3AM at Walmart

I have a confession to make: I like to shop at Walmart at 3AM on Sunday morning when the kids are with Louren. I buy kitty litter, biscuit dough, fruit roll ups, milk... stuff like that. I got really crazy last time and bought a light fixture that doesn't work.  I admit, in this time of no shame, that's not much of a confession. But it's not nothing, I suppose.  I am supposed to be a snob, right? I'm supposed to not like Walmart because they don't sell brie and their customers are fashion victims?  To hell with that.  At 3AM, the store is brightly lit and busy with restocking activity.  The ratio of employees to customers is about 8 to 3. I can alway find what I am looking for, which is usually kitty litter, biscuit dough, fruit roll ups, milk... stuff like that. More importantly is that, I should be tired, but I'm not.  I can't sleep.

Recently, Eugene gave me the brilliant advice "lay in bed and breathe deeply". Its like telling an illiterate person to sound out the words.

There is actually a decent episode of Family Ties about insomnia. Elsie ultimately tells Alex to try to appreciate that its a time to be quietly enjoyed rather than merely endured or vainly fought.

I learned all about not sleeping in college. Not sleeping was actually pretty good for certain COMP classes. Not sleeping also allowed me to cover a double-shift at KTRU with Andy Chen.  This lead me to London, which had its offies (I almost certainly went to one of these on Calloway Road mentioned in this article) and its casinos (Can you bring me a double scotch and a pickle and Leicester sandwich?), dubious raves in warehouses under bridges, or you could just wander the empty streets until the tubes re-open (weren't you worried about getting mugged? if a mugger wanted my London A-Z, he was welcome to it), or there was always the cyberspace stand-by in the form of the VT220 terminals in the refrectory that I had the Uni turn on so that Chewy, Big I, and Duncan could play Nanveant ("Pass the felix, I'm going to smoke a fag while Cheeselord completes the Lily quest, again."). And not sleeping lead me all over Europe on trains that ran all the time and went various places.

What I learned about not sleeping is that night turns into day. There isn't anything mystical about staying up.

I also learned that sleep is important because the one of most powerful forces in humanity is narrative, which likes to be episodic. You can't roll credits on the day unless you go to sleep.

Also not sleeping makes you tired.

To be continued....