Insomnia
These past few weeks have found me under the sleepless influence of insomnia for the first time in my life. It’s weird. Right now I’m up reading the economist, watching New York Times videos on cooking, and writing the beginnings of a few letters.
I’m not sure what the problem is, either. I want to fall asleep, and I’m tired as heck, but my brain keeps putting me in these bizzare imaginary places. For example, I probably spent 30 minutes imagining what it must have been like for that American short track ice skater to make the huge mistake he did in the 2006 winter Olympics. I remember the look on his face after he cliped another skaters skates and took them both out and feeling bad for the guy. He knew he fucked up. And the dude spent 4 years training for those few short seconds of jubilation (and the promise of being the #1 ice skating honcho in the world, too, or something like that). A mistake like that probably makes one feel extraordinarily crummy. Crummy in the way you feel you tell a girl that you’re in love with her and she laughs at you. Maybe worse.
I also spent some time as Mitt Romney debating John McCain. I don’t like either of these fellows, but I was thinking to myself that Romney’s getting a bad deal and McCain needs to chill out. So in this dreamy debate I say “Listen, I’m going to set the record straight to the American People — I’ve changed my position on two major issues. That’s true. I changed them because I was wrong. I put a few years under my belt, a few hard times behind me as governor, and I told myself I’d learn from my mistakes, and admit them, so that I could do what’s right…” Then McCain starts to interrupt and I say “Hold on a sec John, you’ve been running for president I don’t know how many years; I think you can wait a few more seconds before you start in on this nonsense of flip-flopping that’s insulting to the American people..” (that’s where John shuts the hell up) “So, as I was saying, I changed my position because I saw the effects of blah blah blah”. That speech went of for a few minutes, and in my somnambulant (I picked that word up in the times, FYI) brain really got a kick out of it, right before I’d wake from that half stupor and stare at the ceiling for a while.
Anyhow, twitter is down so I couldn’t post the single word “Insomnia” and instead find myself writing all this.
I hope you’re not up reading this at 3am.