For The Good Sleep to occur, several elements must come together: the subsequent day has to have no work nor plans. I don’t have to get up and go anywhere. It often happens eve of a holiday or a weekend, for a touch of excitement is needed.  The setting for a Good Sleep needs a sense of safety, viz. being in a cozy place located somewhere secure or familiar like the parent’s house or a favorite B&B.  Not as important is a contrast of the bedroom to the outside world. For example, last night it was below 20 degrees outside, while inside the room was warm as toast. I could hear the old furnace two floors below purring like an old cat.

Normally I get up at 530AM, full of ‘there’s work to be done’ thoughts and actions. Last night’s Good Sleep lasted from 1030PM to 730AM, which was a treat.  I woke feeling well and rested. I feel refreshed; I feel peaceful.  These are the parting gifts of A Good Sleep.

I normally sleep OK, which is like saying I normally eat the same ho-hum meals with mindful watching of portion size and oh so practical contents.  Food as fuel: it keeps me going.  The Good Sleep is a gourmet meal. I may not get one frequently but it is oh so delicious when it occurs.

And with that said, I smell the B&B breakfast cooking. We are having some sort of fancy breakfast souffle; an apt companion to The Good Sleep.

We go this weekend for an early anniversary celebration. We met on 1/31/97. I am confused if this means we have been together for 15 years or this is our 15th anniversary. I guess by now the number doesn’t really much matter. And after so many years it hardly seems a whoop-de-doo matter.  We will enjoy the company of the innkeepers. We may go into town and patronize the tourist shops (if the weather is not too cold). We will have a nice dinner somewhere. I want to bring along some sparkling wine, for we will stay in the room with a fireplace. Hopefully we can stir up some excitement after years of complacency and months of being worn down from attrition.

Every year I am surprised he hasn’t thrown me out for some one new, some one who sits still or focuses when he talks. He could easily find someone who is more tidy with misplaced beverages and doesn’t come with a large family as squirrely as he is.

But he sticks with me, for which I am honored and grateful. I hope for another 15 years, Lord willing. I would like to give it a try.

I write down what I can remember, which are bits and fragments of previous dream times back in the mid-90s, when so much of my life was in transition.

Briefly: there is an image of a Great Painter creating an image on a large white canvas, only to be dismayed at finding something in The Painting he did not plan being there. There is a struggle to remove the matter. This results in Painter having despair and burning The Painting in order to destroy both the Painter and the marred creation. There is some sort of unexpected transition,  and something else emerges from the ashes.

I have an accordion file of important papers. Tonight I was driven to search it. There! On a scrap of 81/2 x 11 paper are the sketches of a story or fable I made from dream work in 1992. The theme and images are identical – the Painter, the faulty creation, the destruction and the unexpected metamorphosis.  20 years later, repeating itself.

I will apply Active Imagination to these notes and dream sketches. I will expand it into a story.

I hope the final creation is just as exciting as these primordial ur-texts.

When the story is formed, I will post it.

It is a nice thought, for I am accomplishing something I never thought possible.

Spo-fans must keep in mind I have always been a skinny wimp, the low main in the gym hierarchy. If I were to go to a beach I would be the one onto whom others kick sand.

I also have some mild revenge smugness, knowing most of the bullies and in-shape jocks from my youth have nowadays gone to pot.

My Midwest upbringing says I shouldn’t boast, but this is not so much about how I good I look but what I have achieved.

I may not be able to make a race horse out of a pig, but I am a now very fast pig.

It is nice to know with  insight, courage, and a bit of self-restraint we can do almost anything.

Question to Spo-fans: tell me something you have achieved which you never believed possible.

I am definitely in the Puccini camp when it comes to writing blog entries. I write down a basic idea like chicken wire on which to hang the details.  Each paragraph fattens up with expanded notions and details.

Then, comes the editing.

This is the part which drives me bats, for no matter how many times I reread my composition, I find further needs for editing or refinement.  I am like a fussy florist who is not content with a finished project but must keep rearranging things hoping to make it even better. Worse, I keep finding errors that arise from the continual tampering.  I swear some literary gremlin rearranges my words, Even after a piece is published I find – yet again – misspelled words or grammar errors. Perhaps WordPress mixes things up after I click ‘Publish’.

Spo-fans occasionally spot these errors, and tell me, for they tend to be comical.  I’ve a fancy to get my 5 years of blogging published into a book, but this means going through every entry looking for blatant errors. I would have to avoid temptation to rewrite things I think ‘need improving’.  I hate the notion of reading five years of blogging and see only the typos and syntax errors.

Year #6 is coming up next month. Perhaps I should try more “write and publish and be damned”.   It would certainly be less time consuming not to pick at the blemishes.

Someone bought a new computer.

We’ve been meaning to purchase a new one for some time. Our old one, probably purchased in 2000, is so frustrating that neither one of us wants to us it. For convenience and speed, my MacBook Pro beats it by a country mile. Even my old Dell laptop (which Someone used, until the screen went dark) is faster than the dinosaur in the office. Our ‘home computer’ runs as slow as molasses in January, so neither one of us wants to use it. Apparently it is overflowing its banks, and there is no room in it despite purging it of ‘crud’.  As a consequence, you could bake a cake during the time is takes to pull anything up. It also freezes a great deal, apparently from having ‘no working memory’ or something. I figured it has atherosclerosis or a virus or was simply possessed by demons.

Someone purchased a HP.  I wanted an Apple product, but he wouldn’t have it. He explains someday he hopes to reenter the workplace; he feels the business world runs on Windows – the home computer needs compatibility. I think the real reason is he doesn’t want a Mac is he doesn’t want to be one of the Pod People.  Well, he will be using the new computer more than I, so fair is fair. Besides, he did all the research. Someone does a very good job investigating something before we buy something, so our purchase was well thought out.  I don’t understand computer lingo, but he explains the new HP holds a lot more*, and it will fun faster, and be more user-friendly.

As I type (on my Mac) he is in the other room, on the floor, under the desk, connecting wires and such.  I look forward to an iTunes library that doesn’t take 20 minutes to pull up. Perhaps Mr. Pewitt’s computer will provide some new bells and whistles for blogging.

We tend to replace computers every ten years, so I hope it works well enough.

*The HP has something called tetrabytes; the old Dell had only gigabytes.  Whatever that means. 

I weigh 171lb this morning, which is unaltered from a fortnight ago. I think I am eating less, yet unable to loose weight. It is a disappointment. The only ‘downside” I am experiencing is missing eating proper food.

We have a live from the Met HD opera this morning.  It is a ‘new opera’ apparently made up of all French arias from the 17th and 18th centuries. I am looking forward to this, for it stars David Daniels. I know Mr. Daniels slightly, for a friend of mine sometimes plays the piano for him. Mr. Daniels is a hotty; and seeing him close up for a few hours will be almost as good as the music.

The rest of the day isn’t going to be that interesting. I have a lot of paperwork/homework to do.  I have a week of journals and medical newspapers to read, and I should get to the gym.  We are shopping for a new computer, so perhaps we will go a-looking.

There will be some mild amusements. I only have to sew on the buttons and – viola! Cajun’s Spo Shirt is completed. Finally! It is long overdue.

To start, Mr. Gingrich gives me the creeps. It is not his foibles and human failings that bother, but his hypocrisy. You know the issues: he condemned Clinton’s shenanigans and he lauds ‘defense of marriage’ while being no better if not worse.

Americans have a mania for morality, or at least the facade of such. We are such as black-white country, allowing nothing less than snow white virtue in our leaders.  Once upon a time a bit of scandal used to colour a man; now it just wipes him out. Our monstrous desire for morality is making politics a no-win situation: those who would be decent politicians understandably avoid it. Anyone with a skeleton in the closet is not going to enter the scrutiny of the election process (Do you know anyone without skeletons?). This leaves us the crazies and the “psychologically split-off” for to run for office.

Any Jungian psychologist will tell you splitting off and denying Shadow parts is a recipe for doom and disaster.

What puzzles and amazes isn’t the psychological or hypocritical types who enter politics, but the “sheep” who are willing to look the other way or can’t see it.  Are there that many so unconscious and/or stupid here in the States? The fearful answer is: yes.

I am not ashamed to admit to a history of ‘warts’ and Shadow parts. I hope however, I own up to them and don’t deny them. Yeah, I am  a walking encyclopedia of  zany and sensual escapades (some of them quite juicy wouldn’t you like to know). I guess this public confession means I won’t ever run for office, but I have no regrets.

I am willing to vote for someone who is straight up front with his or her laundry list of past failings and sexual affairs, saying “Look, this is my past, I won’t lie or cover or condemn others likewise. Now, I would like to run for office, I think I would be good at it, and please give me a try,”

I need no saints in politics.

Nor hypocrites.

It is ‘citrus season’ here in Phoenix, when everybody’s lemons and grapefruits are ripe and ready. Sacks are thrusted on you; white plastic bags bulging with fruit are left in office kitchens. Everyone has them, so they are not that appreciated.

A month the annual trek to Key West will have a different approach. We are calling this “Key Southwest”.  The bunch will come here to Phoenix for a week’s holiday. We plan to see tour southern Arizona, and go to Palm Springs.   I will miss the traditional happenings of Key West; I hope this new and adventuresome version will be fun and exciting, at least for our guests.  Someone and I have a lot of work to do to prepare for this; I am sure to write about it anon.

Overall I don’t find pharm reps useful or necessary. I certainly don’t rely on them for education.  Pharm reps are a bit like used car salesmen, either trying to sell me something I already have or don’t want.

I traditionally don’t work with samples.  There was nowhere to store them; and I was the only one at clinic. And I don’t have time to schmooze with reps (even the pretty ones; most pharm reps are handsome fellows.  Coincidence? ).

With the arrival of the other doctor last year, this changed. He brought with him Rx samples and pharm reps. Prior, I haven’t seen their ilk in over five years.

Being a pharm rep seems a hard job.  Like airline personnel, they smile a lot and are upbeat and patient. And like flight attendants they have to deal with irascible demanding people viz. doctors, who can be childish and nasty (true!).

I admit, it is nice to have a ‘real lunch’ once a week and have some pleasant conversation about pharmacology.

Alas, pharm reps have to ‘stick with the protocol’ and can not answer the questions I really want to ask:

• How do I use this product off-label?
• What negative studies do you have in the back you won’t reveal?
• Will you put out if I use your product? ***

I also admit I like to bear-bait them a bit, putting questions I know they can’t answer readily or easily.  Fun to see’em squirm a bit.

Many people are wary if downright hostile about doctors in cahoots with pharm reps.  Patients don’t want me be some ‘hired gun’, bribed to give out Summer Rain, yet they are often the first to complain when I have no samples to give them. You can’t have it both ways.

Someone, who worked in banking, tells me stories of lavish wining and dining and entertaining by their reps and salesmen; why should it be any different for Medicine?  I think there is a difference (which is one reason I did not associate with reps).  I think my decision making of treatment and medications are not influenced by whom I last saw for lunch.

I skip over the ‘dinner invitations’ not so much out of virtue, as I am too busy to sit still for an hour (despite the free eats) to hear about a Rx of which I  already use or know.

*** For the record, I have NEVER propositioned a pharm rep, not even that really handsome one who represented a (now generic) antidepressant.  Seeing him always got me out of  a depressed mood.