sleep, shutting my eyes with all the force I can muster, trying to breathe deeply as though the room is filled a magical anesthesia. I roll from one side to the other to get into perfect sleeping position. And all this does is prove and I, too, can come up with half-assed, nonsense remedies for what ails me.
It doesn’t help that I still have the clock-radio I took with me to college in 1980-something staring me in the face every time I roll over, like I’m a sleep-deprived rotisserie chicken in the deli department at the same grocery store that was spewing out September Morn. And while I’m turning and trying too hard at everything just to get some sleep, I immediately start thinking, “September Morn? That’s the best they could do? Neil Diamond had so many great songs, and that was what Muzak picked?”
By midnight, my brain was a crowded city bus; by 1:15 a.m., it was a clown car. The last time I looked at the clock (as I finished a challenge in which I tried to list at least one rock band whose name started with each letter of the alphabet, because the classic get-to-sleep “remedy” of counting sheep is 100% bulls**t), it read 2:08, it’s green LED display reflecting the envy I had for all those who had happily and peacefully dropped into a deep slumber hours prior.
And then, I started to calculate what time it was in Beijing, and what events were happening at that moment, the very moment I looked at the clock for the last time before finally, pathetically falling into a fitful, three-hour, six-minute sleep.
By the way, does anyone know who won the NFL Pro Bowl? More importantly, does anyone care?
Therein ends this stream of consciousness.
© 2022 David R. Haznaw