A storm roared through Sanford last night. I watched delightedly from my front sun room as lightning flashed and the rain beat furiously down. It reached its apex rather fast but it was still fun to watch. I like a good storm.
I fell asleep at 8:30. What the hell? Am I hibernating? Are aliens sending down sleep-rays that knock me out so they can posses my body and perform repeated anal probes? The odd thing is that I have been sleeping lately better than I have in a long time. My head hits the pillow and I just zonk out until morning. I am dead to the world without my normal waking up every couple of hours to pee or just to peer suspiciously around the room. I have a suspicion that I might have been suffering from some form of sleep apnea. When I switched from cigs to snus my oxygen intake slowly changed and thus I am sleeping better. I suppose that is a good thing but the sheer amount of sleep I have been taking in has mildly disturbed me. Maybe when spring comes my sleep patterns will change.
Last night I dreamed a tornado hit my house. I was in my living room when it hit and although I could not see outside I could feel the room lift up and tilt wildly back and forth like it was on its way to Oz or something. When the tornado set my house down there was a knock on my door and four people dressed up like British Royal guards, with the big fuzzy hat, informed me that my house had been hit by a tornado. Apparently they were members of the Sanford Hurricane and tornado patrol. I peered outside and saw that my house had been relocated to a prime new spot of real estate. I thought that was pretty spiffy. The owners of the land were complaining to the Tornado patrol about my house, but apparently there was nothing they could do, because my house was there I owned the land now. Sweet.
This weekend I really need to get a new contact prescription. One of the things that is bothering me is a pair of prescription sunglasses that I own. The lens on the glasses are polarized, however the lens themselves are not light up together, so the whole thing acts sort of like a pair of 3-d glasses. It is weird because apparently a lot of newer cards have polarized windshields, and when I see them zoom by in traffic they sort of change color and seem to shift and jump out a little. It is not anything that is going to cause me to have a traffic accident or whatever, but it is annoying. Plus I miss peripheral vision.
I was toying with the idea of driving over to Mt Dora this weekend and checking out the Indian pow wow. It will probably be supremely lame, but its only 3 bucks and probably fun for a photo-op. I want to see if I can spot out the fiddling Indian.
2026 Update
Setting the dial for 2008, where Ed naps at 8:30 and watches cars change color through broken 3-D glasses.
Eighteen years on, I miss how unplugged that life was: you hear a storm, watch it, fall asleep by 8:30, then wonder if aliens are sending sleep-rays. The modern version is a wrist computer grading your REM, a cigarette-to-snus switch that now looks almost pastoral, and an eye doctor you buy through the phone. Polarized windshields are still annoying, but now the windshield is also an ad, a camera, and a hotspot, so your vision complaint feels almost nostalgic. Storm watching changed too: nobody waits in a sun room; we doomscroll doppler maps and get tornado dreams before the storm finishes. And a three-dollar pow wow photo-op? In 2026 that's called 'community engagement,' with an online ticket, a signed photo release, and a waitlist because everyone suddenly has a podcast. You dreamed the Royal Guard set you down on prime land. Ha. These days, the only way a tornado improves your lot is if your house lands next to a charging station, and even then the app charges you a relocation fee.
“2008 Ed, you had mismatched polarized lenses making windshields jump, sleep-rays knocking you out by 8:30, and a dream about British guards gifting you land—so what exactly did you expect to find at that three-dollar pow wow, and were you really going to spot the fiddling Indian with that prescription?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2008 Ed: So, Beelzebubba, you're really digging into the details, huh? Well, here's the thing—I figured even a supremely lame pow wow for three bucks beats sitting around my sun room wondering if sleep-rays are gonna start giving me free real estate. And yeah, with those mismatched lenses, I probably won't spot the fiddling Indian so much as I'll see some guy made of orange light vibrate and hover next to a drum. Maybe that's the real show, you know? Like, I'll snap a few photos with my Aiptek and the whole thing'll look like a UFO landing. Honestly, I just wanted an excuse to drive to Mt. Dora and eat something fried. The sleep-ray hibernation thing still bugs me, but if my house ends up on someone else's lawn and British guards knock on my door, I'll take it. Otherwise, it's just me, bad vision, and a three-dollar spectacle.
