The Note
It's 3:20 AM.
Sleep is a mysterious thing. Of all the unanswered questions about sleep, I think we can agree that the one that keeps me up at night is Why am I not asleep right now? At least that's the question that keeps me up at night. Of course, another way of asking the question Why am I not asleep right now? is What keeps me up at night? Answer: Right. That's the mystery.
I have a CPAP machine which I actually use. As you know, CPAP stands for Continuously Pushing Air Program. I'm pretty sure that's right. CPAP is very popular among ham radio operators and people with long histories of eating the wrong kind of food and sitting around too much. Here's a VENN diagram to help you understand who these people are. As you know, VENN stands for Very Easy diagrammiNg with Notation.
I almost got that right. Now I see that the diagram suggests that all ham radio operators are Americans which is not true. Also, most people are not Americans. However, most Americans don't know that. Well, they know it, but they don't really know it. Which brings us full circle back to me. (Next time, I'll do a VENN diagram on American people who are both poets and ham radio operators. Which, again, brings us back ANOTHER full circle to me.)
Most of the time, I think CPAP is beneficial to me. It prevents snoring which my wife and neighbors seem to appreciate. The money we've saved on replacing broken window panes and fine china has been enough to pay for the CPAP machine several times over. Or at least part of one time over. Except, now that I think about it, we sold the china to pay for the CPAP machine so that worked out.
Finally, what made me write about not being able to sleep? (Now, it's 3:50 AM. Took me awhile to draw that Venn diagram to the point that it is almost right.) Is there a connection between my sleep and this issue? Answer: Yes. This is the "5 X 8" issue of Right Hand Pointing, which contains a lot of images and some poems on 5x8 index cards. (For those under 35 years of age, index cards are cards that "index" things and which are specifically designed to be replaced by your smart phones.) I drew the diagram on a manila envelope which contained a submission to this issue that came from France. You won't be seeing those cards because they were pornographic collages. (The cards were sent from France but the pornography was probably originally from the San Fernando Valley in California.)
Since I am awake, let me thank all the contributors to this special issue. We got some lovely contributions and are happy to show some of them to you. My special thanks to Laura M Kaminski who went through a draft of this issue and helped me calm down during a moment when putting it together was kind of freaking me out for some reason. I probably don't get enough sleep. Which, again, is yet another full circle. Back to me.
Enjoy!
Dale
