Jan. 27 in two minutes..Insomnia is (not) my friend...

In a girl scout kind of way I've decided to face this sleepless challenge head on, starting with modern herbal science. I just chased an "Easy-to-swallow tablet" of all natural Knock Out with a half gallon of water. Seriously considering contacting the manufacturer on this one- something designed to help you drift off to slumber land shouldn't taste like old gym shoes. How is that easy to swallow?? But I'm rambling. More to follow, especially if this pill kicks in asap.

Today I learned that if you need to get something moved along at my former gov't employer, in the "Special Counsel" vs. "Senior_" contest, "Special" kicks ass. I'll have to remember to ask my old boss what makes him so special, but whatever mojo he has got me back into the computer system and id'd within an hour. For anyone who has ever dealt with State government, this type of expediency is legend. In a blink I'm suddenly handed a motion and introduced to the newbies as an attorney who will be helping with x case. How the???

I would like to think that this means I'm hot stuff. In reality, this means someone is mildly frantic pre-trial, I'm not getting my old law school intern salary, and I will not have grounds to bitch about not having any direction for at least a month.

In other news, I have expanded on my reuse theme by picking up the copy of The Know-It-All that's been floating around the house since my law school days. This tome by A.J. Jacobs contains the swashbuckling tale of a gent who decided to read the Encyclopedia Britannica cover to cover, taking out the juiciest bits and passing them along to the eager reader as he went. This is delightful random knowledge at its best. I've put the book down for tonight at the reference to gymnasium, which apparently translates from the Greek into something like "room for naked exercise." He has recycled his knowledge to spare me the eye strain and I'm giggling. What's not to love?

More importantly, how have I gone on so long without such information? The author goes into his family's relationship with the imposing shelf of books, and I feel a little sad that I, too, was once granted the opportunity to indulge in such reading and shirked it. Grams had two collecting missions when it came to me: white china that strongly resembled the set she gave to my parents and the World Book Encyclopedia. She would find pieces of both at yard sales, flea markets and community swaps. I would get sections of culture and knowledge at a time, few if at all from the same pattern or year, but lovely nonetheless.

Eventually all volumes A-Z were present and accounted for, cream colored with gold lettering and packed with wonderful pictures and morsels of knowledge for my hungry mind. Unfortunately these came when I was about 11 or 12, a period when I had decided to bury myself in Stephen King's picture-less It, followed by Misery and Needful Things. I developed a strong distaste for clowns instead of learning that Daniel Fahrenheit was a moron. As a more enlightened adult who recognizes the movie version of The Shining as being nearly as great as the book, I can now move beyond King's nonsense and absorb almost entirely useless and fun knowledge in small, manageable bites. Perhaps there is a bit of intellectual redemption to be found in this delightfully thin book?

*crickets chirping*