:: The Every So Often When I Decide to Post Blog ::

:: Saturday, December 28, 2002 ::

Thoughts ON Insomnia


I think only two of my "can't sleep" blogs are from true insomnia. There the ones that were written at 5:45 AM. The rest were written in a close "sleep but not quite not" state.

I actually *knock on wood* I sleep pretty well. I'm not bragging. I just keep bad hours. Working Second Shift gets me off work around 1 or so. So I'm up till four and I wake around noon.

But a friend of mine wrote me saying that when she has problems sleeping she thinks of nothing. Trying to continually think of only nothing. Black. Nothingness. And what that's like.

This doesn't work, I respond. Here's why.

What you're really thinking is "I can't sleep so try to think of nothing." And what you're really thinking is "I can't sleep I can't sleep."

This is truism. If you're thinking I can't sleep... you won't. It works like that. What instead you need to do is TRICK yourself into sleeping. Thinking of stuff is a good way to do that. Think about everyday stuff like why is the sky blue? Your thoughts will meander through this thinking stuff like.... "Maybe the aliens put a big blanket around the planet to hide it from passing Vulcans or Vogans. Or maybe it really has something to do with the sun and the tranference of light through the atmosphere causing the refraction of all the colors of the *yawn* rainbow to refract causing the colors to be *yawn* blue. Which would be why....." and you fade off to sleep without even noticing. Some people tell me they have taught themselves to sleep on w whim. MAN I wish I could. Can't.
Takes me at least 20 minutes to fall asleep every night. Shutting off my brains hard. so I have to wind it down with stuff to think about. Oh, and don't think of stressful things. That just freaks you out and makes keeps you up. ANd don't think of erotic things cause that makes you want to... uh... "take care of business" however if you're like most men, once finished, you're likely to sleep anyway.

This whole thing is rather like flying for those of you who don't know. All you have to do is throw yourself to the ground and miss. You'll be flying in no time.

Oh and incidnetally... here's a picture of my car in the ditch. It was rescued today that's *3* days later and it drives fine. It was alot worse.... it was 50 degrees today so lots of the 19 and 1/2 inches we had melted away. Which made great driving tonight, I must say.

:: Matt 4:28 AM [+] ::
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Exciting

So I spent most of my Christmas Eve updating bits of my web page. New photos page with stuff from this summer's float trip.

Other new things but you have to find it yourself.

My Page.
:: Matt 9:16 PM [+] ::
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I'm in a Ditch!


Yes, yours truly is in a ditch on Walnut Lawn by my apartments. Here's the annoying part.

I was already home. I could have gone inside heated up cider and slept. But no because of the snow our parking spots are located on a hill. And My sis couldn't park at the top so she was parked low and some knucklehead next to me took up 2 spaces. There was no where to park. So I got back on Walnut Lawn to find a place to park around the corner, my wipers froze. Couldn't see and trying to fix it... in the ditch I go. A guy in a truck drove by and said "You're stuck." It's nice we humans like to state the obvious. "I'd try and help but I don't I think I can. You're pretty stuck."

"Well, thanks for the help," I say. And I walk home.

I'm pretty mad. I was home but some A-hole took up two spots. I'm madder. I call the tow place. "Pretty busy?" I ask. A pleasently polite woman says "Yes. It's crazy." "I'm in a ditch." "Oh." So sweet. "Where are ya?" I explain. She says they're pretty backed up. "How backed up?" "2 days, probably."

No I'm even madder. Not her, she's sounded nice. I'm mad at myself. I was HOME and becasuse I wanted to be polite an not park behind my neighbor, I'm in a ditch. Being a good guy always gets me in trouble. Jeff's right. It's time to become an A-hole.

Well, I'm stuck in Springfield for Christmas because of the snow. I think we got 16 inches. AND IT'S STILL COMING. I wish I had pics but I don't. My car is buried now under the snow. Hopefully no one crashes into it.

So Merry Christmas, hope you and yours have a good one. I'll be spending Christmas eating Salisbury Steak and drinking Coke cause my beer is buried in the car.

This is my stupidest Christmas ever.
:: Matt 12:12 PM [+] ::
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More insomnia

I don't think I bring this on myself. My inability to sleep.

Perhaps I do. I know tommorow I have to be up and on thre road by 10 for a 3 and a half hour journey to St. Louis. I'm seeing "The Producers." Been looking forward to it for months. Gotta get there.

SO I get off work from the neighborhood bar and grill around 1 spend a bit of time on the internet looking at stuff that never exactly effects me except to know that thank goodness Indy 4 is a greenlight.

I wander upstairs and turn on the TV. Mistake number one. I'm with Jerry Seinfeld when he said "The finger that uses the remote control is the last part of the body to fall asleep." So it is. I come across Twin Peaks on Bravo. This was the finest show on television. Even late second season was good. But tonights episode is the one *spoiler warning* where Mady is killed. Oh the evil of it, the beautifully directed stuff of Bobby and Donna crying for no reason, the tall alien suffering, Copper's inability to stop it from "happening again." Great and freaky and sad. This pisode is of course enough to scare anybody.

It ends, off goes to the TV, and I try to sleep in darkness. When I was younger I had a 2 ft tall Teddy Bear that laid next to me to scare off any approching evils. Well, and the light was on. Can't do it anymore it's got to be A) dark and B) quiet. My wristwatch's second clicking is Chinese Water Torture to me.

So it's dark and quiet and I open eyes as one does and I see a giant floating face in my room. It's really just the reflection of my window in my televsion but it's enough to flip[ me over and try to sleep again.

Now my thoughts start to wonder. It's these thoughts that drove me to keep the bear and the light on as a child. Ghosts. I have a fear of ghosts. It's completely irrational.

"Do ghosts exist?" I postulate. "Well, I'd have to see one to believe."

"But" says my brain as irration and irratation take over. "You never want to see one, it would scare the bejesus out of you, you will probably never know."

It's amazing how logic can even scare you. So this fear has followed me into adulthood. Only now I try to fight it.

"Listen," I say" "we've slept a milliion times in the dark we've been good, let's just go to sleep." But then I see the face floatin in the TV again I flip out and flip on the light. It's madness frankly.And this whole time My brother is prolly thinking... " Hey, goofball, just go to sleep." Crazy rational thinkers.

*Loooooooooooooooooooooong pause as I sit and think a sec.... *

My mom passed away at the beginning of Spetember. And I think even a ghostly visit from her would give me a hard attack. I'm not making light. I miss my mother very much. And even though it was incredibly annoying at the time It was nice to know you had someone in your corner going "you have to do it otherwise what are you doing with your life?" "Are you working at the neighborhood bar and grill for the rest of your life?"

Mom's are great that way their in your corner and giving you the advice that 90% of the time you SHOULD be following. HOw many times to you go Geesh, mom was right. I should have listened. Ahhhh, moms.

But back to my irrational fear, whenever I visit home, it brings back mom memories. Which brings that connection closer of what a great chick she was. (I use chick lovingly I assure you.) So my fear grows intensely wild she'll make a visit and... uh, I'm not up to that I don't think.

Lot of psychoanalyzers out there reading alot into this I'm sure.... What's unresolved with your mom? Why don't you want to "confront" this? Cause there's nothing to confront. It's as the Beatles told you... "All you need is love." It crosses all the bounderies of love death hate. And she knew that. I told her... alot. Especially in the last few months. She knew everything I felt for her. My worst moment was watching Ben Affleck's biography one day at the hospital and Ben, good guy he seems to be, took his mom to the oscars. And I looked at my mom and said "You look sad." And she said hoping not to cry "Remember me at the Oscars." And we all fell crying on top of each other. I told her I loved her then, as well. And the great thing is as I send this off into ether world I'm sure it'll make it to her where ever she is. Love you, mom.

This is probably the most I've thought about my mother's death since the funeral living in a different town tends tomake that easy suddenly you're back into your old life with your friends and stuff to do. Interesting.

Well anyway, thanks for letting me gush there a second. If this your first time reading then sorry... it's heavy. If you want some light go down a few and read about me and Madden. It's definitely light.

Merry Christmas as I'll be out of town I'm not sure I'll be posting but come January *drum roll* Sundance. The volunteer perspective.
:: Matt 5:03 AM [+] ::
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Can't Sleep

Can't sleep, can't sleep, can't sleep, can't sleep.

I have all these movie quotes in my head. They're just circling.

"What about your boss, Der Fuhrer, isn't he waiting to take possession?"

"Why are the ceilings so low? Low overhead, my boy, we pass the savings on to you."

"Go away or I'll call the brute squad." "I'm on the brute squad" "You are the brute squad."

Man my friends and I can sit around and spit quotes out to each other all night. The Big Lebowski is probably our most quoted. Nothing says funny like:

"Donny? Did you hear the Dude's story?... Then you're our of your element. .... Your like a little kid who wonders into a movie and starts asking... oh and, Dude, Chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature it's Asian American."

Man that's funny, I have a friend who can pull out a movie quote... for any real life occassion and it's spot on. Like while playing Goldeneye, back in the days of N64, when being horribly killed by us other players, he would quote "I hate fucking guard dogs." Good times.

I didn't have anywhere to go with this.... I just woke up with movie quotes in my head.

"It's not that I condone fascism or any ism for that matter. Isms in my opionion are not good."

"Love is like air, love is a many splendored thing, love lifts us up where we belong, all you need is love."

"Kahn, I'm still here.... yes, OLD FRIEND, you've managed to kill everyone else, but like a bad marksman you keep missing the target.... If you want me you're gonna have to come down here, Kahn. You're gonna have to COME DOWN HERE."

As you may have noticed, there's some links to the side, some they gave me as being part of blogger.com But ferristech.net is a buddy's where my website lays. The other is my friend Jeff's blog page. He funny.

And finally is James Lileks. His blog page before blog was cool. and hip. Anyway visit these and enjoy.

But I can't leave without a Star Wars quote what kind of Fan would I be.

"But I was going into Tosche's Station to pick up some power converters."

"Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter."

"You have failed your highness, I AM a Jedi, like my father before me."

All right one from each movie. And if you get really bored and want to try and guess all the above quotes send them to me.

And now for your moment of Zen.


:: Matt 5:41 AM [+] ::
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Friends

You ever heard that old joke "What's a Best Friend?"

He's the guy next to you helping you bury the body saying "That was f*cking Awesome!"

I love my friends. They're the greatest people in the world.

I try to see as many of them a day as possible because their such a good source of... what? I dunno, belonging, love, humor.

My friends are the best. And prolly a good 60% of them are the one's next to me with the body. Hoping they don't get caught. But who could blame them?

But I digest. *

I was saying that my firends rule. Guys, girls all. If I'm down I call them. If I need a drink I call them.

Friends are the core of many people I think. And those who don't have them come on line and find them. Why? It's the above, the belonging, the acceptance the need to feel that my place here on earth isn't for nothing. That if I were to disappear somone would miss me. Besides my cat or dog.

Friends are the people in your life who make you realize your worth something. That's why after a break up or fight or looking for the next "hook-up" you call you're friends.

And if you're having touble buying this look to the movies. Where are friends are golden. They are you're shining path. Look at any John Hughes movie, or When Harry Met Sally... or Friends or even American Pie. It's your friends that keep you sane.

I wrote a paper a few years back on Plutonic Love and how this friendship between friends is where *I THINK* todays generation is looking for their lovers. Chandler and Monica. Perfect instances. Friends first is a great way to find the LOVE of your life.

But all that set a aside friends keep you sane, tell you how good a person you are and, if necesarry, drive you down the highway in your white Ford Bronco.

Side note:

I still hate Madden 2003



* This was a joke no one got. They thought it was a typo, but I was being witty. "But I digress" was the play on words.

:: Matt 3:20 AM [+] ::
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In Celebration


(To the tune of Ren and Stimpy's "Log Song")

What's not a myth, takes lots of bandwith
and is kept like a daily log
They're usless reads that nobody heeds
It's blog blog blog

It's blog it's blog
where people wrote what they could
it's blog it's blog
it's better than bad it's good.

As a celebration to the news that Ren and Stimpy are returning to TNN with their originator John K. Remember when Ren and Stimpy was good. John K wrote and directed those. Remember when it started to be bad. That's when they fired John K. And now all the episodes good and bad are returning to TNN. WIth new episodes the following season.

Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy
:: Matt 2:46 PM [+] ::
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I mean really.

I love to play John Madden on any game console. PC, PS2, Game Cube, whatever. This is clearly the best football on the market.

The problem. I suck. I mean, I love this game and feel I have a good grasp on football but I somehow manage to lose (not to the computer I should mention) but when I do lose 95% of the time it's by a touchdown. And how often do I lose? Against my friend, Ryan, I am 10 and 4.

10 and 4 and losing by a touchdown. Now my friend Ryan believes in only keep track each night not this 10 and 4 business. Well that's all well and good for him to say, he's only losing a third of the time! I have something to prove here. But it doesn't matter. I lose and Madden tells me why.

Madden: Better pass defense would have helped that play.

Oh really, John, I'm so glad your here to tell us these things. So what your saying is he made a 35 yard reception and a good pass defense would have helped? Well, shiznit apparently I know nothing about football.

Ryan plays the Cheifs and I play the 2002 Patriots and I'M losing.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

That's all I want to say.

Except that I really urge you to cut and paste the link to my journal and find some really fascinating stuff as opposed to a childish ramble about the stupidity of Madden.

Madden: He just threw it in there and the guy caught the ball. And that's how plays are made.

:: Matt 3:47 AM [+] ::
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And so it begins.... again.

For the old part of the Journal type in this link. http://www.ferristech.net/~matt/Journal/journal.htm

Last night's ramble is particularly interesting, I think. So is the one about my hair cause let's face it, it's short.

All right well this will save me about 30 seconds every time I post so that's worth it.

30 seconds more I have to my life!

I feel young again!
:: Matt 2:46 PM [+] ::
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