the backstory: I didn’t get a lot of sleep Saturday night, then we went canoeing Sunday, then I worked overnight Sunday, then I worked all day today. So I had gone for quite a while with not much sleep.

I needed to take a little nap, so I asked Sara to wake me up after a half hour so that I didn’t just sleep all evening and then not be able to sleep tonight.

Now as a sidenote, I sometimes talk in my sleep if I am being addressed while I’m in a dream, and my sleep-talking tends to make NO SENSE AT ALL.

The following is a transcript Sara took down when she realized it was going to be entertaining.

Sara gets up from the bed where Neal is taking a nap.

NEAL: What are you doing?

SARA: I’m going to read while you sleep.

NEAL: Why?

SARA: Because I don’t want to sleep.

NEAL: Is it because of my power blankets?

An hour and a half later, Sara realizes she needs to wake Neal.

SARA: Neal, wake up.

NEAL: Why?

SARA: Because it’s 6:20.

NEAL: Are you serious?!

SARA: Yeah, why?

NEAL: You mean to tell me, at the age of - how old am I now?

SARA: 26.

NEAL: You mean to tell me that at the age of 26, you’re accusing me of wrecking into the van?

SARA: What?!?

NEAL: The van is in the garage, and it’s wrecked!

Five minutes later…

NEAL: It’s KCi and JoJo.

Five minutes later…

NEAL: It’s diverting traffic.

Five minutes later…

SARA: Neal, it’s time to get up…you’re scaring me.

NEAL: You’re the micro-fridge.

A few minutes later, Sara shakes Neal.

NEAL: Freedom.

SARA: What?! Wake up!

NEAL: FREEDOM!!

A few minutes later.

NEAL: What is that, by the river?

SARA: You’re crazy. Wake up. (she sits Neal up in bed)

NEAL: (pauses) This isn’t where I thought we were at all.

SARA: Where did you think we were?

NEAL: By the river.

SARA: What river?

NEAL: I don’t know - the river.

SARA: Seriously, Neal. You need to get up, sleepy.

NEAL: Stop calling me names.

SARA: Neal!

NEAL: You should call me names like Harold…or Gator.

i went canoeing today for the first time ever. sara and i were in one boat and sara’s sister kelly and her boyfriend billy were in the other.

we were racing for a while a few miles in, and in the heat of the action, billy broke his paddle, so for the rest of the seven-mile trip we took turns being the boat with one paddle.

there was one part that got kind of rough with some rapids, and sara and i got caught in the current and were driven straight into the bank. then, because we were stopped, the strong water tipped our boat over and threw us out. sara held onto the boat and was dragged along, and i tried to catch our things. we had taken our shoes off, so i grabbed for those and the paddle.

the tough part was that the bottom of the river was made up of sharp rocks at this point, and the current was very strong. so it was really difficult to stand up. we kept getting knocked and pulled down and slammed into the bottom of the river, so it was pretty scary for a while. sara let go of the boat, and kelly and billy stopped it downstream where they were, past the rapids.

we both got pretty banged up from that experience, but at least we learned to keep our shoes on.

now i’m reading all my spam! am i like the last one to figure this out? these things are brilliant! here’s another one I got today:

for bodice ripper derive perverse satisfaction from ruffian of.Where we can hardly recognize our tomato.But they need to remember how ostensibly over judge returns home.Still throw at her from near photon, trade baseball cards with her toward stovepipe with around bodice ripper.

marquess melancholy prod coexistent ricochet

I’m sure that by reprinting these, i’m triggering some bomb or virus or something.

i don’t know why these fascinate me so, but here are two more spam subject lines from today that just struck me as fun:

lover 4794 bubbles

starlet 3 toothaches

actually that “starlet 3 toothaches” one was from Benjamin Barber, so out of curiosity, I went ahead and opened it. these emails are brilliant!

Benjamin Barber wrote:

fairy beyond mourn cleavage beyond alchemist, but briar patch around tea party share a shower with around tea party.Still find subtle faults with her from bubble about ballerina, know her looking glass from with traffic light over hand.Georgina, although somewhat soothed by of apartment building and dissident related to.Georgina, the friend of Georgina and earns frequent flier miles with starlet toward.If toward debutante mourn spider for bonbon, then related to graduated cylinder hides.

boatload contrast catbird hamburger innumerable reynolds spit halloween

So then I went back and read Emery Stanford’s e-mail entitled “Lover 4794 bubbles”:

CEO beyond turkey negotiate a prenuptial agreement with graduated cylinder beyond scythe, because tenor near sell to behind gonad.When you see from reactor, it means that dolphin defined by tea party sweeps the floor.For example, toward piroshki indicates that over vacuum cleaner brainwash near trombone.

abrasion rondo barge ethnography

I think this is poetry.

this morning, i got up out of bed, got dressed, and decided to just sit back down because i wasn’t quite ready to join the world just yet.

i was thinking about lots of things, wanting to quit my job, dreams i’d had, and so on, when all of a sudden, clear as day, I heard my sister Monica’s voice.

“NEAL!”

it was like she was right there in the room, and the tone of it was that she needed help.

i reached in my pocket to pull out my cel phone and called her number. it rang four times and then went to voicemail.

i was worried, maybe something was wrong and she couldn’t get to the phone. but then she was beeping through.

“Hello, Monica?” I answered.

“Yeah, you called…” she replied.

“Is anything wrong?” I asked. “I heard your voice in my head, saying my name like you were in trouble…”

“Oh no,” she said, “I was looking for a piece of paper on immunization. I wasn’t thinking about you at all.”

so i’m thinking maybe i need to keep working on my powers.

I was driving home today when I noticed this cool cloud in front of me. it was like this low-hanging snake of a cloud that stretched across the sky, north to south. on my side, it was calm and clear. on the other side, it was pouring rain. so here’s a view looking south



and north