being the nearly 50-something that i am i do love sleep that delicious sensation of falling into the sheets adjusting the pillows and pulling up the blankets then stretch out the kinks of the day and you find yourself floating between the states of wakefulness and dreaming

even better is that mid-afternoon nap when you shut out the noise of the day close the blinds then curtains perhaps you have a book or magazine or electronic device and you are awake for at least a couple of paragraphs or a few lines of a poem before your eyes grow heavy when you set aside language and the noise in your head swirls into a pleasant hum and you sleep

anna called me the other day a slacker hedonist i think she is right i don't understand competition and should one find herself driven to excellence is not the pursuit sweeter if you include people rather than exclude in other words be excellent if you can but more important is be cool life is way too short to be an asshole

assholeism is all around us and makes more misery should we be instruments of further misery the great zen teacher shunryu suzuki reminded us to get rid of our ego and bow to everything because we are no better or worse than everything everywhere let me add to that and say enjoy yourself without fucking up and with other people

because when we die it is forever make it motherfucking count take a nap once in a while and enjoy your slumber and if someone wants to be first like in line at the grocery store or on the freeway give way because we all end on the same line sooner or later