Utterly Random and Pointless Ramble

I am very, very, very, shockingly tired today. I'm not sure why. I went to bed at a (more or less) reasonable hour. But I did have trouble sleeping. One of those 'too hot, too cold' nights. And my brain refused to shut up about Things. I got a shockingly high bill from my credit card, for one thing. I mean. I knew it was coming. I knew I'd spent a few thousand bucks on all this medical stuff, and a further thousand on the dishwasher, and that our 'eating out and so forth' spending was out of control for lo these many moons and of course there's half the daycare on that card and a few other things…

But there's a difference between 'knowing it's coming' and having the $6,897 bill in your hands, you know? And a huge difference between that and writing the payment instruction out for it. Pay to the order of Mastercard: Six thousand, eight hundred ninety-seven dollars and 27/100's. Hmm, what's that sound? Could it be...a significant portion of my emergency fund, flittering away?

It was a significant psychological event. I may never recover.

Furthermore. I'm not really a hypochondriac, I'm really, honestly not – but my stomach was upset and one of my incisions was aching and every time there was a twinge or rumble my brain would scream out, "OHMYGAWD! THIS IS IT! IT'S BIODEGENARTIVE GASTROINTITUS OF THE GARBLEKLETZ!!"

And no. I don't know what that means either. See, my stomach hurt because I ate too much yesterday, both volume and fat content. And the incision is sore because hey – they do that. Sometimes at random, sometimes even months after the surgery. That's called part of the healing process. But my brain refused to accept this. It insisted on coming up with all kinds of bizarre things that don't exist. Do you know how hard it is to get to sleep when your brain is insisting that you're about to explode like that android in that movie? You know the one, the one with…the androids? That exploded?

This is the kind of activity my brain got into last night when I was trying to go to sleep. Non-existent diseases I probably had and movies I sort of remembered but might just be imagining that I saw once.

Swell.

And then my brain insisted on coming up with these dreams where I was doing things like trying to drive my van, packed with children, through flood water that was coming up to the windshield before taking refuge in the house of a creepy villain with silver eyes (I swear to Dog - silver eyes) who kept these enormous black crows with menacingly large beaks.

All of which serves to remind me: we've got to do something about our lawn. We have a pipe leak causing some minor flooding when the sprinklers are on. The crows love it, because it forces worms to the surface (you see how it all comes back around and almost makes sense?).

Thanks, brain. Like I couldn't have figured that out without your subconscious help.

**sigh**

And then the dumb alarm went off at 4:30 and startled me awake – I jumped, I think I popped one of those internal stitches because now that incision really aches.

Geesh.

So tired. I've got to wake up. Maybe I should make a pot of coffee. Because otherwise, I might just have to take the rest of the day off for a nap. And seeing as how my vacation time is pretty much all used up by all the time I took off to be sick these last couple months – I don't think my boss would be happy about me taking a four hour block off to lie on my sofa snoring with The Economist draped artfully over my face.

By the way: The Economist is a great magazine for napping. Seriously. Not only are the articles so preposterously economistly intellectual that they will instantly set you yawning as your brain desperately demands MORE OXYGEN! in an attempt to understand what they're saying, but when you do fall asleep it is just heavy enough to block out the light, yet light enough not to be annoying or interfere with your breathing.

And also, being that it is after all The Economist, people might assume you aren't actually sleeping, but are rather very deep in thought about Deep Matters. So they aren't as likely to bug you, because you might use big words and try to explain the concept of a Giffen Good or even (gads) attempt to come up with a real-world example. (SUVs. SUVs are a Giffen Good. The more they cost, the more people seem to want them…)

Let's see. Random fact: did you know that lighter roast coffee has more caffeine than darker roasts? I did, because without coffee I would be snoring under The Economist right now, probably having dreams about crows creating opportunity cost horizons with worms in floodwaters. I'm what you might call an expert on the coffee thing. I used to assume that darker coffees, like those shockingly bitter deep French roasts (which I still maintain is a scam enabling roasters to sell off the burnt beans at a profit by making us think it's "Premium" coffee), must have more caffeine. Because they tasted so…virile. But no! Those sweeter, lighter roasts that sometimes drink like water have more caffeine than the Attack Coffees served up by Peet's.

Go figure.

But perhaps I need to do more scientific research on the subject…I'm gonna go make a pot (or two) and let you know the results…