Random Mumblings on a Nothing Monday

Didn't do much this morning. Slept in, watched Sports Center, ate too many Starbursts, played internet chess. Kobe's legacy is safe for now; Lebron's is in doubt. His coach got fired and his elbow is swollen and he's rumored to be on his way out of town for the big money. Don't give a damn for either one of them. The NBA bores me to tears. Starbursts, on the other hand, are the true answer to the one-food-stranded-on-a-desert-island question. Cherry Pez doesn't come close. Stephen King was dead wrong in Stand By Me, although the Shawshank Redemption and Stand By Me are movie contenders for the same kind of question.

Didn't work out or play poker. Not feeling inspired or connected or engaged. I think I have sleep apnea. I wake up with a really dry plaque-y mouth and the longer I sleep the more tired I feel. Ron Ingersoll broke my nose in a pickup basketball at Malibu in the summer before my senior year. It didn't heal straight; you can still see the crook, and ever since one nostril is virtually useless. It turns sleep into a series of near-suffocations. They can fix that kind of thing but I think it involves a big mallet and a huge bandage on the middle of the face, and I'm not sure if I'm up for that. I'd rather do nothing and complain about it. This is the surest sign of growing old: I am storing up laments for the lawn chairs at the Old Folks Home. Yet I can't see myself in one of those places, with the scent of stale urine and impending death permeating the air. I'd rather die stubborn and drive too fast, anything but that miserable surrender of just living from meal to meal.

I've got to walk to work in a couple of hours; that will be my sole accomplishment for the day. A day of nothing momentous and not much effort--it's okay to have one of those once in a while, particularly on a Monday, but the danger is it can become a way of life, of resigning and smothering all your ambition with the soft pillow of the status quo. Much better to go out with out a hoo-ah bang, make up a story and stick to it like Al Pacino in Scent of A Woman. Drive blind if you have to and be outrageous. It's far better than smoking yourself to death in your chair. Talk your way into the Red Ferrari, flatter the repressed history teacher with anecdotes of LBJ. It's way better than peddling sugar for the rest of your life. Find the fire under the dress. Life is cold ashes without it.