3:30 in the morning.

Eric used to get up in the small hours of the morning, but it had been literally years since he's done that. Why, on the one morning I could sleep late---tomorrow the guest preacher will be the old preacher who is a dear friend, and we didn't want to miss it--- did he elect to get up so early?

I told him to go back to sleep. He did, but he was babbling. Loudly. Luckily Barb is hard to wake up in the morning hours.

Then at 4:55 I heard him up and about again. I gave up. He came up and tore the anti-snoring nose strip off me, and happily watched Tom and Jerry and Atom Ant on Cartoon Network.

So I have been up forever. If this is more sleepy and rambly then ever, there's a reason.

Interestingly, the On Display Web Ring's collab topic is...sleep. In this case, it's the lack of same.

I didn't want to go back to sleep because Brian wanted to see something at seven-thirty.

Barb wanted to see something at nine, and had a dental appointment to have a crown put in, to boot.

If I don't wake up, nobody wakes up.

So I fought sleep, and tried to find ways to amuse myself...

Mostly by taking in the groceries for Barb and reading ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY.

I went swimming with Eric, but our usual two-hour swim was cut off after one hour by thunderclouds rumbling overhead. Not wanting to swim around possible lightning, we went home.

I fooled around with making an actual comic strip, involving my Hourglass character, and him meeting Ambrose Bierce, author of the DEVIL'S DICTIONARY, and "An Occurence on Owl's Creek Bridge", and famously disappearing on his way to see Pancho Villa. I did a script, several storyboards, and one finely penciled page. I need to ink it, and to do several other strips in the storyline. I might eventually put it on-line.

If I do, you'll be the first to know.

We went to a sort of after-wedding reception tonight. The couple had been married in Texas, and had been married a month. Yet the parents wanted to make it an event and invite the entire church to it.

It was nice, a catered affair, and with as many new people to meet (the bride's family and friends) and old friends. The couple seemed very happy, and they seemed a good match. Although personally I would have killed someone if, as they did to the groom, they showed me naked when I was two in a video sequence...

As Barb put her arm around me, and I was touching her knee, I thought what really makes the difference between marriages that last, and those that don't...and I realized, in the long run, it depended on emotional, not physical ...intimacy. If the presence of the other person in your life makes you less lonely, it's a successful marriage.

If your relationship is making you more lonely---and I know of many marriages and relationships like that---it's a disaster, and you need to get out.

Life's too short to make yourself more lonely than you need be.

So now I'm home...and needing to sleep...but I have to do my journal entry...and I'm so sleepy---did Courtney Cox just run past me naked?

Did George Dubya come around and take off his mask, to reveal himself as the Alzheimerized Ronald Reagen?

I'm soooo sleepy...hello, Catherine Zeta-Jones! Why are you wearing Wonder Woman's tiara? Why aren't you wearing anything else? (Not that I'm complaining, you understand...)

Was I just elected President of the United States? Thank you, thank you...but why is Carrottop my vice-president?

I'm so sleepy...so sleepy...so snuggle snuggle snorf snorf Zzzzzzzzzzz....

Hmmm? Oh. Yeah. Night all.

Snuggle gurgle snorf snorf...