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12 August 2005

up late

i'm back from san francisco. it was an awesome trip, and i can't thank my friends (you know who you are) enough for the memories.

maybe it's because i'm still on california time, or maybe it's because it's sweltering hot in new york (still), but i can't sleep tonight. my mind is racing. i figured if i got up and wrote some things down, i'd have a better shot at being my sparkling self tomorrow at the office. so here are some thoughts that have been bouncing around my head which may someday become song lyrics (not yet obviously because they don't even rhyme, geez!)*:

does a condemned man sleep the night before his execution? after his last meal and his meeting with the priest, can he fall asleep? how about the night before that? i wonder how many nights before your execution is your last good sleep. i'm betting a lot of nights before. i bet he doesn't sleep right for a bunch of nights after the sentence is handed down, either. i wonder if these two overlap, or if there's a state of mind somewhere in between in which he sleeps like a baby every night. in prison. on death row. probably because he did something really bad. or was at least convicted of something really bad.

when it's late at night and i'm wide awake lying in bed, this is the kind of thing i end up thinking about.

for the record i'm whole-heartedly against the death penalty. and don't give me that "but what if someone from your family was the victim?" line. you can be for it if you want, i won't hate you.

man, i wish i could fall asleep.

* if you steal these so help me god i will hunt you down and pee on you.

4 comments:

  1. I couldn't sleep last night either. The lack of fan or general air circulation (i.e., nightbreeze) in my room, as well as the very loud shuttle train passing 100 feet away every 30 minutes definitely led to some late-night contemplation. Not about death row inmates, though.

    If you ever peed on someone intentionally and I was there to witness, I think i would pee myself. And you would have officially won the peeing contest.

    Glad that you're back :)

    -Jen

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  2. Hey, if you actually killed people and could still sleep at night before getting caught and sentenced to death, I'm sure your own impending death won't make much of a diff.

    Did you ever read The Stranger (Camus)? Didn't the main character sleep okay the night before he was hung? But he was innocent. Huh.

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  3. surprised you didnt open a beer and drink yourself to sleep.

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  4. unfortunately dg, i am not nearly as well read as you. so i haven't read the stranger. but i'll put it on my list. as for drinking myself to sleep...that's not really my style. but thanks for the vote of confidence in my sobriety.

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