For Father’s day this year my family got me 4 presents. I’ll list them for you.
#1. They wrote lists of all of their favorite things about me. The biggest reasons that they love me. I’m going to keep them to myself but you should know that they made me laugh, blush, gush & get a little teary. They were very sweet lists.
#2. A Book called ‘I Can’t Sleep’ by Knock Knock. It’s an inner-truth journal. A journal for passing the time when insomnia strikes and my brain is circling in on itself, cannibalizing the trivialities of the day and exaggerating the ticking of the clock, reminding me that every minute spent awake is another minute closer to when I’ll have to get up, though many of the great artists and sages were insomniacs & that’s part of how they got so much done, so if I can’t sleep I might as well write and channel my misery into something productive. Their words, not mine. You see, I have a hard time falling asleep. I can’t shut my brain off. Once I’m asleep I’m usually good. In fact, most of the time, it’s as hard to wake up as it was to fall asleep in the first place. Harder even. I’m pretty sure that I’m nocturnal. I function better in the dark. We’ve been through a tough few years with work, finances, house stuff like sinkholes & what not and this hasn’t helped. So the book is something to help with that. You list in it all the reasons that you can’t fall asleep on that particular night & maybe it will help you find some rest.
#3. Another book. ‘Listography’ by Lisa Nola. It’s basically your life in lists. They give you a topic & you fill in the blanks. The topics vary but here are a few.
“List your favorite films”
Some of mine: ‘Labyrinth’, ‘Donnie Darko’, ‘The Empire Strikes Back’, ‘Eurotrip’, ‘Sin City’, ‘Fight Club’ & ‘Toy Story’.
“List your favorite T.V. shows of all time”
Mine: “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, “My So-called Life”, “Heroes” (season one at least), “24”.
“List your favorite bands”
Mine: Counting Crows, Pearl Jam, Rage Against the Machine, Drive By Truckers, Led Zeppelin, Soul Coughing, Soundgarden.
“List your biggest pet peeves”
Mine: When people blow their nose in the middle of a restaurant while other people are eating.
Some of them are likely to not get filled in on paper. “List the strangest places you’ve had sex”, “List people you wouldn’t mind having sex with”. You never know who will get there hands on it, you know?
This could help with the insomnia too. Or not. When I can’t sleep, if I start filling in a topic like “List your favorite songs of all time” I could probably write until the sun comes up.
#4. A special collector’s edition of Rolling Stone called 500 Greatest songs of all time. I like to add “as selected by Rolling Stone” to the end of that title. You see, I like lists. Especially if they are about music or movies or TV. Music lists get me going the most. When someone starts to tell me the best songs, bands, albums, guitar solos, etc. of all time they’ve got my attention. I’ll go through and say things like, “I can see that” or “are they nuts? That shouldn’t be that high on the list” or “I can’t believe they left off (fill in the song, band, album, guitar solo, etc. that got the shaft)”. That’s kind of where I decided to go with this blog. I’m going to make lists. Lists about movies, TV, music. Basically the things that entertain us. I know, there are a million blogs about these things. Well mine will be in list form. I’ll try to make it interesting. I won’t just tell you what my favorite ten of this or that is every time. Sometimes, just not every time. I’ll probably start with a discussion on the Rolling Stone list. Like maybe, The top 5 songs that Rolling Stone left off their 500 Greatest songs of all time list. Or the 5 songs that shouldn’t be on Rolling Stone’s 500 greatest songs of all time list. We’ll see. I hope I can find some people who are interested in reading. Let me know what you think.
