Things to keep you up at night

Sometimes, sleep patterns get interrupted. You sleep too much. You don't get enough sleep. You wake up early for no reason. You can't fall asleep at night. For confirmation, I consulted a sleep expert (they actually exist). "Sleep patterns get interrupted," confirmed the sleepspert. So what exactly keeps you up at night? "A number of different things can interrupt Circadian Rhythms, your sleep cycling." Well said, but we need specifics.

Let's start with your day, which you replay as you try to get to sleep. There were the stupid things you said and, "I didn't mean it that way," just didn't undo the damage. There were the things you should have said, but didn't, because you were afraid they would come out wrong.

The coffee spilt on your blouse looked exactly like the cartoon mouse wearing a hat that mail order art schools use to test aptitude. The only vegetables you ate were on a cheeseburger for lunch. What exactly do radio stations have against playing music anyway? Where you buy your cigarettes, yours was the only car in the parking lot without a handicap sticker.

Your voice mail is full of old messages you continue to save because you might need the telephone numbers. You went to college with the plaintiff and high school with the defendant on "The People's Court." And your neighbor was featured on "Mid-America's Most Wanted." Your pants are shorter than the last time you put them on, a sure sign that your butt is bigger than the last time you wore them. Why is there always just the one lone shoe in the middle of the road?

Today you found yourself saying to a friend's child you haven't seen in a while, "You've grown up so much." Something you hated as a kid and promised yourself you would never say, but sincerely meant. Your keys, which you always put in the same pocket of your purse so you can find them, aren't there. After fleeing the scene that is work, you dig for your keys in your bag on the floor of the vestibule, but dig with one hand, because they're in the other. Finally, does everything really taste better with Parmesan cheese, or do you put it on everything because you bought it in bulk at Sam's?

But then you remember you have a four-day weekend coming up at the end of the month. It could mean more to you but at the very least it is a long weekend. Somewhere on your computer is a copy of a W.S. Merwin poem that was important enough to keep, even though so much poetry is more annoying than noteworthy. Some highlights:

Listen

with the night falling we are saying thank you

we are stopping on the bridge to bow from the railings

we are running out of the glass rooms

with our mouths full of food to look at the sky

and say thank you

we are standing by the water looking out

in different directions...

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging...

over telephones we are saying thank you

in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators

remembering wars and the police at the back door...

in the banks that use us we are saying thank you...

unchanged we go on saying thank you thank you...

our lost feelings we are saying thank you...

with the words going out like cells of a brain...

we are saying thank you faster and faster

with nobody listening we are saying thank you

we are saying thank you and waving

This year, you'll serve "Turkey Parmesan."