:: verbal connections ::

I have accepted your tasks.  I have attended your meetings, and I have read your email threads.  I have made sure that I understand precisely what it is that’s expected of me, and what’s more I understand how important it is that the task is completed in a timely fashion.  I’ve been aware of this task for some time, and because I know that I would otherwise have been likely to forget to carry out this little endeavour, I have set several reminders for myself so that it will get done properly, and at the correct time.  I’ve told you about my plans, and I’ve told you about my reminders.  But clearly, I am incompetent.  It must be so … why else would four of you people contact me (after I’d already taken care of your task) with your not-so-helpful reminders that there was work to be done, by golly?

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I have started once again to listen to the radio when I’m in transit from home to work.  These days, I turn the channel to Toronto’s classic rock station – Q107.  “Classic rock” used to be “album rock.”  Today’s classic rock stations are the guys who never updated their record collections and decided instead to continue to inflict  their increasingly less contemporary tastes on anyone who would listen.  Here’s the thing, though. The Mighty Q has updated their playlists.  They’ve updated them just enough to make me realize that I am getting  old.

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It’s late again and I am awake again, so I am taking the opportunity to do some research.  Here is how they – and by “they,” I mean The Inimitable, Nebulous, Anonymous Collective – define insomnia: “Insomnia is the inability to get the amount of sleep you need to wake up feeling rested and refreshed. Because different people need different amounts of sleep, insomnia is defined by the quality of your sleep and how you feel after sleeping—not the number of hours you sleep or how quickly you doze off.”  Now, I tend to feel pretty good when I get up in the morning, even after only a few hours’ worth of sleep.  I feel decent even after weeks of sleeping only a few hours each night.  So this would in theory mean that I don’t have insomnia.  YAY.

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I remember this about my Mom from when I was growing up: she never really slept very much.  My Dad, on the other hand, could sleep forever, and was a huge fan of the afternoon nap, especially on the weekend.  I used to struggle when I was young to stay up and watch tv as late as I could, and my Mom used to have to send me to bed because I’d passed out on the couch.  It never mattered what time it was when I went to bed.  She was always awake after I fell asleep – she’d always be the last one in the house who was awake.  Not only that, she’d also be the first one out of bed in the morning.

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Hey, fuckers.  Remember how I asked you to smarten up about your driving today?  You didn’t listen.  I left work thirty minutes earlier than usual, and it’s a good thing I did.  I spent two hours and nine minutes in the car this afternoon from rest to rest.  You almost screwed my shit up, people, and that’s just what I so politely asked you not to do.  But no matter. I was able to plan around your folly, clever me.  I’ve begun to rethink my reconsideration of this whole “taking the train” idea.  The drooling’s the same.  It’s just that if I take my car instead of the train, I don’t have to share a bench seat with the droolers – and that’s a pretty decent bonus.  So, we’re still thinking that the car is a better idea than the train.  Tomorrow, I’ll probably revisit my rethinking of that reconsideration.

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