Well, I do this from time to time. I fell asleep as soon as I got home from work today, at about 5:30 PM. Usually when I do that, however, I wake up just as the televison program I wanted to watch that night was about halfway over. This time, however, I slept for a good solid eight and a half hours, waking up at 2 AM, which is a lot more sleep than I get in the average night. Yet, strangely, it still feels like the same day, unlike when I go to bed at 2 AM and wake up at 7:30 AM. I’ll probably go back to bed soon, even though it looks like Heavenly Creatures will be playing on the cable in a few moments, but I won’t watch it no I won’t I won’t.

A faithful reader using the enigmatic nom de plume “your former health aid” wrote in, using the comment form at the bottom of the page, to inform me that I have conjunctivitis (pinkeye) and to seek medical attention immediately. Thanks, mysterious stranger! In the meantime, everybody stay away from me, because I’m a walkin’ toxin. Definitely no butterfly kisses. I am starting to wonder if there is any illness that I don’t have. Lately I have been collecting them as if they were Pokemon. I guess it’s relatively safe to say that I don’t have cancer, or AIDS, or Down Syndrome, or male pattern baldness (yet), or whatever illness Rush Limbaugh has that has caused him to lose all hearing in one ear and eighty percent in the other, assuming it wasn’t simply caused by listening to himself on a regular basis. If that were the case, Dittoheads everywhere would be purchasing hearing aids and saying, “Eh? What?” and blaming it on Clinton.

My hypochondriac ass and I will be returning to sleep now.

I admit to having some trouble with my eyes. I can see okay, but check this out:

A beautiful pair of baby blues, you’re thinking. No, that’s not the problem. Malformed eyelids? No, that’s not the problem either, and shut up, I’m sensitive about them.

For the last few days, the eye on my right/your left has been as red as Hollywood in the 1950s. Redder, in fact. It’s a bit like the results of an EKG were written directly onto my eye with a needle or something while I was asleep. Those of you who know me well will know that I am somewhat squeamish about eyes, and I have patiently been waiting for this redness to go away, lest a paranoid and hysterical public brand me as a mutant and put me into one of their special camps. However, admiring my handsome self in the mirror tonight, I realized that my red eye was one flaw that could no longer be ignored. Also, the redness has been so bright that it’s been difficult for me to sleep lately. So I rooted around in my medicine cabinet and found an old bottle of eyedrops that had been left behind by one guest or another many, many years ago, a bottle which I had kept for so many years just for an occasion such as this. So, still looking in the mirror, I unscrewed the cap, positioned the bottle over my eye, and squeezed… and a drop fell onto my chin. I realized then that I had my non-red eye squinted shut, which threw off my depth perception, but I couldn’t seem to get it right with both eyes open, either. Ultimately I decided to look up at the ceiling, hold the bottle a foot or so over my face and randomly squeeze out drops until one happened to land in my eye, and then another, time permitting. And so I was successful in this endeavor, yet I continue to wait for the desired results.

As I wait, I consider the possibility that Dennis Quaid is travelling around inside my body in a tiny ship, and the redness has occurred because he has shot a tiny video transmitter into the center of my eye so that he could see everything I see, which would in some part allow him to help build up my self-confidence in talking to women and dealing with dangerous situations. In return, I’ll do my best to get him back to the laboratory and out of my body before his oxygen supply runs out.

Today is my birthday.

I am aging.

Do I have to get my prostate checked now? Should I start using Rogaine? Should I consider cosmetic surgery? Should I be thinking of settling down with a nice girl and having a few kids? Is it time for me to start watching CBS?

I have been worried about my teeth. I bought an electric toothbrush. I put the pea of toothpaste on it, ran a bit of water over it, as is my routine procedure, and turned the thing on. Of course, the vibrations sent the toothpaste flying everywhere. Of course. I bought a little contraption which purports to make flossing easier, and it may yet do that, but my teeth have a knack for causing floss to unravel. I switched for a time over to the tape, until it was pointed out to me that the “dental tape” I was using was in fact tape from an audio cassette – the cassette in question being the master recording of many famous songs, including the Beatles’ “Let It Be” and Men Without Hats’ “Safety Dance”. I do not feel guilty.

Sometimes when I’m writing these I start with one or two sentences, then get to the end, and realize that somehow I had written a bunch of shit in the middle.

This is one of those times.