Evenin' Diary

Sleep is for the weak

The meet and greet with the police on Sunday night left my body exhausted. The next two nights didn't fare much better for rest. I was so fatigued by Wednesday night, that I felt like I would never be able to sleep a solid night again.

One bad decision ...

Monday, I pulled a marathon gaming session from 9:30 am to 8 pm at the library, to put the previous night's anxiety behind me. For lunch, I ate a bag of peanut butter cookies without getting up from my chair.

Afterwards, I was at frayed ends but couldn't unwind and relax. Eating nothing but cookies and sweets all day didn't help my physical condition one bit. I stayed up until one a.m. feeling strained and tense.

... Leads to another

Tuesday night, I had a late night coffee at McDonald's like a dummy. I wanted my tum-tum to feel comfortable, and I thought warmth from coffee would improve my health. After four days of cold meals from cans, it seemed like a good idea.

But I tell ya, when I haven't had enough sleep, water goes right through me no matter how dehydrated I am. I don't know why. Likely a combination of things: my kidneys being lazy, excess free radicals floating, immune system exhausted from fighting germs. Whatever the reason, it's like all my body cells constantly need to take a piss at the same time.

Two bathroom trips later, I pulled the car into the Walmart lot and went to sleep. It was around 1 a.m. Not surprisingly, I woke up in the middle of the night!

Then life throws something your way

Not by my bladder, though! Once I was awake, sure enough the bladder did keep me from going back to sleep. But what poked my cerebral cortex incessantly was a loud intermittent leaf blower.


I've been at this location for a month and not once before has anyone cleaned the lot at night. Tonight of all nights the cleaning guy comes! 3 a.m. ! Next time, I should throw him a midnight party and invite the university police.

Now, normally I can sleep through some car pulling up making a lot of noise or a cleaning truck making its rounds over the duration of an hour. I grow aware of a noise, classify it as non-invasive, and resume my nightly rebuilding efforts. But this cleaning guy had a leaf blower he kept turning on and off.

As soon as the noise in my skull subsided and my brain resumed working its repairs on my body, the damned infernal nuisance started up again! Over and over, like Lady Macbeth working her stain fighting stupidity on an unimpressed audience. Finally, I gave up on this trigger happy guy ever completing a continuous sweep and looked for a chance to duck into the outhouse to unload my two coffees.

Cut your losses

Before the morning came to relieve my watch, I made two bathroom trips. My lips were dry but I dared not drink anything, feeling like a human sieve. At six a.m. the first shadows of sun started to creep over the big ol' mountain and I had not slept more than two hours. I had three hours to kill before the public book-repository/day shelter opened for business. By this time I resigned the night's rest to be forfeit, and decided to watch a movie on my tablet.

Make lemonade

The movie was a silly and amusing romp. A Stand Up Guy (2016). It was a saving grace for the night, really. Most of the lines tickled my funny bone in the right way. The acting was C-grade, but the writing and the characters clicked! I loved it.

One of the caricatures was a mid-West sheriff who spoke 'achoo' as his way of sneezing! LOL, wtf-balls. You have to see his face and his personality to get the full effect. Another bag of laughs was a mobster who obsessed about his modeling, singing, acting career and his recent breakup with a girl. He was more concerned that Laurie hasn't texted him back, than about a guy he just murdered!

Bob Saget is listed in the credits as playing 'Mel', but I have no recollection of him being in the movie!! I think by this point in Saget's career, he is getting non-speaking roles as extras in the background. But to be gentle on his former fame, they named his extra as if he played a real character and hope you didn't notice he never showed up. Maybe in one scene you see the bottom of Bob Saget's pant leg or something, and that was it!

(Oh, wait no, now I see who Bob Saget played. He did have a conspicuous character with a small role, but I didn't recognize him at all! He wore sunglasses that hid most of his face and talked like Danny Masterson from That 70's show.)

Fight another day

Wednesday night, after a lunch buffet, nice weather, and a calm quiet evening I slept ten hours. When I woke up into a bright crisp morning Thursday, I felt like Spring had bloomed into the air overnight.