Unlike yesterday, today is not going to be easy. It’s 11pm and Doolies is not letting me write. She keeps bothering me trying to stick her tongue down my throat. I’m keeping her off me with extreme effort. It’s difficult, but I have obligations. Today was a long day. I slept through most of it after a family barbeque.

After too many late morning risings and naps, I’ve found another cause for my morning headaches besides sleep apnea. Doolies is again trying to distract me from my writing duties by smelling me. I’m trying to resist her evil allures. It is difficult but we all have crosses to bear, and mine is Doolies. She slapped me after reading the last sentence. She’s also trying to press the backspace button to erase the evidence, but I’m not letting her. I’m sneaky that way.

New paragraph. I’m sure when people see us together they are as sickened by our disgusting baby talk and touching as I would have been seeing two people like us together years ago. Now it’s funny and cute and sexy. I guess this will last another six weeks before it all becomes old and craggily. Doolies, for those still paying attention, is now sucking on my neck, again trying to distract me from my writing endeavors. It’s been difficult coming up with different words, such as endeavors, duties, and obligations, but I’ve persevered to bring up to the minute Doolies sightings and doings.

Getting back to my discussions on sleep, since I’m sure you’re more interested in that than in Doolies’s groping (and if you’re not, there are plenty of other sites on the internet that you should be visiting; please send e-mail to Doolies for the exact URLs of those sites—she again slapped me after reading this comment, denying any knowledge of the aforementioned websites). Mom, if you read this, Doolies thinks that you should disregard all of the above because these terrible, terrible truths embarrass her. Now she (that’s Doolies again) is trying to poke me upside the chest and stomach areas and yelling, “Change that, change that,” in a most threatening and scary voice. For the enjoyment and education of my reading audience, I shall again persist in keeping these words as they were written in a moment by moment analysis of the events as they occurred.

Once again, returning to the topic of the day—sorry for the interruption, but Doolies, complaining about the terrible heat that has met us in NYC, demanded that we close all the windows in the bedroom, where I am writing and Doolies is poking most inconsiderately, and turn on the air conditioner. The weather today has been terribly hot. The outdoor barbeque that my mother planned became an indoor, air-conditioned barbeque because of the heat and its affects on the partygoers and my grandmother in particular, who is in her 80s (I would have put the exact number down, but I’m not a very good grandson). Any who, I was trying to talk about sleep and my self-diagnosed sleep apnea. As I write this and Doolies reads in real time (which, by the way, is the most reading she’s done of my website since I started posting—she always claimed to read everything I wrote, but I watched her today read yesterday’s efforts, and after reading the first twenty or so words, she immediately began skimming my beautifully crafted words for the “Doolies” part, and then partaking in the “Doolies” part most excitedly), she groans at the continuous mentions of sleep apnea since she believes I have a tendency to dwell on certain aspects of my personality. Of course, this is ridiculous. I do not dwell on such parts of my personality, but instead use this time and these words to better myself and evaluate me and my life, trying to improve it so Doolies can have a better David. (After writing that last sentence, I was rewarded with a sweet kiss, which only goes to show you that writing for your audience is important, and the truth is not so important.)

New paragraph. Getting back to the sleep apnea question, it has come to my attention that perhaps, in some way, I was mistaken in the sleep apnea self-diagnosis. After taking a not-so-needed nap in the middle of the barbeque this afternoon, I woke up with a mild headache and a case of PY (pathologic yawning) (don’t feel bad if you didn’t remember what PY stood for, since I didn’t either without Doolies, who is now making nice to David in the hopes of getting more positive mentions in this musings, to which she is obviously succeeding, who, getting back to what Doolies did, reminded me that the name of the excessive yawning was pathologic). The mild headache and PY after today’s nap (which brought my total sleep time to over 30 hours for the last day), convinced me that perhaps, in some way, I might have incorrectly diagnosed myself with sleep apnea or the African sleeping sickness, which is another favorite diagnoses of mine when it comes to my sleeping problems. My mother made this more than clear after laughing off any possibility that anyone in her family would have sleep apnea, believing that no Figatner has ever nor would ever snore, except—as Doolies points out sitting next to me as the judges in the Muppet Show would do during particularly poignant (thanks to Doolies for that spelling or that word would have never appeared) segments—when sick.

Another interruption as Doolies comments after reading over my shoulder (something I usually don’t let her do, but since I had nothing to write today, I decided to incorporate Doolies’s distractions to show you how I overcome her normal distractions), she said, “I can’t believe that Chuck wants to read this (she was going to say crap here, but she didn’t, but since I lie all the time anyway, I’ll include) crap?” To which I have no response, particularly since he claims to have read yesterday’s bowl of crap, which, I am very proud to say, was one of my most prolific and brilliant works to date, which, by and by, only goes to show that Chuck has impeccable taste when it comes to writing. It’s either that or he’s a terrible masochist, glutton for punishment (another favorite cliché).

I’m halfway through with lots of words and not much to write about today. Today, if you haven’t figured out yet, is a caffeine-free day. I’ll pretend that if had not been, I might have attempted a story, something I am irrationally avoiding. After writing the first half of today’s entry, my joy and excitement has waned. I’m now tired and trying to squeak out more words to meet the Goal. This would have been easier if I didn’t spend the last three hours watching the Tony awards show. I particularly liked how they cut off the thank-you speeches with the music. I wish I could do that in real life. I would be talking to someone who was boring me, and then I’d say, “Cue music,” and the music would come up, and the person would know that they’re talking was coming to a close. Then, and this is my favorite part, if they continued to speak, the music would swell until I could no longer hear them and all their talking was for naught. Oh, what a world, what a beautiful world that would be.

We woke from our nap with all of the guests having left the house. Seeing as we had breakfast at midday (thanks to our late rising), and my mother served the barbeque at around 3pm, I didn’t eat much at the barbeque thanks to my bagel, cream cheese, and lox at breakfast. When we woke up after the barbeque and nap, I was hungry, and Doolies and I ventured through the streets of Brooklyn (or “the hood,” as Doolies called it) to find sustenance. We walked down the Avenue, passing many yummy pizzerias, none of which Doolies would eat at because she, being Asian, abhors cheese, a condition that I, being a Brooklyn Jew, cannot understand, especially when it comes to pizza. We eventually settled on a greasy roast beef joint—which, as it turns out, was David’s original plan before we walked thirty minutes down the Avenue only to return to two blocks from my mother’s house for the greasy roast beef. It was a bit hot in the roast beef joint, but we found a table near the air conditioner, and ordered the dripping roast beef sandwich that I described poorly in The Flying Toe Stomp (I think—not the poorly part, but the describing part). The food was delicious as always, except at the end, where Doolies noticed a friendly cockroach wandering around the area near the napkin holder and sweet relish. That kind of killed any remaining appetite, and we called for the check and went home.

The best part of our Brennan and Carr adventure was a large man who was sitting at a round table, which the waiters use when not serving the customers to add up their checks and waste time. He was an older, muscular man, with a thick neck and large, tattooed arms. When we first walked in, he was sitting in the chair with his eyes closed, holding a plastic cup filled with Coke. After waking from his short nap—he waited a long time for the waiters to bring him his two cheeseburgers—he began chatting with a waiter. He said with a profound Brooklyn accent, “Don’t waste your life. I’m 50 years old, and when I look back at when I was your age, I can’t believe how much I wasted. When you get my age, you look back and see everything you should have done, all the gorgeous girls you should have done everything with, you look back and wonder what you didn’t and why you didn’t do things. Regrets. Think about regrets now when you have a chance to do something about them. When you get to be my age, you have nothing but regrets and no way of changing anything.”

The same guy, after one of the waiter’s girlfriends sat down at a nearby table, started a conversation with her. “You’re gorgeous, you know. If I was thirty years younger, I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off you. How old are you? Twenty-one, eh? You’re just a baby.” The boyfriend sat down. “You hitting on my woman? What, you go after the younger ones now? Thirty-years younger?” The waiter was about half the guy’s size, but the guy laughed him off.

Okay, the scene was much better in person than in description. I didn’t have my Moleskine, and I missed many of the more interesting turns of phrases in the conversation. It was good to eavesdrop again, even if I didn’t do as good a job this time. Camera and journal: I have to start carrying them both around more often. I didn’t take any pictures during the barbeque or our walk along Sheepshead Bay last night. If I don’t start snapping photographs, I’ll have nothing to revitalize my photos section, which I haven’t updated in a long time.

Doolies’s birthday is on Wednesday of this week. She was disappointed that I hadn’t mentioned it here yet. I told her I was waiting for Wednesday, but seeing as I have nothing better to talk about (not that there could be anything better than talking about Doolies’s birthday—how about that for brownie points), there’s the mention. With a bit of caffeine tomorrow, I might try my hand at starting my 10k story. I had some ideas, most of which passed from my brain before I thought to record them. Regrettably, many of my stories revolve around magical objects, which brings me too close to returning to the Pink Sweater, something I am trying desperately to avoid to save my and my three reader’s sanities.

I’m approaching the end of this crooked musing. It wasn’t as bad as yesterdays, but, again, it was forced, something I’m growing more comfortable with the more often I do it. I don’t know if it’s helping my writing, but I am enjoying writing more, even when it’s just this type of crap. I can’t understand why, but I guess it makes some semblance of sense for an egotist, and I’m nothing if not an egotist (or I am an egotist, for those who have trouble translating double negatives). That last parenthetical pushed me over my self-imposed Goal. Word count: 2,122; caffeine: none; distractions: many.