So Very, Very Tired

I went to book club last night and ended up getting to bed about 1 a.m. That in and of itself wouldn't make me so tired, but I woke up from a sound sleep and a rather vivid dream last night at about 3:00. You know that feeling you get when you awaken from a deep sleep where you feel like you're coming out of the tunnel of the subconscious to consciousness? Where, as you are waking up, you realize that you were just in a very deep, satisfying sleep? That kind of waking up. Unfortunately for me when I woke up, that pleasant feeling of the sound sleep was replaced by insomnia. For some reason, I started thinking about Hillary Clinton's "Portsmouth Moment."

For those of you bored by politics, particularly my politics, skip the next part.

[I first read about her choking up in the diner a few hours after it happened on a blog I read. I was perusing the comments on this news item and there were the requisite, "See she's human," and the "This is just a cynical manipulation of the media," responses. Last night on NPR I heard an interview with the woman who asked the question that set Hillary off, and they also played a long unedited version of Hillary's emotion filled answer. After hearing that, all I can say is that if this was a ruse Hillary is the most accomplished actor in the campaign. Even better than doddering old Grampa Fred "Law and Order" Thompson. She sure sounded genuine to me. I was pretty disgusted by the Edwards camp claiming crybabies are not fit for the presidency. Au contraire. I am no fan of Hillary, but if all the candidates out there are truly pressing the flesh with "real" people practicing the retail politics of Iowa and New Hampshire, they all should be choked up about the sad state of our country and our kid's future. It's a mess. We need universal single-payer health care. We need to get out of Iraq. We need to get our Constitution back by repealing the Patriot Act, Military Commissions Act and enforcing FISA laws (with no telecom immunity). We need to figure out how to send our children to college without burdening them with a shitpile of debt. We need to get the country out of debt. We need progressive tax fairness. Unfortunately, the "viable" candidates are controlled by their corporate puppet masters and real change will never happen. We will continue down the road of the commodification of everything, let the corporations write the laws and silence all opposition. There's no Teddy Roosevelt take on the corporations. There's no Franklin Roosevelt or Lyndon Johnson to use the power of the government to address poverty. We've lost. Big business won. And that makes me want to cry.]

To get my mind of off Hillary, I finished reading a book Kent loaned me "The Wal-Mart Effect." That's a fine piece of business writing, and while it took my mind off of emotional politicians, it did little to ease my mind. I eventually got back to sleep sometime after 4:00 and my alarm went off at 5:40. By my calculations that puts me at less than 4 hours sleep, but I could be wrong, because I'm so very, very tired I can't think straight.