Give me some sleep, please

I am back. You would think that I would have much to rave on about, but I am somewhat subdued. That damn lack of sleep is getting to me. I was up, for all intents and purposes, around five this morning. Don't ask, because the reasons are mundane. Suffice it to say, the brain is moving rather slow. It is a problem when the damn sun rises around six these days.

I love this time of year and loathe it all at the same time. The abundance of light gets me up early and keeps me up later. That is good, but it does take its toll on the brain. It sort of screws things up. Which reminds me of a story.....

I take you all back twenty years, almost to the day. I flew to Europe, Amsterdam to be precise, on May 23rd, 1986. I arrived on the 24th, early in the morning, on a Saturday. There I was by myself, a stranger in a strange land. It was hard to tell who or what was more strange, me or Amsterdam. I am leaning to me, since Am-dam had been around for a while.

Anyway, it was get off the plane, get back pack, get passport stamped, and then ....... what the hell do I do now. A friend told me that he would be in Amsterdam soon after I arrived and that I should stay on a house boat, behind Central (Centraal) Station. By the way, the bastard NEVER showed, to this day I do not know if he was just bullshitting me or what, but then again, I have not seen or spoken to him in well over a decade.

I get a room, at around nine in the morning, on a crappy houseboat. The room is tiny with single bed and a sink. I do not recall if there was a toilet in the room even. I thought of turning around and getting back on the next flight home. I caught myself and realized that I had been up for a while and my body and brain were six hours behind on Toronto time, so it was really around three in the morning to me.

I was trying to stay up until the night so that I could get my body used to the time change, damn jet lag, so I decided to wander about and try to enjoy the day. I was too uptight to head to a hash bar, so I wandered the city with a map for a bit. I grabbed a bite to eat. It was authentic Dutch food--McDonald's. Man, they have those everywhere, and truth be told, they are good and bad. They are good because they are all the same, so there are no surprises. They are bad because they are all the same, simply crap, but no surprise there.

I saw some street performers doing their things in the various public squares. It was all good. I was getting to be really bagged though, and to make matters worse I was feeling the pain of Mr Migraine. I thought I should go back and take something for my head, and maybe lie down.

I get back and to my consternation, I brought Gravol but nothing for pain. I am the son of two pharmacists, suffer from migraines, though I did not realize it at the time, and I do not bring any fucking tylenol or 222s. I bring Gravol, yet do not suffer from motion sickness and figure it is better to puke it out and start fresh than fight the nausea anyway. See, the seeds of my insanity were apparent back then, when I was at my mental peak and could hide or repress the voices.

I have to say, I now let the voices speak fully. No sense fighting the inevitable. I could be son of Sam or Son of Dad. I take a quarter Gravol, pass out and wake up. I look at my watch and it is nine. Amsterdam is far enough north that the sun sets really late, so now I am not sure if it is 9 pm Saturday or 9 am Sunday. I walk into the houseboat office/pub and ask for a tylenol, but they do not have. I then ask what time it is. The lady looks at me wearing a watch and looks at me like I am insane. She says nine and then I have to ask "am or pm". I get another quizzical look before I find out it is nine at night.

Needless to say, I switched houseboats the next morning and still did not get a good night's sleep until two or three nights later. How is that for a story? Ciao!