Infomercial anyone?

Well, here I am in the wee hours of the morning, after being up all night. Actually, I've been up for two nights in a row. Most of the time, when this happens I find my mind racing so fast, jumping and skipping from one idea to another before I can even process what I am thinking about. Sometimes I sit up at the edge of my bed and jot down a few key words or phrases to come back to and explore later on. Other times, I start writing frantically, trying to capture what I'm wanting to say. That can be frustrating at times because my mind spins at the speed of light while my hand, well, doesn't. And the faster I try to write, the faster my hand cramps up. Perhaps one day, I'll make the transition to the laptop and skip the "old school" method of scribbling on a legal pad, drawing arrows in red ink to mark what sentences I want to move to another spot. But maybe not just yet. I've managed to amass a huge quantity of legal pads, and not the "cheap" ones, and more pens than I can count. There's something about all of the back-to-school sales that sucks me in at the beginning of the school year. I finished my master's degree in 1995 but I still buy the stuff, just in case....Did you know that WalMart sells boxes of 24 Crayola crayons for $0.25 each? I haven't used crayons in what, over 25 years now? But I am still  convinced that one day I will need them. All 50 boxes of them. That's the limit WalMart will allow you to buy. It may be a little obvious by now that I have some "issues" and struggle with some OCD symptoms. I try not to go to WalMart from mid-July until the end of August. I am slowly managing to decrease my inventory and donate a lot of the school supplies I have accumulated to local charities and group homes for children. Progress not perfection!

Since I have decided to start this blog, I've spent quite a bit of time pondering possibilities and thinking about what I would want to write about. (Perhaps that has contributed to my insomnia?!) Do I want to stick with a specific topic? Do I want to make an entry every day? I have jotted down a dozen or so ideas of subjects to reflect upon and they go in many different directions. So for now, I'm just going to write when I feel inspired to do so and to write about where my spirit is leading me.

Now, to try to make the connection between what I am writing and the title of this particular entry. Fellow night owls can attest to the fact that TV choices are pretty slim pickings in the middle of the night. Take for example this evening. TLC was running episodes of LA Ink all night. They were only showing three episodes. After the third, they'd go back to the first and repeat them all again. VH1 was following suit, running episodes of Celebrity Rehab. Most other channels are running "paid advertisements", enticing me to purchase things I didn't even know I needed! Those product hosts are good. By the end of the 30 minutes, I'm convinced that I really do need what they are selling. I pull my bank account up online to see how much money I have and try to figure out if I could get the new gadgets and still have money left over to buy cat food for Tiptoe and Fuzzy. This is one of the reasons that I do not have credit cards. I do have a debit card but simply knowing that if I use it, the money will come out of my account immediately, is usually enough to stop me.

I will close with a poem that I wrote back on September 24, 2010:

Untitled XII

Do you ever wonder if
the memories you have
chosen to carry from
the very first time you
could even remember
into today are real?
Or are they exaggerated,
distorted events
assembled according to
the directions on
the back of the box
of that kit
no one can live without,
that you ordered
off of channel 12
for $19.95 and free S & H
that first night
that you couldn't fall asleep?

Future entries will be a little more succinct!
Going to try to catch some zzzzz's now that the sun is starting to rise.