Tired out, and time to go to bed...

and I don't do half enough, I have to admire the rest of y'all, EnergizerBunnies all. Anyway, I have turned in my title for my Story on Saturday Night - really live. At the Antique Sandwich Company in Ruston, Wa. Oh, you wanted that linked, go Google it, I want you to show up and buy a five dollar ticket and enjoy good coffee, excellent strange local pies and such - and an evening of Storytelling. My story is "Hey, Old Timer" and it starts out all about me and then moves on to the important main character. Good seats at 7:00 PM.

I have to go shower, my wife's fine example of twenty minutes on the treadmill while I napped the supper away (difficult to keep my eyes open) made me go out and test the machine for forty minutes - yes, it can still bear my weight, the Country Music is more Rock than I like, but did enjoy the distraction from the blank wall in front of me... just me, the music and my mind... dangerous combination. Good night, y'all.

What time is it?

I woke this morning to the alarm cutting into my dreams, at 4:30, got up and walked across the room to the clock and shut it off. Turned around and felt it was Saturday, and I crawled back into bed and went back to my dreams. I woke to the nagging suspicion that it was time to get up, or else, 5:35 the clock laughed at me. I had twenty minutes to be out the door and on the road. Skip the shaving and I make it, eating my bowl of gruel in the Caravan, then washing it down with my microwaved last night's brew of coffee. Didn't want to fall too far behind, when I get old it is more difficult catching up to the young'ns. Work was fine, day just enough, and I come home to see the Snowcat lurking in the holes to the water meters, with just the head raised above their berm, looking for something to stalk and kill. When I return to try and get the picture the cat is coming out and I will be going in for more adventures in the morning, my supervisor is supposed to be there, and I have only one worker to man the counter - still it is Friday, we might make it.

Getting up to think, getting up to think...

It isn't really fair, once I was young, gallant and could sleep anywhere, anytime and in perfect comfort, now I have to think and that calls me from the land of Nod. Oh, I can still sleep on floors (heated better than not), or ferry boat rides, or while driving down the long highway (watchout!!) but eight hours in my bed doesn't seem possible. I take four for the body and reptilian- animal brain and then the higher levels of mental activity go from just dreaming to demanding logical functions with permanent solutions... the dreams are better entertainment, and I don't dwell on them except to laugh, the real thinking I will be stoking the fires and fueling the waking in the middle of the night tomorrow. Do I wake more in thought because I am driven to complete my quest? and I am running out of time and feel it? If I became more hormone imbalanced would the dancing girls come back and the frightening logic kindly step aside?

Ah, the picture? young paratrooper preparing for the Yom Kippur War

"What? ME worry?" not when I was young and foolish, what were those hormones?

Time is moving, and I am dragged along...

I don't want to wake up, waking up I don't want to get out of bed but the alarm calls my attention. It is gray, wet and windy outside and darkness hasn't been broken for days, Hibernation calls, go back to bed, except I can't, my wife's alarm goes off and she is up, I really don't want to go to work. But I have to, I am the Library Keeper, the man with the keys to open up a world beyond the prison, I will go. The inmates bet on really bad weather days about who will show up, I have been there -- always, for snow doesn't phase me, 6.7 earthquakes only make me laugh (although, they turned me around at the gate), anyway, the inmates believe I will be there until I win the Lotto (and they know those odds, too.) At work all the busy stuff and I continue to weed the collection, did you know my Spanish readers check out their Mathematics books more than anything else except business books? Surprised me, but I have been working on increasing the Spanish collection's circulation - I am not buying more American novels intranslation, they don't circulate. I want more paperback books, cheaper to purchase and don't take up as much space on the shelves, but the publishers like hardcovers first and paperback the following year. I find some information and email the other lonely outposts of information and sanity in the other institutions (corrections and mental health) we are all busy closing up the last year in reports and statistics and starting the new one right... or close to that. Back home I find it tax time and download forms and find statements and empty spots to fill in, I could be that slug and go off and sleep, but the day wears on and Responsibility is dragging me, onward ever onward. Should I do something special this year (YES!) when (NOW!) and then I get dragged by Responsibility away from that fine foolishness... the little world of McNeil Island Library and its patrons has my attention, demands better and is never ending in its grip on my reality. How does one get out of this place, I do want a day off.