the science of sleep.

so, in reading the latest "nat geo" (cos i'm way too hip to call it "national geographic magazine") i stumbled across a frightening way to die: fatal familial insomnia. as someone who often sleeps far too much and never feels like he gets enough sleep, this malady sounds even more insidious than it already is. which is saying something, cos basically what happens in this rare condition--only forty families in the world are known to carry the gene that causes it--is you stop sleeping and die within a year. i cannot imagine waking up one day when i'm in my early fifties--when the disease apparently ramps up--and realising that i might never sleep again.

on that note, i'll attempt to describe my day. it was a whirlwind of activity. starting last night when i partied myself into bed at the late hour of 10.30. exhausted, i tossed and turned for at least five minutes before falling asleep. i then proceeded to sleep for 10 hours straight. upon arrival in the lower reaches of the castle i'm sitting, i took care of business, fed the dog, walked the dog--ah, such fury!--and set about figuring the day. after some consternation about how to establish a beachhead at the buffet, to quote richard russo, i decided upon a nice coffee shop in the "quaint little city" of buckley. (quoting here a letter writer in the enumclaw courier-herald some years back.) the owner brewed up a piquant little decaf raspberry mocha for me and toasted a rambunctious bagel and i set about reading the latest episode of "mountain bike magazine: a supplement to rodale, inc.". it was truly epic.
i exited the shop after slaking my needs and headed for the auto parts mart. in enumclaw, there are two choices: the semi-local franchise of the napa auto parts chain and the utterly corporate "shuck's". being of sound mind and body, i chose the more "local" of the two. i purchased five quarts of 5w-30 at $4.09 (!) a quart and a #1334 oil filter for around 10 bucks and was on my way. at my parents' house i hoisted the hood of the subie and proceeded to change my oil. it's a sometimes dirty task, but satisfying. i also added some "rain-x" washer fluid to my reservoir and slammed the hood on a satisfying morning. for lunch i consumed some ambitious "teriyaki" beef jerky from the local meat shop, which in coincidence only is owned by a neighbour of my parents who also used to supply sodas to the gas station where i once penned my early epics. i then spent a contemplative hour at the local fort of the "les schwab" empire while my brakes were checked (a-ok!) and my winter tires were swapped for summer tires.
while waiting for the gentlemen to perform their sacred car-type duties, i perused the newspaper, a rare pleasure, and learned of taylor mays' disenlightenment with the pete carroll dynasty. mr mays was disappointed that coach carroll had not adequately prepared him for the NFL draft of this weekend; he was taken in the high forties instead of the first two decades of the draft as he had hoped and as coach carroll had assured him he would be taken. the seachickens had apparently drafted at the #14 spot a safety (mr mays' position, natch) from, get this, the university of texas! the horror! now, instead of returning home to roost in glory in his hometown, mr mays must instead prospect for fool's gold in the land of ronnie lott and rice-a-roni. the shame! i also read of danielle lawrie's continued domination of all college sports. i swelled with the pride of knowing that somewhere in montlake, some canadièn is changing the world, one strikeout at a time!
from then, the day is a haze of activity. a dinner party with my parents, a shred sesh with the aforementioned "nat geo", a long distance "convo" with the woman next to me in which we traded salvos on the solving of world hunger and how to dissipate the world economic crisis. i took in some local news and learned that some jerk in a pickup had dumped hydraulic fluid into elliot bay at myrtle edwards park, home of the ever-important hempfest. though the anchor did not release the name of the perpetrator, i will: it was greg nickels. it could not have been anyone else, except maybe former city attourney tom carr.
along the way, it rained. and was sunny. and windy. and everything in between.
good day!