133rd day sober. I mentioned not practicing night before last due to being "tired" but really it was largely because I had a headache that came on in my last few hours of being awake, and made me not want to practice because I felt practicing would make it worse.
So I'd gone right to bed, and after a good sleep the headache was gone. So I was able to pack packages, hang out with Tom, etc.
Well, last night the same headache came on but worse. And I thought, No problem, I'll just get to sleep and it'll be gone when I wake up. But this time I could not get to sleep. I lay in bed awake all night and through the day. In the afternoon I got a phone call from Ken, who was coming over to move some things around. "I have a debilitating headache," I told him. He said that's no problem and since I'll be in bed in the office he can just work in the warehouse and not bother me.
And that's what he did. He came over, moved things around, I stayed in bed and I think I got a little actual sleep. Ken eventually was done, closed things up, and drove off. I'm out of bed now to check up on Ebay things and drink the can of diet Pepsi I have left over from yesterday.
I don't know what's caused the headache. One possible culprit is the fried fish snacks I had, that I'd eaten a fair amount of (I like the container they come in for keeping coins in). So I tossed the rest of those out for the birds. Or the dark chocolate I got on sale at Whole Foods, which I'd eaten about half a (large) bar of. I have an unopened bar left, which I'll donate.
Unless I find myself feeling really great tomorrow, this means Thursday was my one busking day this week.
So this is my 9/11 this year. I might as well write down how that day went for me. I was living in Newport Beach, and was doing my usual Tuesday routine. I drove down to my bank to deposit the handful of checks (I didn't use paypal) from buyers of my Ebay items. The atmosphere in the bank was a little odd but I thought nothing of it. Bill Handel was on the radio, and he was talking about a plane hitting the World Trade Center. I figured it must have been someone in a Cessna or something, fucking up. I imagined a Cessna crashing into an office and hoped no one got hurt.
As Bill talked about it though, I finally got the correct impression that it was ... an airliner. That doesn't happen just by accident. I was headed to the El Toro library which had their book sale room open on Tuesdays, to buy books to resell on Ebay and as I headed down there on the freeway I made a plan. I was actually a little bit early for when the book sale room would be open, and I knew there was a trailer park next door and a little sports bar. A sports bar would have TVs and the news on.
I went into the sports bar and it was crammed with people, drinking drinks that were poured to the rim. I ordered a glass of milk and paid $5 for it too - I guess a drink was a drink that day. People were crying, some head-in-hands in despair. I watched the TV and the first building was burning and a 2nd plane come in and hit the 2nd building. Then the first building came down.
I'd had enough and actually went into the book sale room at the library, didn't find much except a book on racing motorcycles (that the customer eventually never paid for) and went home. Then on the TV there were the scenes everyone has seen now, of people jumping off the sides and people running, the most memorable one to me being a cop, whose uniform is very dark, almost black, being a uniform pale tan. His uniform, his hat, his badge, him, all pale tan. Like he'd been painted.
The couple of little Middle-Eastern stores I liked to go to closed, and some Middle-Eastern people in my apartment building left, and nothing flew for a week or two, and everyone knows the rest.
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