Wednesday January 14

It's 2AM and I'm cursing a TV; a cat scratching at the door; melatonin, check; lavender essential oils aromatherapy and still it's 2AM and I'm AWAKE!!!! Last night I fell asleep at 2AM and awoke to a noise (a clatter if you will) around 4ish, probably took a me about 15 - 20 minutes to fall back asleep. When Michael finally stopped hitting the snooze button I drifted back to sleep. I awoke again around 6AM. My mind is spinning. It's my Dad's 60th Birthday on Saturday. I downloaded four and a half hours of Do Wop and some 70's R&B and my childhood memories are coming to me as never before. I've often remarked to friends that I really don't have any memories of my Dad living with me, and my parents got divorced when I was 10 years old.

I hear the soundtrack to my childhood in every song that I download. Earth Wind & Fire was my first Album I remembering opening it at Christmas 1979 I was 6 years old. I had forgotten how much I loved the song "September". It's crazy how much you forget and then be instantly transported to the past. I love it.

Listening to Neil Diamond "Cracklin' Rosie" brings me memories of The Jazz Singer. I remember that I LOVED that movie. I remember laying at the foot of my parents water bed. I would be huddled at the bottom next to my brother and sister. Like little sardines we tucked ourselves into the bottom of the waterbed between the water mattress and the frame. Mic was 8 years old and Leslie was 10. I think of us as that age and compare us with our Niece and Nephew. They're 8 and 11, both older than me and one older than my sister was. We were so YOUNG! And now I'm turning 36 in two week; back in 1979 my Dad was 30 years old and my Mom 29. And they were so YOUNG!

I remember Yankees Games. I remember the players names starting around 1983 - 84 but I don't ever remember them winning. It wasn't until they started winning again in 1996, 1998, 1999 and again in 2000 that I heard that they were the most winningst team in baseball. I could hardly believe it. I even remember one specific ride home after a game, sitting in horrible bumper to bumper traffic. We were at a junction with so many different highway's converging it looked like an octatpus crawling just a few feet at a time. It's night time and it's the perfect summer evening not too hot, but not too cool either. Comfortable in shorts and a t-shirt with the windows down, no A/C, and no wind, but not hot at all. I remember I had this shell necklace I had been wearing around my neck probably from some previous trip to the beach or perhaps Disney I had taken it off and was spinning it in my hands. I remember my Dad telling me to be careful cause if I lost it out the window and we had to move then it would be gone, for good. I don't actually remember if I tossed it out and he got it for me once or twice, or at all. But I do remember letting it fly at least once. And then we moved, and it was gone forever. But I didn't tell. And I don't know if my Dad saw me drop it or not, but I didn't say a word. Poof, it was gone.

My Dad took me to my first Concert. Billy Joel. I think it was 1986 because I remembering him talking about the Mets playing the Red Sox in the World Series in between sets. I remember being happy about that because the Red Sox were losing and that was good because I was Yankee fan and if you weren't a Yankee fan then you were getting put up for adoption. And the Yankees and the Red Sox were mortal enemies and as I previously stated the Yankees NEVER won when I was a kid.

Now I'm married and I'm starting to get healthy and I'm starting to think about having some kids of my own, or at least one. I'll make sure that mine will be a household of music so that my children at some birthday of mine decades from now, they'll make a playlist and be transported themselves back to childhood memories that they may have forgotten.

And now it's 4AM and I'm hopefull that getting this all out of my head and onto the blog will allow me to fall peacefully asleep because I'm still planning to get up at 10 AM and go walking for a 1/2 hour so that when I have my massage at Noon I won't just be getting up, but I'll be wide awake, because if I fall asleep during my massage then my legs get all twitchy and I snap awake back like I did in Middle School History class, or Science class when they turned the lights out and put a video in for 40 minutes. I still fall asleep whenever Michael watched "The Universe" or "Cities Underworld" I just fall right to sleep. But when I'm getting a massage I don't want to fall asleep I want to like all of it not sleep through any of it. Hence the twich. And if I sleep any later then I won't be able to fall asleep 4AM!!!! Must break the cycle.