Insomnia

I should be sleeping now... I should be adrift in this billowy sea of cough syrup. Instead I am thinking about Manhattan beach. Thinking of Jerry Maguire, where he offers her a ride and she rails off into the speech about how she's sure it would just make his day to drive all the way to Manhattan beach, taking the left onto little Waterloo street playing chicken with the oncoming traffic... "your life flashing before your eyes.."
I couldn't find Waterloo street. Bummer.

We walked down the pier. It was a really nice day here. The ladies were talking about something... I don't know what... and I was looking down at the beach, at all of the people... all of these LA people... these volleyball courts set up, six or eight of them. Looking down on them from way up on the pier in their little volleyball boxes, with their brown, tanned, hard bodies... thinking they looked like little boxes of truffles... the kind you get and open and think, "Hmmmm... I wonder what's inside THAT one." Wouldn't it be nice if when you had to select a person there was some sort of cheat sheet on the lid when you open the box, or a seating diagram when you walk in the room... "Oh," you could say, "This one's full of lies.... I am allergic to lies" and put him back for someone else. At the very least you should be able to bite a little off and see if it's a caramel or a lame sense of humor... and hide the hole you made so the next person doesn't know you sampled it. Little chocolate bodies... most of them were probably just fluff-filled. I don't like chocolate anyway.

We were going to go to a restaurant and eat... got our name on the list, gave them a phone number to call when our table was ready.. but that table wasn't good enough for.. um.. the other one. So we waited some more. Finally we get a table upstairs and sit down to peruse the menu. She is one of those women that you can just look at and see the displeasure on their face. You brace yourself a little. She's not pleased. We will all have to adjust. The universe will adjust. Then, they have no tea. We are not pleased. It's too dark to read the menu. We are not pleased. Then suddenly.... dramatically... she clasps both hands to her head over her ears... "This music is driving me crazy.. what is it? Why is it so loud?" I try to discern the music she is talking about, as it is barely audible. A metal guitar riff... nice. What was the name of this place? Something with Rock in the name... should have known. She is displeased. She is shaking her head back and forth in disapproval. Ultimately, we all leave. I am forced to give the "I'm sorry for psycho here" apology look to the wait staff as we leave. We end up at this other place, which thankfully pleases psycho. She is extra super duper double pleased as she comes to the realization and then declares that this restaurant must be affiliated with MiMi's Cafe.. she can tell... because of the menu... because of the muffins. She announces it as though she has just proven that the lunar landing was a fake. The smug look on her face displeases me. I cannot control the impulse to roll my eyes. I hate the waitress for being on her side... for encouraging her... when she confirms that this company used to own MiMi's. WHY did you have to tell her that? It's like giving a treat to one of those prissy dogs when they didn't even DO anything like roll over or play dead. Telling her that was a wasted treat.

Someone in the hallway is on their Nextel phone. The damned two-way beeping sound is so repetitive and consistent that it sounds like springs on a mattress. It is loud and annoying. I'd rather listen to the mattress springs...

I'm drifting now... deeper into the billowy, three-hundred count sea... the syrupy codeine waves are pulling me under....