To Sleep Perchance

“Sleep is pain's easiest salve, and doth fulfill all offices of death, except to kill.”
--John Dunne

Sleep, last night, was a thing not to be had by any means, and the salve of which the poet speaks remained obstinately out of the question.

Methought I heard a voice cry, ‘Sleep no more!

Macbeth doth murder sleep

Murdered, yes--not, in my particular case, by MacBeth (as far as I know), yet murdered still. Alone in my bed (except for two dogs and my wife), I suffered for long hours the death of sleep, the untended wound of wakefulness. The last time I looked at the clock, the hands showed 3:30. But that means nothing, other than to mark the last time I judged there to be any sense in looking.

What was it that had so completely chased sleep from my life? Was it the fact that MS had un-jointed all my bones the night before and I was still aching from it--feet, ankles, legs, knees, shoulders, neck? But that should have made me tired, one would think. It must be concluded, therefore, that being tired does not necessarily lead to sleeping.

Was my mind too crowded with thought? Never. It has never before happened.

Perhaps I was care worn, or perhaps my mind was full of plans for the coming day.

Nope, this is not likely at all. Without the application of strenuous effort, enough anyway to raise a sweat, my mind remains pretty much a blank slate--so purely so, in fact, that it exasperates other people. Take my wife for instance. Please.

An old Rodney Dangerfield joke is enough for my brain to grapple with, let alone the cares of the world and all the best laid plans of mice and men.

Seriously though, take my wife--a woman with whom I have rarely spoken because there are too many mental concerns and designs and conversations blocking the channels of peripheral noise (i.e. my voice). Honestly, I have sat with her on the front porch many a time and said many a word without making, for all intents and purposes, a solitary sound. I have watched and seen and felt the envelopment of her entire person in its own private counsel.

The only other time this happens is when she watches a movie. She does not just watch, but her spirit itself enters the TV set and lives among the characters there. One might as well ask Mel Gibson or Brad Pitt, or whomever the actor might be, whether he could interrupt her for a moment in order that she might at least briefly attend to something in the outside world.

Well, don't you ever think? she says.

No, it tends to keep me awake.

Nonetheless, if one finds himself still awake for too long after his head hits the pillow, one does begin to think in spite of his best efforts not to. In my case this has nothing to do with plans for tomorrow, chores to be done, things to be remembered, grand plans and designs--No, quite the contrary, I find myself ruminating in circles over a movie, for instance, that I did not understand (still without arriving at any answers, mind you). Who exactly was Little Dorritt related to? What was her part in this big mystery that took seven episodes to sort itself out? My God I've watched channel 10 for seven weeks now, hanging upon the elusive answer to this mystery, and now the show is over and I still don't know what happened!

From Little Dorritt, my mind wanders to a post I will write about sleeping. This becomes very long and involved and profound. It becomes so comprehensive in fact that it plays at the very edge of revelation where the meaning of the universe and human existence are concerned. But I remember not a bit of it the next day. It was merely a rumor, spread by exhaustion.

I remember then that someone at church said I have a Doppelganger running around the city. A double. This in itself was not surprising, for I had already heard of him many times in the past. But who is he? That is the question that angles for my attention. What does he want? What is he doing right now--at 2, at 3, at 4 in the morning? Sleeping? And if one double sleeps, does he sleep for both? Is it somehow impossible for both to be absent from consciousness at one and the same time? What would happen? Would it be anything like The Day the Earth Stood Still.

OH GAD! Now I had done it. Instantly my mind fixes upon this silly movie, on Keanu Reeves, on the conviction that I could have played the part of the main character just as well in my sleep. If only I could sleep. Was Keanu asleep during the filming of this movie? It's a serious question.

I would guess in hindsight that it was somewhere after 4 a.m. when I finally slept.

I woke up at 6:30, half of my body underneath the Labrador, the other half under my wife and stepson. I think I dreamed that I was a puppy. Breast feeding. In debtors' prison. On the day the earth stood still.

"To sleep, perchance to dream-
ay, there's the rub."

Cut All Save Life Support

Having a tough time today. Legs feel like they've been pulled and twisted in some kind of Medieval torture device--you know, the sort that pulls the bones out of joint and tears the muscles in the process. Yeah, that kind. Need to pop a Lortab or two, but Abdul wouldn't get out of the bathroom, where my pills are kept.

(note to self: must move pills from bathroom to bedroom).

Curious that the neck muscles seem to be connected to the leg muscles, though this must be the case, for the pain in my legs is skipping my back altogether and then showing up again in my neck and shoulders.

(must remember to write long technical essay on the truth about anatomy, along with connect-the-dots activity pages).

Now lets get this straight once for all--since the central nervous system in the person suffering from MS is working overtime to maintain the basic processes of existence, the addition of any kind of stress, be it uncommon physical effort (doing yard work, climbing a hill, having sexual intercourse), extreme weather conditions (heat, humidity), emotional upset (death of a loved one, divorce, wife having period), or unusual cognitive demands (doing taxes, helping with 3rd grade arithmetic, having to do more than one errand, writing anything less vacuous than what I'm writing right now) causes the system to overheat just as if it were an old Ford with a leaky radiator (a particularly apt description in my case) and begin to hiss and spit and chug along in quite an unsatisfactory manner.

This is where the life support systems begin to shut down--like in the old Star Trek shows, or in Jurassic Park. Yup, we're gonna have to cut power to all but minimum life support, Scotty. Guess what? The containment fences are off line, and the man eating dinosaurs are loose!

This brings us to the Swine Flu . . . or rather, God forbid!

Why Seattle?

If one were to hang around this particular Starbucks too often, one could go broke giving money to people who have somehow lost their ride to Seattle and need money for the bus. It seems odd that it's always Seattle. Why would anyone want to go to Seattle to begin with? Not wet enough in Portland? Maybe it's just more believable than say San Francisco or LA.

In any case, I guess you have to draw the line somewhere, especially if you don't really have much more money than they do. I'm always perfectly willing to give a cigarette instead, which is always requested after the money is denied.

And speaking of Seattle . . . One time when I was up there I watched out the window of a third story book store while a guy across the street collected from the sidewalk outside the Starbucks part of a cup of coffee, part of a sandwich from the trash bin, and then half a cigarette from the gutter to top off his meal. Didn't ask a soul fer nuthin. Now that is self reliance, and inventiveness to boot! I figure a guy like that has to have moved up in the world since then.

One time a guy approached me, here at this same Starbucks, and said "Hey, man, I'm not gonna give you some bullshit story and waste your time--I'm just askin for money, no fuckin run around."

I gave him all that I had at the time, which was four dollars and some change. Honesty is a virtue beyond compare. With me it hits the jackpot every time.

My stepson has made friends with the Russian mafia. Well, with a Russian mafia kid anyway. How do I know this? Because every Russian in this neighborhood is in the Russian mafia. And also in the Seventh Day Adventist Church. My wife will be happy to learn this, because she looks up to people who have money. And big houses. And a Mercedes or a BMW. Or both.

In the meantime I somehow forgot to take my Copaxone for two days in a row. It's like I kept thinking about it and reminding myself and then straightaway forgetting. Maybe if they added tar and nicotine it would be easier to remember. Makes sense to me. I never forget my cigarettes.

The feeling in my feet--or, more accurately, the lack of feeling--is such that I cannot distinguish textures at all. When I first had my attack in Spring 2007 I could not feel anything, so at least this is an improvement. Nonetheless, it can still end up being inconvenient. Last night I was sort smoothing my foot over what I took to be my wife's foot and calf--you know, sort of massaging with my toes, walking them up the back of her calf, sneaking on up to the inner thigh--only to realize after quite some time that I was actually massaging the dog.

Not what I had in mind.

The dog, nonetheless, seemed to appreciate my mistake.

Long Live the Queen

I was able to ask Roy about Himiko, the ancient queen of Japan, and what he knows is that she was an ancient queen of Japan, which is what I already know as well. My knowledge, therefore, of ancient Japanese history, Queen Himiko, and her relation to the mysterious giant blob lurking about near the dawn of time has not progressed in the least.

I note that there is one book available through Amazon on the subject, but the cost of even a used edition is prohibitive where my present means are concerned,. Therefore I will have to stick to interviewing Japanese exchange students for the time being, or other equally nonproductive avenues.

Anyone out there know anything about Himiko? Anyone want to buy me a $50 book?

On the other hand, I guess it doesn't really matter that much. Very little actually does, if you think about it. Most things are no more than diversions, quirks, obsessions, conceits, and general wastes of time.

My wife recently wrote on her Facebook page that Time cannot be bought at the store . . . don't waste it!

This seems perfectly agreeable on the surface. Nonetheless, I find myself inclined to disagree. One can buy cell phone time, for instance. One can buy time on the Internet. One can buy a clock.

Why do I feel that this morsel of wisdom was directed at me? Is it paranoia? Can it be that everything said or done ultimately pertains to me? Am I myself somehow, in the final analysis, the blob at the dawn of time, or at least brother to the blob?

All I know is that I can't help but find curious things curious. And what I suspect, in the meantime, is that such mysteries are often best left to their own realm, for revelation may be less than we had hoped for. Definition has a way of degrading what is defined, whereas mystery possesses a lively magnetism.

It may therefore be better in the long run to worship a murky queen than to unravel her from the garments of obscurity.

For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, 3 if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked.
2 Cor 5:2-3; NKJV

Fruit Loops

This morning I found my Fruit Loops in the dogs' dish outside on the porch. Not just a bowl of Fruit Loops, but pretty much the whole box. Fruit Loops is my favorite cereal, and someone has given my Fruit Loops to the dogs. It was pretty clear that the dogs were not responsible for this, for they showed no interest in eating the cereal. But someone is, and I'm going to find out who. And why.

Funny thing about those dogs. They will eat the Fruit Loops one at a time, yet defer when it comes to an overflowing bowl of the same. This must be important by some process of extension, meaningful beyond the mere Fruit Loop, but I just recently woke up and I'm still stuck on the whole how and why question of the actual event, as superficial as that may seem.

But I will have to think about it later. Seng has just shown up for his daily English lesson. How has it happened that I have become Seng's daily English teacher at Starbucks? It is yet another matter to wonder about.

A Letter to My Agent

Dear Neil--

I don't want to seem pushy, but you simply must sell my book to a publisher soon, if only so that my wife will stop bugging me about "wasting" my time at Starbucks (which is where all these profundities--those already in your hands, and another truck load since--are put to paper, in anticipation, of course, of posterity).

If you are having trouble with the big houses, try approaching a less prestigious firm, or maybe even one of these fly-by-night deals. Anything will do, for you see it's not the money that concerns me so much as appearances. In short, I need credentials.

It may interest you to know that I already have another book underway. This one is called The Mysterious Blob Near the Dawn of Time. It is about this ancient Japanese queen called Himiko. It may sound a bit obscure, but I think it will sell, as long as the first one sells. That's where you come in.

As far as advances go, I will accept anything that will cover two cups of Starbucks every morning. Without the Starbucks, you see, I could not do the writing, and without the writing I cannot long continue to consume the Starbucks.

It's a pickle, as you can see.

Best wishes,


RW

The Blob

Giant Mystery Blob Discovered Near the Dawn of Time.

Now that has got to be the headline of the year, or at least of the month. It was the first thing that caught my eye while logging in this morning through Yahoo. It's mind boggling. It's amazing. It's a blob.

Scientists have named their discovery Himiko, "after an ancient Japanese queen with an equally murky past."

I will need to ask Roy, our exchange student, about this. He may be able to shed some light on this strange blobby murkiness.

I wonder if this blob is a blob up close, or just at a distance. I wonder if a specialized pair of spectacles, fitted to the telescope, might help in the resolution.

My personal inclination is always to look at things from a metaphysical point of view. This is probably because it is too much trouble to learn the science. In any case, I find philosophy more pleasant than fact. I want to know about this blob on the basis of meaning. It is not enough to say that this or that giant blob is composed of a combination of gases and forces, time and distance, for the central question remains unanswered, not even approached. What is this blob and what is it doing there? What does it say about us? What does it say about God?

Moreover, one theory, in the purely scientific vein, is that at the center of the giant blob is a giant black hole. A black hole at the beginning of time! A giant light-sucking, matter eating hole!

Well! Where do we begin indeed.