Reply #1: Hey! I bet you smile a lot... [View All]

[Westegg]

...I'm not someone who smiles a lot.

As a child, I asked my parents to wake me up for two events. They did so neither time. First was for the moon landing in 1969. Second was for the broadcast of "Destroy All Monsters" on Chiller Theater-- this was probably '72.

I listened to a radio broadcast of The Wedding on a small portable, while working that summer in a pathology laboratory in a hospital in Pittsburgh. The lab room was littered with unwanted body parts and their attendant effluvia, but thanks to the eloquency and passion of the BBC broadcasters, I was able to transport myself to that fabulous event in London with little effort.

Insomnia is a real problem. My mother and my mother's mother both suffered from it. I have the beginnings of the affliction myself now. If the death of Heath Ledger (apparently an insomnia-sufferer) teaches us anything, it's this: Don't mix OxyContin, Valium, Xanax, two sleep meds, and whatever other benzo or opiate he took. But that's an absurd combination! The cat was looking for a way out, as far as I can tell. Passively, obviously. Still. As Dylan said, "When somethin's not right, it's wrong."

Heath probably didn't smile much either. (The Joker irony notwithstanding.)