Insomnia

I can't sleep. It's too hot.

Couldn't stand the kids tonite. I played with them like a madman, throwing Sonny and Deck all over the living room, then got sick of it and sort of shoved them away. Felt pretty bad about it but I had very little sleep the night before and was totally fucked. Of course I had to hike four miles in 100 degree weather Sunday and nearly died of heat stroke. Still recovering from that.

It was so hot I couldn't cook, so I ordered Domino's. The driver was on drugs. I did the online ordering thing and saw that it took him over a half an hour after the pizza was done to get here. He called to say he was running late, I'll give him that. When he arrived, though, he smashed right into all our empty garbage cans. They went all over the street. Mary happened to be following him as she came up the hill and saw the whole thing. I'm sure he was out scoring. He had the same tone of voice and bullshit patter that Mary's brother has when he doesn't do what he says he's gonna.

The pizza was still warm though, so I tipped him anyway. I thought about complaining but figured you can't really rat out someone who delivers pizzas for a living. I mean how much lower can you sink? If I had that job, I'd probably be on drugs too. Plus his arms were covered with these really shitty tattoos. I felt bad. I did, however, give him a dollar less than I usually give the old Chinese guy from Round Table. That guy is funny and seems genuinely happy to have a job. Plus he actually acknowledges the presence of my kids. That's gold to me.

I should have tried to sleep but He Got Game was on. I'm a sucker for sports movies and I like Spike Lee and Ray Allen. Ray is one of my favorite players and Spike's movies are very drippy but he's got certain style and I dig how his characters are riddled with imperfections. Then I noticed it was almost 2 a.m. so I talked myself into driving down to 7-11 and getting a Mickey's tall boy, thinking it would help me sleep. So I came home and watched the end of Carrie--because it was on and you sort of have to. Now I'm energized, but only blandly so, in a I-can't-sleep-but-I-should-do-something sort of way. So I made a to-do list and now I'm writing and maybe I'll get back to Tropic of Cancer.

It's been so fucking hot out these past couple of days, it's ridiculous. It was over 100 yesterday and probably close to it today. I have a hard time working when it's that hot. I have to totally psyche myself up for it. Part of the problem is that I sweat like someone with much darker skin. Always have. Throughout school I played sports during lunchtime and came back to class completely soaked. Now it pours down my arms and down my nose and right onto the keyboard. The only way through is to strip down to my boxers, surround myself with fans, position the laptop "upstream," and focus on some deadline like my ass depends on it.

Music helps. Lately I've been going through an old school punk thing. Germs, Stooges, Saints, etc. Sort of coming to terms with the fact that I'm not a huge Minutemen fan. I listened to them back in the 80s and now I understand why I stopped. I dig who they were and what they were about and their originality and talent. If I was a friend of the band I'd probably go to every show. Everything I've read and seen about them makes them out to be really swell guys. But easily four out of five of their songs I could do without. That other one-fifth is some pretty awesome shit, though.

OK enough of this...