Stop The Madness And Let Me Sleep!

Somebody recently asked me my dream job. I said to get paid for sleeping. I do it very well. Perhaps it's my greatest talent. But the news today might impinge on my soporific enjoyment and keep me tossing and turning in rage. Some alleged experts are saying that the ideal night's sleep for a human is seven hours, not the time-honored eight hours we've all believed for so long.

This stinks. Useless research "findings" should be sequestered. I say useless because what's the point? Who really has the luxury to (and the anality) to sustain a regimented sleeping schedule? Layabouts and prisoners only, I would wager. Life is just too busy, discombobulated, and ornery to allow most non-layabouts and unincarcerated people the opportunity for prolonged sleep-as-one-wishes periods. Eight is such a nice ideal. The most well-rounded number, fitting neatly into the 24-hour cycle, eight hours of sleep seems so reasonable. But now, with prices of everything only going up and up, with personal freedoms infringed upon and outright eliminated seemingly by the day, and with the task of just getting through the day until one can finally make it to bed getting more and more difficult, THEY are telling us to get less sleep. What's next, 2 + 2 = 5?

For a short, but long enough to be scientifically valid, glorious period of my life, I had the luxury to establish (though really it was discover) my body and mind and soul's natural rhythm. I slept from 3 a.m. until 11 a.m. No need for an alarm clock; I just naturally woke up after eight wonderful hours of sleep. Gone was the need for my favorite hobby: napping. I was more productive and happier during this time than any time in my life. Eight was enough, perfect, natural. Now, allegedly evidently, it's too much.

Loot my wallet, invade and curb my privacy, circumscribe my rights of expression, feel me up at the airport, but damn it, don't screw with my sleep. Wake all of us sleeping giants out there an hour early and that mega-revolution you all fear will erupt. I'm just warning you. Sleep on that.

My Latest Pet Peeve

Nothing really new, but these parkers seem to be proliferating, and I can't stand them.

If there's any divine justice in the afterlife, these people will be getting their ears flicked for eternity.

In Praise Of Elasticity

Intrigued but not wholly believing, I like to read my horoscope at the end of the day, to see just how accurate the dang thing is. Tonight's reading proved that today's was a bulls eye. It read: "Listen to a conversation on many levels. Look at facial expressions, consider the tone of voice and pay attention to what is not being said. You will see that there are many facets to what you are hearing."

Well, maybe not an exact bulls eye, but the gist is perfect. Without going into too much work detail, today, in my job helping people over the phone, I did a 180 in the space of about five minutes. Despite my best attempts to be non-judgmental and openhearted, I am human with prejudices. Those nasty buggers were getting the best of me at first as I talked to this particular person, but after listening a little more, I was able to dodge them and understand much better the real person I was talking to.

After years of working face to face with people--teaching, retail--I now work almost exclusively with people over the phone. And I love it. Facial expressions, body language, and just general appearances can certainly aid in helping to understand somebody, but they often can be a distraction at least and a mine field for prejudices at worst. I find that I need to--or maybe it's just really that I am able to--concentrate much more while on the phone, which enables me to understand better not only what is being said, but even, at times, what is not being said. Anyway, in this particular instance, and in dozens of others every week, my preconceived notions were obliterated, thankfully, by simply concentrating on what a person was saying.

Even before I read my horoscope, I was thinking about another short, though much more profound and "truthful" piece of writing: the great sentence that Herman Melville writes in his wonderfully compassionate opus Moby-Dick, when Ishmael, previously so freaked out by having to share a bed in an inn with the "pagan" "cannibal" Queequeg, reflects on things after getting to know his bedfellow a little bit: "Be it said, that though I had felt such a strong repugnance to his smoking in the bed the night before, yet see how elastic our stiff prejudices grow when love once comes to bend them." Have truer words ever been spoken?

I think of all the things--people, especially, but also foods, music, books, locales, whatever--I've grown to appreciate and even love after first dismissing them, usually out of some stupid fear. I love the elastic metaphor Melville uses to characterize prejudice. What a world this might yet become if everybody could just meditate on that image for a while. We all have prejudices, which should be self-apparent, but the thought that they are so elastic, so bendable, with the instigation of just a little love, love or its vast components--compassion, knowledge, open-mindedness, etc.--is such a comfort.  

St. Herman, the patron saint of elastic.

At Least We Un-Rich Aren't Boring

Some things are so stupid you shouldn't even waste breath commenting about them. But that's what blogging's for, I've discovered, so here goes. I saw a news story (sic) the other day telling the world the five things the rich don't like to talk about. Some tony investment firm (the likes of which I'll never even sniff a business card from) actually commissioned a study to find out the top "don't even go there's" of the hoity toity. Avoiding the obviously only response to this study--who gives a rat's ass, which I obviously did because I read the insipid thing--I love the fact that the study was commissioned by a tony investment firm. It's like the Vatican studying what priests talk about. Open your ears, jot a few notes, study done. Right?

Anyway, surprise surprise, the rich don't like talking about money, politics, sex, religion, and health.

Which leaves croquet and crumpets, I believe.

As Neil Young said, it's a lot more interesting in the ditch. See you there, and bring five bucks if you can spare it until Friday, thanks.

This Is The Face Of Menopause Sympathy

Yes, that is my mug above. And no, the comments about a resemblance to Phillip Seymour Hoffman haven't increased or decreased much since his death. They've just gotten a little stranger.

Anyway, is there really anything unusual about my face? I don't think so. And yet, if we were some kind of weirdly obscure scientists and had enough time on our hands, maybe we could detect something in that visage, that benign countenance that might help explain the phenomenon I've recently encountered that has me wondering about my face for the first time in years. You see, totally unbidden (as if one would ever bid for such a thing), various women I know have felt extremely comfortable telling me all about their problems with hot flashes. Two of my most immediate co-workers inform me all the time, and today, as I was innocently getting some coffee and innocently asked another not-so-familiar co-worker, "How's it going," as she passed me at the coffee maker, the response I got was, "I'd be doing a lot better without these hot flashes."

Now I have great respect for women's hormones, and great respect for whatever those hormones do to disrupt a woman's daily enjoyment of life, but--and I mean this in the most respectful way possible--I don't give a damn. I wish women all the best and a life of ease, comfort, and good vibes, etc., but just as I assume they don't really need to know about whatever itch issues I might be dealing with, I assume that I don't need to know about the thermal dynamics going on with them. Am I nuts in this? I mean, what am I supposed to do with this info? Crank a window? Suggest removing a sweater? What? Tell me and I'll do it. I'm seriously thinking of walking around with a ping pong paddle in one hand (the closest thing to a fan I possess) and a spray water bottle in the other--"Well, sorry. Need a spritz?"

I never want to be nasty. I'd like to believe that on the whole I'm a considerate, even kind man. So I don't want to use this great platform to scream, "Stay away from me all you over-heating women!" No, not at all. If, as it damn near is appearing to be, I am destined to be the Statue of Liberty for hot-flashing distressed women ("Give me your sweaty, broiling, dying-for-a-cool-breeze women") so be it. I'll stand there, smile as unweirdly as possible, and say something like, "Oh, I'm sorry. Can I get you some cold water?" I will gladly serve, but until further explanation, I'll do so in sheer wonderment of the twists and turns life provides for us. But beware ladies, sooner or later I'm going to crack, and one of you is going to hear a long diatribe about my 4 a.m. pee break that morning. I apologize in advance.

Holy Chit Chat!

Pope Francis, a true papal mensch, turned heads today when he confessed his sins to what the media called "an ordinary priest" (it's Lent, leave your oxymoron jokes at home), rather than his private confessor. Just another great modest gesture on his part. But one can't help but wonder ...

• I confess I would have rather met Michelle than Barack.
• I crave beef jerky on Fridays in Lent.
• I regret not taking the red shoes. Slick, suave, and quite comfy!
• Let me off with two Hail Marys and I'll let you call me Frank.
• Benedict's kind of a bore when he gets talking encyclicals. 
• In this town, I covet my neighbor's pasta.
• I merely skim the begat sections in the Bible.
• I voted for Drew Carey on DWTS. Who I am to judge? I'm the Pope, darn it!
• I read Angels and Demons. Twice.
• I bought a bootleg DVD of Noah two weeks ago from a guy on the street.
• I sometimes sing "Infallible Me" in the shower to the tune of "Embraceable You."
• Joel Osteen gives me the willies.
• I love the smell of incense in the morning.

Would You Believe?

• I've been on a Mormon mission?
• I forgot how to write?
• Working on Obamacare rollout?
• Running the Cleveland Browns?
• Forgot my password?
• Been busy metal detecting?
• Took a wrong turn?
• Been stuck in a Cleveland pothole?
• Looking for my golf ball in the woods?
• Writing songs with Bob Dylan?
• Comforting Mitt Romney?
• Spelunking?
• Winning a grant to write a novel?
• Writing a novel?
• I'm going to try to revive this thing once again?