Monday, March 16, 2009

who sleeps?

Who sleeps? It's 4 a.m. and there are finally good programs on PBS after days full of endless Celtic women, Doo-Wop reunions and Laurence Welk retrospectives. I think, why am I up now, and maybe it's to watch the American Masters show on Sweet Honey in the Rock, to remember the earth, and sistah hood, and to sing to my slumbering kitty. I am drenched in sweat and shivering from a fever break, dizzy from the drug I just took, the one I hate to take to sleep because it robs me of more hours than it grants.

My friend told me she got rid of her tv today, her nighttime companion. I admire her greatly for this, ruled as we are by info, and analysis, the comfort of the noise of the thing in an empty apartment and blah-di-blah-di-blah fuckin' blah. The time, the precious minutes, for poetry and reflection and feet pampering and dreaming, and listening to a rock-n-roll version of Madame Butterfly. When I'm not paying attention those endless commercials for dental assisting schools and hair colleges can make me feel inadequate--"Get off the couch and become a pastry chef right now!" The commercials for hair straighteners, discount furniture, amazing space aged products that can shave your moustache and caulk your bathtub, singing pancakes...I saw one tonight about a penis pump--ouch!--are incredibly insulting to the most mediocre adult. "You ugly, hairy, stinky, fat, undereducated, bald, depressed, financially ignorant, fillet-o-fish lovin', saggy faced, tiny dicked, underinformed, Shamwow needing, limp haired, wrinkly, lumpy, person. What you need is a Dyson power vac, next-day-installation carpeting, and an exciting career as a medical assistant!"

Especially at 4 a.m.

I always feel like I should be doing something productive, like planting potatoes, or cleaning some part of my house with a children's toothbrush. I hear the roar of the early morning trucks and buses, entering a new workday. Even when I'm really sick and it hurts too much to move...I should be whittling down my pen collection or defrosting the fridge. After all these years, the compulsion is still there and maybe that's why the illness continues. The struggle is still against instead of through.

I just finished a book about an Irish forensic pathologist named Quirke and his morose and lyrical adventures in 1950's Dublin. Oy, the drear, and yet it was so wonderfully written I couldn't put it down. Maybe all of this early morning reflection will result in me being able to write about difficulties in such a winsome manner without having to result to Bombeckianisms and the occassional cuss word.

So, I'm awake. The kitty snores. Maddening.