Mamacita says:  I’m pretty much living on Diet Coke. But that’s okay, because, in the words of Credence Clearwater Revival: There’s a bathroom on the right.

You know how you always think you can drive well even though you’re so tired, you’re almost comatose? Yeah, key word “think.” I actually frightened myself driving home this afternoon. I never really dozed off, but several times I caught myself wondering how in the world I got wherever I was when I became aware of where I was. Not good. Not good at all. I’m listening to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on cd – Jim Dale bloody ROCKS – and it helps even more than my usual music blasting out of the cd player at mega-decibels.  When CD #4 was over, #5 began, and it was full of music.  When I’m tired, I hear lyrics as mondegreens.

The groggy versions of lyrics are always a hoot. I wasn’t so sleepy that I couldn’t appreciate the inadvertant humor; and my singing voice is always good for a laugh. Groggy mondegreens are one of my specialties.

Hold me closer, Tony Danza. . . Count the head lice on the highway. Elton John keeps me alert.

I have no cycle of sleeping. I have no established sleep patterns. Mom tells me that even as a baby I was up all night and slept all day, WHEN I slept. She tried her best to make me conform to a typical baby schedule but it didn’t take. I have one sister and a brother who are just like me in that respect. Another sister is more the conforming type and goes to bed early.

People who go to bed early miss so much. . . .

Like going to work bleary and disoriented, for one thing. It wears off once I’m out of the house (or so they tell me) but if I carry it to extremes it backfires on me. Kind of like today.

When I was younger I could carry it off every time, but now that I’m no spring chicken, it’s harder to bounce back.

Does this mean I should try to be more conforming and go to bed early? And wear house slippers and robes, and stop thinking cold pizza is a good nutritious breakfast? And buy a raincoat? And start watching shows like Everybody Constantly Whines Everybody Loves Raymond? and buy practical Christmas gifts for people? And put little dishes of hard candy all over the house?  And buy some elastic-waist jeans?  Because I don’t think I can handle any of those things yet.

I’ll love and care and nurture you till the cows come home, but you’ll have to watch “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” and “MASH” and maybe a few Adult Swim’s, and Family Guy,  Scrubs, and Ugly Betty, and eat pizza and cheeseburgers and listen to some pretty good music, and watch movies at 3 a.m. . WHEN I’m in the mood to watch tv, which isn’t very often because most of it annoys me. And just plain stinks. Also, the tv is downstairs in the family room and I’m lazy. We’ll watch the movies in the kitchen, while we make Rice Krispie Treats (don’t forget the peanut butter) and No-Bake cookies.

Oh, I can act grownup if I have to, and of course for much of the day I have to. But I dun like it noway.

At what age are we supposed to start thinking Spencer Gifts is stupid and start hanging out at Sears? Because, it hasn’t happened yet and I’m not looking forward to it.

I’ve been waiting for an awfully long time for the elegance and maturity, wit and style, and all the accouterments of adulthood to become important to me. I’m still waiting. I have a horrible suspicion that they’re not coming, that they’ve all seen me and are hiding in terror behind a light pole in the parking lot of Cheeseburgers In Paradise, lest I accost them and take them home.

I am not really interested in most of the accouterments of adulthood. They seem so boring. And isn’t that where the word ‘coot’ comes from? As in “Check out the old coot with all those cootish accouterments?”

I agree with Queen: I sometimes wish I’d never been boiled in oil.

I refuse to become an old coot, even though I’m already one. Not me.

I’m blotto and bravado/I’m a scarecrow and a Beatle. I’m not a coot. Such Nirvana.

Well, maybe sometimes.

I might go to bed tonight. Possibly even before midnight. Because, you know, the old gray mare, she ain’t what she used to be.

Blinded by the light. Wrapped up like a douche another rumor ’bout the night.

Sweet dreams, Manfred.