The Unofficial Badmovies.org Random Thought Thread!

When I would get insomnia circa January 2008 to March 2018, I used to come in here and wile away the pre-dawn doing captions on Sprite's images and generally oversharing about cell mutations and sexual positions and times I talked down suicidal drunks or made my neighbors think their house was haunted, and in particular, because I loved all of you, handing out good karma like P&G hands out free Puffs for M. Butterfly at the opera, and while I do feel insomnia zeroing in on me tonight, I have a thick book to read later instead. (Not a novel, still not doing novels, still not entirely done with the time-drain that left me so scarce here the last four months but I have a stack for when I do have the time again.)

It's not a good time for sleeplessness since I have to work tomorrow and then conduct two background check interviews, so, yeah, best to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed: I don't even drink coffee in the mornings to get me through I'm so lame. (I never liked that burned pee smell.) Green tea, sometimes, though.

If I'm still sleepless after reading I'll watch a YouTube cooking show. If I feel like the dark side, it'll be Veg-an Buh-lack Met-al Chef, and if I wanna go Yoda-white I'll lean toward Emmy Made In Japan, who is just so darling. Ever seen a raindrop cake like she makes? Professionals here no doubt have but the rest of us can only marvel. Oh, man, I am so tackling one someday. I never view cooking as a competition, only a way to share with my loved-ones things I can't eat myself. Why can't I eat them myself? That mental illness-lite called lingering adolescent eating disorder that has never been exorcised by maturity, that's why, shameful to admit.

I do want to say I am not having a real positive relationship with my new toothbrush because if I put toothpaste on it and set it down, it always tips over and spreads the toothpaste on the vanity, making me use the spilled toothpaste to scrub the vanity instead of wasting it, so this toothbrush is insidiously making more work for me, which isn't a small achievement considering I don't think it has consciousness.

I mentioned during my era away from here (again, based on lack of time) I finished a marathon. Yaaay. Yep, twenty-six miles and change.

Note I do not say I ran a marathon, only finished. I am a sprinter, not in for distance. I'm for speed not the long haul, and while I did the first six miles without a problem, my husband, who ran it with me while constantly grabbing my elbow and telling me to pace myself, not go fast (tennis player instincts, yup) could have run the length were it not for him staying with me as I ran-walked, ran, then ran-walked across much of the course, being passed by white-haired folks who said "hi!" and "on your left!" while zipping ahead of us.

I still ran farther than I ever have in my life, but it was a humbling exercise in proving empirically that my husband, not me, is the person in the family who is in the best shape. I can outrun him in a two-mile race, no problems, out-swim him for a mile, beat him at tennis, and find my way in the dark for some reason like I have raccoon DNA, but he is hands-down way up on strength and stamina, so my pride at finishing that day was tinged with the sting of humility.

Getting shown up by a pretty-boy two years older than me. Ugh.

I had to write Martina a letter and confess it to her, and she wrote back and said, "Good for you both!"

I love that woman. In my tennis career she was my hero. And yes, Serena, Martina could have taken you. It's also nice that she's apparently never put me on a stalker list, even though I've written her literally like forty times since I was about twelve.

Before I mosey to my brain-jarring episode of sleeplessness, is there anything else on my mind?

Yes. Westworld is a waste of time. The Jurassic series will never be Shakespeare, folks, it shows us dinosaurs and does that well. Be happy about it. Tom Petty loved drugs more than music and making us all happy with it, so I dub him selfish. Anyone ever tells you an addict can't change, meet the man who is buying me lunch tomorrow.

And speaking of music, I am seeing/hearing/maybe even smelling but hopefully not tasting Smashing Pumpkins again this month, and I hope it turns out better than the last time I saw them when I managed to get my husband and me thrown out of the concert because some fool stoners smoked by me and made me paranoid that everyone was sneaking up behind me for the purposes of malevolent abduction. (That story is in the archives here; half my life is in the archives here.)

If I hadn't been under life or death orders to come straight home after the concert the Pumpkins played in my hometown in 1997 on a night-before school, I could have hung out with them since some people I know ran into them in a cafe off Short Vine down from the performance venue, and while Billy was, naturally, a total choad, the others were cool and talked a while with people there. When they gleefully told me what I missed out on I beat my fists against my dashboard and screamed at the unfairness of life. No, I don't still feel soul-twisting rage with my father over him making me miss that in the interests of my education. I'm good. Therapy and time on the shooting range helped. My dad did his best....my dad did his best.... (Gawd fuggin' dam' him.)

In closing, g'night, g'bless, and remember, as the former Johnny Rotten reminds us, anger is an energy. (It is.)

Love to you all.