fine whine

So in the last week I've watched both versions of Insomnia, Chris Nolan's and the superior original by Erik Skjoldbj�rg. So it is only slightly ironic that I can't sleep right now, right?

When I'm tired I often get songs, spoken phrases or jingles stuck in my head. Right now I'm tormented by the end of the commercial for Galoob's Bouncing Babies, a toy long forgotten (not that I ever had or wanted one) but the freak chorus sings on and on in my head as I wash the dishes. I can't sleep, so might as well clean while my brain runs on and on...

I'm not much of a worrier, even late at sleepless nights. Instead, I ponder mainly random things, usually vocally. Dictating to myself, I blather on and on as though I'm supposed to be taking these down, a long-overdue email here, a resume's coverletter there and the occasional blog entry. Like this. I tried leaving my Palm under my pillow to scrawl this stuff down without getting up, but I was killing batteries too quickly with the backlight and I'm somewhat faster typing than "writing" with Graffiti. So type I do.

Sometimes my thoughts aren't statements but questions, the depth falling far short of the great thinkers. I wonder if everyone thinks in complete sentences, if anyone else plays secretary to himself when staring at a dark ceiling. I wonder if maybe I should tell my wife that the brown animal we see in a nearby loading dock is almost definitely not an otter but probably a woodchuck.

I wonder if it's okay to not know for sure the easy visual differences between an otter and a woodchuck. Is that the sort of thing people should know? When we were walking in the downpour of a couple days ago, we passed by a middle-aged couple futilely avoiding the rain after dinner at a restaurant, and the woman asked the man (who looked reasonably intelligent, despite his date), "Which do you think comes first, the thunder or the lightning?" This is a grown woman, mind you, asking a question most of us get out of the way well before puberty. I wonder if I'm in any position to judge such a question, as I cannot tell the difference between a woodchuck and an otter. Or is it something else? Most of the woodland creatures I conjure up in my mind come courtesy of cartoons, and those representations are notoriously flawed.

Who loses sleep over this sort of thing anyway?