Addle-posed

A story. I want to come up with a story to tuck my dear readers into a clarifying sense of composure. I could not get to sleep for love nor money last night, so stayed up reading a while hoping the scurrying flip-flop of insomnia would call a truce and go lay down in the corner, good dog. But no. I finished David Sedaris's new book, When You Are Engulfed In Flames, and began Hound of the Baskervilles, which is a very enjoyable read. I have enough books that whoever gets hired for the next household move is going to curse Gutenberg, he should have a boil.

It went on till frustrated, I put the book down and went to the cupboard to find your poor writer a sleeptime sedative. I hadn't taken one in over a year, maybe these were stale and I only took half of a tablet, for it still took time to conk me out. This was crucial as I have to be coherent when working or the children will win, and I need to get up very early.

Not as early as if I had cows to milk, or had to do the crack of dawn report on NPR, "Good morning, this is Carl Kasell." The alarm goes off at five thirty, and I wrestle with angels until six. After the angels leave, I have cats chirruping for breakfast, breathing in my ear. I dreamt I had children in line, ready to leave the cafeteria. They were all purring. I awoke and there was Snowbelle, happy as a peach in fuzz.

I made it through the day, the kids got Twizzlers, got home to fixed plumbing (yay) and settled for a short naparoonie. A snooze. A readjustment of the old internal clock. Oh blessed horizontal sleep. Awoke slowly to the resonance of a repetitive tune whirring in my head like a mechanical wind-up toy stuck against a wall, its energy futile but ambitious. The good thing is that it was a new tune, one recently heard on a favorite radio program at Luxuriamusic.com. Simple and circular, it still peals faintly in the head sort of between the temples, but will soon dissipate as dew from the bloom.

This airy jewel has nothing on other songs that have gotten stuck, and it isn't always the crappy music that gets snagged; for example, I had a three-day on and off gavotte with Hey Jude. Compared with Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog, that's not bad.

But I am tired, I want a glass of milk, I want a story. Tell me a story to make the cobwebs weave a trance, a chimera, an ambition. Make it one of giants who are befuddled by the tiniest babe, or of charms in a basket that change potatoes into sweet brown birds, where youth has patience and age has benevolent wisdom. Throw in a talking animal, a pool in the woods, and a village where abundance is available to all and everyone is taken care of and appreciates it. Ah, I hear you. Sleep well. Sleep well. Sleep well.