I know you’re tired, but here’s another article about how we should get more sleep.

Prop your eyes open, take a moment, and read it. Or at least start it before your FIRST SLEEP and then finish it after you wake up and before you start your SECOND SLEEP.

Segmented sleep is going to be the latest trend. We used to call it insomnia but now waking up at midnight is natural and right and we will all want to change our schedules so we can do more of it – especially since long-dead medieval people are now telling us that the wakeful interlude between sleeps is the best time for sex. We have generally dismissed medieval wisdom but now that they’re giving us advice for the boudoir, we’re allowing them all kinds of sexy credit. After all, they had to have relations with other smelly medieval people thousands of years before we started putting cocoanut scented body wash in squeeze bottles. That couldn’t have been easy! Must have known a few tricks back then.

There’s lots in the New York Times about sleep problems. Obviously something is keeping the NY Times editors awake – severe sleep deprivation may be the only thing they have in common with Rick Perry. But the research appears to be undeniable that something fundamental happens inside the brain when it is asleep – something consolidating that makes thinking clearer.

Since no one is really listening, now is as good a time as any to re-issue my call for the candidates to take the lead on these insomniac issues by embracing the idea of more sleep research and by actually being brave enough to sleep in public.

Yes, in public.

Let’s put Obama and Romney in a hot middle school gym and subject them to a string of endless, praiseful speeches given by local potentates. If either candidate is truly human, he will nod off. In this way the next President can immediately and unconsciously get a head start on leading the nation towards more healthy sleep patterns. And he could de-mystify the taboo about conking out in a public place.

Yes, the “optics” would be bad, especially for those who think the president should always appear to be in control, super alert and otherworldly.

But I say let it go. No matter who wins, the President of The United States and your weird uncle Ted are made of the same stuff. They need their naps, especially in the afternoon. Some people don’t want to see their leader unconscious, but for the rest of us – a snoozing Prez may be just the image we need to restore our confidence that the head of state will have his head on straight when he wakes up.

When have you benefitted from “sleeping on it”?

Dear Dr. Babooner,

I wrote to you a little over one month ago with a serious question about the life I had led in the field of politics, and how I felt under appreciated by just about everyone I encountered in that world.

I had just been rejected as a potential vice presidential nominee in favor of someone younger and prettier – and this happened after spending a ton of money in a failed bid to become president. When I wrote to you, I wanted to know if I should walk away from the relentless striving for attention and approval, or quietly position myself to run for some other office, like Senator.

You answered with some baffling gibberish about Nixon.

And yet I’m writing to you again because I think you’re one of the few people who takes me seriously.

I’ve just decided to leave politics and take a high paying job in the private sector. This is the right thing for me to do after years on a government salary. The gravy train is at the station!

And yet people are acting like I’m some sort of traitor because I had to quit my unpaid volunteer political job as co-chair of a big campaign. Critics say I’m “jumping ship” and hurting the candidate’s feelings in his time of need.

Trust me, the candidate doesn’t know what it means to have a “time of need” – he’s a super rich guy with a big ego. And frankly, guys like him can be a bit distant and clueless, feelings-wise.

But I’m not running away from my troubles. Now, instead of dealing with just one I’ll get to pal around with a whole bunch of super rich guys with big egos who can be a bit distant and clueless, feelings-wise. Some things never change.

I got into public service to help people, Dr. Babooner. I admit it didn’t always work out that way, but my intentions were good. Like most people, I wanted to be a hero and do something big and memorable. That’s why my new job is going to be so great. I get to sit at a round table!

Growing up as an American child, I knew I could never be one of the REAL Knights of Camelot. But this will be the closest thing to it! We’ve got a whole publicity staff just to the promote the idea that all we do is noble deeds!

If you had this opportunity you would take it too!
So why is everybody being so mean to me about it?

Passed Over, Obviously Rejected, Tired, Insulted, & Mad

I told P.O.O.R.T.I.M. that he needn’t apologize for taking the money. Everyone needs to pay the bills and people are sometimes mean when they feel jealous, so maybe they just envy you. Getting paid AND getting to be the leader of the roundtable seems like a dream job, but be watchful over how much chain mail and armor they put on you.

That stuff can chafe!

But that’s just one opinion. What do YOU think, Dr. Babooner?

Today’s post comes from perennial sophomore Bubby Spamden of Wendell Wilkie High School.

Hey Mr. C.,

Well, we’re back. It’s been a couple of weeks already and I’m feeling a little down because it’s all so familiar now. Being a sophomore is the pits – you don’t feel that freshman level of excitement and you’re still a long way from having any of the senior class coolness factor. I come to school every day with a dark cloud hanging over my head. I feel invisible, so I act out in class and get sent to the office. Ho hum, it’s all so familiar and NOT scary. When you’re a sophomore, you know the routine and you’re nothing is new – this must be what it’s like to have the same job for, like, 30 years. Blah.

Not like I know how it really feels to hold a job. I guess I just wasn’t born at the right time for that.

Mr. Boozenporn says there’s a huge demographic shift coming, though, when all the baby boomers will retire and suddenly the jobs will open up and (he says) we’ll find out that we’re not trained for the many good paying openings that will be available because we’ve been too busy just farting around in his class.

But from what my dad tells me, just farting around is a real description of the actual responsibilities of an honest-to-goodness job, and his boss has it.

is that true? Can you get away with stuff once you’re on the payroll?

Everything I see on TV says pretty much the opposite – that people are getting fired left and right all the time for no reason at all, especially if they work for Donald Trump.

Anyway, I’m kind of excited about all the cool jobs that will pop up when you and your old friends finally go into the nursing home and get out of our way. And just think – when all those good paying jobs get claimed by the brightest minds of my generation, who’s going to be left to do the crummy, low paying work of fluffing pillows and changing bedpans for the likes of you?

I’ll tell you who – it’ll be the kids who farted around in class. So tell Mr. Boozenporn to let me and my friends goof off! It may seem like we’re just being jackasses, but actually we’re practicing to be your caretakers!

Sincerely,
Your friend,
Bubby Spamden.

I find it hard to argue with Bubby’s logic, strange as it is. His poor scholarship and inability to resist peer pressure may be the only thing things left in this world that bode well for my comfortable retirement. But first they have to let him graduate.

What’s the lowest paying job you ever had?

Today is the 11th anniversary of the attacks in 2001 that killed more than three thousand people in New York, Washington DC and Pennsylvania. Though we are now past the pivotal 10th anniversary, the annual observance remains painful.

People cope in their own way. Many attend memorial services. Some go to concerts featuring patriotic music and proud statements honoring brave first responders. Others perform acts of community service. Some try not to think about it too much.

I think of all these responses as human and legitimate.

My eye was caught the other day by MSNBC’s special “9-11 As it Happened,” where the cable network re-runs NBC’s coverage of the attacks minute-by-minute just as events unfolded. I saw only a portion, but was surprised at its power. Shocked and disheartened all over again, I wondered why anyone would sit there and intentionally re-live the experience. Especially since we all know the terrible ending.

Adding to the eeriness of the scene was the fact that I saw this play out while walking on a treadmill at an athletic club. MSNBC was displayed on just one of a series of screens. Right next to 9-11, the Green Bay Packers were struggling in the early going against the San Francisco 49’ers. I shifted my gaze back and forth from massive deadly violence against unsuspecting civilians to violence-for-fun-and-profit between rich men in costumes. Which channel to watch? It wasn’t a hard decision to make, but it was a tough choice to keep.

Had I been at home I would have changed the channel or turned off the TV. Committed to the treadmill for another 20 minutes, I told my eyes to behave. I had decided to live in the present moment, but the 9-11 replay was impossible to ignore. My gaze kept shifting back to it even though the I was trying to care that the Packers couldn’t mount a running game. Football never seemed more trivial.

We like to say we will never forget, and I’m sure for many that is absolutely true. But feeling what it was like to REALLY remember that day by seeing it play out in front of me again, I realized how much of it I have, out of necessity, pushed aside and watered down. In a society where so many of our games and entertainments depend on our blithe acceptance of scripted or controlled mayhem, it’s instructive to be reminded of how it drains the heart and wounds the soul to truly witness a genuine tragedy.

What do you do with 9-11? Observe it or avoid it?