The Tao of Sleep

        Good morning, my friends! I’m sitting here in the school library, which I call the Stately - not because it holds a candle to, say, the library at Oxford - but because it’s the stateliest place on MY little campus. I like it in here. This is where I feel at home, and this morning - before the influx of students - it’s lovely and peaceful. I have The Tao of Jung, by David H. Rosen, at my left elbow, waiting to be checked out, and only one class today: Spanish. It feels like a good day.

        Except I could NOT sleep last night. It’s horribly ironic that yesterday, the last day of psychology class before Thanksgiving break, we started the chapter on stress - because I could use it NOW, thankyouverymuch. I am definitely planning to do my chapter reading on my time off. Besides, what else will I do? Watch movies? Read nonfiction? Take walks? Live, and breathe, and love?? Ah-hahahahahaha! Fools and cormorants. I thought you knew me. If nothing comes my way to stress me out, I shall sally forth to meet it.

        Oh dear, look at all the space left to fill.

        We went to see the late showing of American Gangster last Saturday night, because we were desperate to get out of the house and do something different. It started out very slowly - well, except for the opening scene - and for a movie with the subject matter it has, it stayed surprisingly quiet throughout. I wasn’t sure for the first third, but by two-thirds of the way into its two-and-a-half hour length, I leaned over to Scott and said, “This is an excellent movie.” Oh, ha - I’m eavesdropping on a conversation between a student and one of the librarians, both of whom are standing a few feet away from me looking at a shelf of books. The librarian is talking about Nicholas Sparks, saying, “I don’t know ANYBODY who doesn’t love his books. They’re love stories. I mean, they’re real love stories.” Okay, at the risk of alienating any of you out there who may happen to be Nicholas Sparks fans, personally, I detest his books. I may be the only woman in America who has never seen The Notebook, let alone read it, and who - in fact - breaks out in hives at the mere thought. Wal, hullo little fella! - there’s one right now! I’m going to name it Nick.

        Thanksgiving. God help me. I’m never thankful at Thanksgiving; I’m only stressed to the point of banging my head repeatedly with the potato masher and using the turkey baster in unseemly ways - UM, such as for cooling off my armpits with ice water, OKAY? You know, I missed my chance in psychology yesterday. When my teacher, Cinnamon (yes-huh), asked for ways we can de-stress, I said, “Meditation.” OBVIOUSLY, I should have gone for the laugh and said, “Masturbation.”

        hee. And okay, the same librarian who loves Nicholas Sparks? Has red hair, like me, so she’s always trying to talk to me, like there’s some unspoken understanding that redheads should be friends or something. I don’t know; I’ve never received an invitation to join any Red-Headed League. Anyway, we were chatting, and she asked, “What’s your course of study?” I told her I’m majoring in psychology, and she asked, “Really? That’s wonderful! What do you plan to do with it?” I said, “Well, it’s my ultimate dream to be a Jungian analyst, but that’s going to take years and years. Barring that - or maybe in connection with it - I’d like to write books.” She looked down at the magazine she was reading and said, “Oh. Well, it’s nice to have dreams.” HA! Do you know, I’m discovering that a person’s unenthusiastic response is more about them than it is about me, 99.9% of the time. That little bit of information was free. kisses for you all!