Things missing from my house

1. That nice lady. You know, the one who comes and brings you clean towels and empties the trash and changes the sheets. You know, the one who does, basically, all the things you don't want to do.
2. Loads and loads of people. Most of whom you don't know.
3. Lots of books. I have a lot of books, but they would fit in like, 10 boxes. They would not, for example, fill up those many rooms in the basement or maybe not the basement of the Marriott.
4. That sweater. That I lost one night and found the next day, right where I lost it. And then I lost it again. And didn't find it. (Maybe it's with Nicole's hat? In the AWP museum of lost things? Because it was in DC and apparently, there? There's a museum for everything.)
5. Hightouchmegastore. And that's sad, because she's a good roommate. But she's a little sick and she probably missed The Historian and also her child/ren. But if she wanted to, I would let her live in my cold basement. 
6. Any sense that tomorrow is Monday and therefore a work day, that is, a day on work must be done. Because, basically I sat around all day feeling tired, doing laundry, and letting the interwebs eat what is left of my brain. 
7. Terrance Hayes. He, also, could live in my basement. Or wherever.
8. Sleep. But it will not elude me for long.
9. Tapas. I ate at the most excellent tapas bar in DC. I want the tapas people to be my live-in personal chefs. 
10. Absurdistan. I heard Gary Shteyngart read on Saturday night and he's like, totally fucking hilarious and I thought, oh, Middlebrow read that book and loved it, I'll read it when I get home. But he gave it to his BFF because, apparently, if MB likes a book and you don't jump on it immediately slathering like a hungry daschund, then he sulks and is all like, you don't like what I like, and then he gives the thing he likes away so that, eventually, when you decide you do like it, he can be all like, oh, I said you would like it, but no, you didn't take my word for it, you had to talk to Shteyngart himself and then you're all, oh, he's funny, give me the book. So, in other words, I'm going to have to get my own copy. 

The Next Thing

I'm looking for the Next Thing. Have you seen it? This is the thing that will help me sleep past 5 AM, the thing that will quiet my asking mind, that will pick me up and calm me down. I am looking for free house cleaning and free massage and free will. I am looking for more and less. I am looking.
Also, this next thing must be affordable, sugar free, approximate. It must be close, accessible, desirable. It must be like a kitten and a lion. It must be.
Perhaps the next thing is next. It is next, and so, waiting, it will arrive. Or, fleeting, it must be pursued. One of these is true.
The next thing exists only in dreams, in sleeping, in thought.
The next thing is not here now, and so must be next, and so must be deferred and so never.
Never, never next thing.

A Little from Column A, A Little from Column B

The answer to yesterday's question is : Yes. It is both lack of sleep and reality that have caused me stress.
Today I ran, fast, and then I went to Crossfit. Then I worked with the grade school students and then I taught my students. Actually, I lectured, then I yelled (they hadn't done the reading).
Now I'm getting ready for bed.
But it seems Obama's speech was positive. Son's teacher taught his class the sign for "responsibility" and they had a talk about what that meant. I think I should ask her to have that talk with my students.
Yawn.

Lack of Sleep? Or Reality?

Now that two weeks of school are over and done, and the third about to begin, I must confess I feel a bit sick, sort of a nauseous-anxiety-dread. Also, I must confess that the last two nights I have slept very little, both nights because of, perhaps, too much food + red wine, and also, last night at least, because crazy Gus kept whining/coughing.
So what is causing my nausea-anxiety-dread? Is it simply a lack of sleep? Will I wake up tomorrow thinking that the world is peachy keen and that all one needs in life is a balance of waking and sleeping time?
Or...or, dear readers, is the confluence of lack of sleep mixing noxiously with Obama education-speeching hysteria & Glenn-Beck Day declaring insanity?
What I'm saying, beloved ones, is maybe it's NOT just a lack of sleep but a too large dose of reality? I mean, people are hysterical. Mayors are declaring Glenn Beck Day (maybe it's just the one, but that is one too many).
Oh, on this Labor Day, I am a downer.
I will get some rest and check back in with you tomorrow.