After hours of wrestling with customer service and how to teach it to people who spend their days testing oil viscosity and tracking down Mason jars sent in by irate customers, the last thing I wanted to do was light a fire under my brain. But Crash Davis was right. After five consecutive victories (every day I write is another victory), why settle for a defeat?
So I dragged myself into Chapter 6, where I’ve been dumping misfit paragraphs since Monday. It looked like my parents’ basement in there. But after an hour I felt I brought about some order, and if I keep this up through the weekend I’ll have a milestone to report on Sunday night.
Speaking of my parents: They just celebrated their 59th anniversary! Three cheers to Irving and Gloria. You crazy kids!
Sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care
Loyal Reader Linda brings up a good point in her comment on yesterday’s very exciting post. Sometimes, staying awake is the hardest part of thinking and writing. Geniuses and other productive people typically sleep less than eight hours per night (Edison only slept on national holidays), and I’ve read that as you grow older, you require less sleep.
This is bullshit. My Personal Sleep Quotient, which is approximately 10 hours per night, hasn’t budged since I was a teenager. With less than 10 hours stored in my head, I don’t feel like I’m at the top of my game. Very few people have made a name for themselves while spending that much time unconscious. The only two I know are Calvin Coolidge and Tony Conigliaro. Coolidge wasn’t much of a president, but Tony C still holds the record for most home runs as a teenager (24 at the age of 19, in 1964). It doesn’t help that I’m the only human being in Portland or Seattle who doesn’t drink coffee. Somehow I soldier on.
Box score
– I’ve written for 6 days out of 6
– 7.5 total hours
– Here’s the Clarion West Write-a-thon
– Here’s my first post on the Write-a-thon
Random Pick of the Day
Big Head Todd & The Monsters, Stratagem (1994)
Stratagem isn’t very good at all, but it has the only two songs I like by Big Head Todd: “Shadowlands,” one of those rare rock songs that builds a mood of approaching menace, and the title track, which sounds like a Pink Floyd ballad with a heart. Todd Park Mohr doesn’t have a great voice, but with what he does have he can move some pretty big hills.
Bonus: “Turn the Light Out” on their first album, Sister Sweetly, is a bouncy update of Donovan’s “Hurdy Gurdy Man.”
Random Musical Fact of the Day
Donna Summer (“Lookin’ for some hot stuff baby this evenin’ ”) was discovered while singing back-up for Three Dog Night (“Jeremiah was a bullfrog”).
Run-DMSteve 
The people ‘ahead’…or Heads, as we used to call them, are all of those people (not you and I) who try to gain an edge over their fellow societal members by ingesting mass quantities of socially sanctioned drugs, day and night. The number of drug houses that offer the ‘needed’ and dangerous substances found in this so called “coffee” is staggering! Like hipsters on Dexedrine, their moods swing like blunt axes and all of us non-imbibers must survive under their spellbound demeanor.
Why can’t I have the drugs I need or choose to use to function at this supposed ‘higher level’ without risking jail or lobotomy?? Why must one be a pawn to Starcents (avoiding libel here?) and other establishments offering their so-called magic cures? Oh well, in the end these ‘heads’ just have to walk about with the proverbial monkey on their backs, and engage in constant attempts to try and retain even their most base humanoid form. Not pretty, by any measure.
You can malign Starbucks all you want. They are too big to care. But if you intend to campaign against socially sanctioned drugs, don’t forget Coke, Pepsi, Red Bull, etc. etc. At least we as a society stopped Twinkies!
Twinkies are coming back very soon. Long live Ding Dongs!
Sincerely, Mr. Uncola
“It doesn’t help that I’m the only human being in Portland or Seattle who doesn’t drink coffee.” I live in Portland. I never drink coffee. Am I a human being?
My God, I’ve actually found one other person who doesn’t drink coffee! You get points for that. But you eat clams you dug out of the ground. You lose points for that. Overall, though, you’re still ahead.