No Sugar Tonight

I’ve been sleeping like shit lately, because I’ve been drinking coffee. It’s sad, because I like coffee, but I had to give it up in order to sleep, because I love sleep.

So, last night was the first good night’s sleep I got in some time: a dead, dreamless, warm blackness that smelled like dog (most likely because the girl was curled up next to me). At least, I assumed I wasn’t dreaming, yet I woke up twice in the night with the Guess Who’s “No Sugar Tonight” running through my head.

The subconscious is a strange place and it makes me happy that mine is, apparently, filled with good music.

As is usual, I’m listening to the blues, finishing up here at work, and thinking about the strange inner workings of the human mind.

According to this article, scientists have decided that everyone can “read” each other’s minds. This is very interesting. Apparently, we have neurons that fire not only when we do something, but when others do something, thus letting us not just imagine what they’re doing, but imagine it almost as if we were doing it.

There’s some thought that the absence or misfiring of these neurons may help explain autism.

Science has yet to explain why the Guess Who runs through my sleeping mind.

Here’s something else I threw into my subconscious to see what it would churn up: “[…] cool closely resembles the human spirit. It’s about completing the task of living with enough spontaneity to splurge some of it on bystanders, to share with others working through their own travails a little of your bonus life.”

Donnell Alexander wrote it; I like it.

I’m not “as-seen-on-MTV” cool, but I could happily be the “splurge some of it on bystanders” cool.

Things that have, in the last 24 hours, made me laugh so hard I almost peed

1. This morning all the radio stations in town were dogging on Katie Couric from the Today Show for wearing a cowboy hat while broadcasting from Nashville. Kathy Martindale on Oldies 96.3 even said out loud what anyone who reads Tiny Cat Pants already knows: in Nashville, only tourists wear cowboy hats.

2. “Citizens of the world! The old order is teetering on the brink of collapse. Kittens and puppies, whose vested interests have subjugated you all for centuries, are trembling in fear. (Trifles are trembling too, but that is perhaps less newsworthy, owing to their consistency).” My god, I’d marry Karl Yundt if he wasn’t already married to his revolution.

3. The Professor gave me this book full of photographs of cats doing strange things that I promptly went home and read. While I was reading, the small cat climbed up on the back of the couch and stared at me and the book, as if the book were a grave insult to cats everywhere.

4. Yesterday morning, it just so happened that while I was walking Mrs. Wigglebottom up Murphy Road, there were two other people walking their dogs ahead of us. Apparently, we looked like a parade, because people kept slowing down and waving.

5. For some reason, the dog has to do this weird thing every once in a while where she kind of scrunches down on her legs and scurries really quickly sideways back and forth (If there are other pitbull owners out there who can confirm that this behavior is ordinary, I’d appreciate it) while making these little snorty noises like a pig. She usually does it when she’s really, really happy, but it’s weird as fuck.

Well, yesterday, she was all caught up in doing this and she ran right over the orange cat. Startled him so much he just made this quiet “eep” sound before running off.

6. Then, later on in the evening, he planted himself on the footstool and was giving the dog the old stink-eye all night. Being a dog, she, of course, did not notice. Finally, the cat is so pissed that, when the dog walks by, the cat opens up his paw, extends his claws, and whaps the dog on the ass as hard as he can. The dog takes this as a sign that her prayers have finally been answered and now, after years of hoping, the cat finally wants to play with her.

She then sticks her nose right in the cat’s belly and snorts at him. He’s so startled (and pissed, too, I mean, for all he knew, she was blowing her nose on him) he bolts up and runs off with her in hot pursuit.