More Flavor

I was laying on my back, staring at the ceiling. It had been at least an hour since I looked at the clock last, so when I rolled onto my side I wasn't shocked to see that it now read, 3:12 am. Just another typical night...Four hours in bed, two hours of sleep and not sure how to get back to sleep again. Unwinding at the end of the day has never been my strong suit. I think too much.

I could hear the slow, methodical, mocking tick-tick-tick of the cheap watch on my night stand. That got me thinking...about how I need to stop buying cheap watches. Now I had a song in my head too. Brain Stew. Green Day.

I'm having trouble trying to sleep/ I'm counting sheep but running out/As time ticks by/And still I try/

Counting sheep. How pedestrian. Been a long time since I've done that anyway. Guess that should bore me to sleep. But what kind of sheep to count. Regular, real sheep? Maybe some surreal, all big and fluffy? Cartoony sheep. Perhaps claymation sheep like Shaun the Sheep and his friends. Shaun was awesome. That show led my son adopting sheep as his favorite animal. I don't think there are any great movies with sheep...I wasn't really thinking of counting sheep anyway and I'm off on another tangent. You know what was a great movie?..Real Genius...fantastic. Val Kilmer was outstanding. You could never remake that movie nowadays - I hate remakes anyway...God, I'm the poster child for ADHD.

It's just idea gnats, around my ears and eyes and everywhere. Well, 3:24 and no sleep in sight. I have to be up to get ready for work in a few hours and, as usual, I am wide awake. And now I want something...I want...ice cream. It just popped in there. Like the Staypuft Marshmallow Man. No reason for it. I wonder what kind we have? Maybe some mint chocolate chip or cookies and cream...No. No. I am not getting out of bed. I need to sleep, at least a little. But I can't. I've been forcing my eyes to be closed so long now that it physically hurts. 

I open my eyes wide and stare though the blackness as the ceiling fan slowly becomes more visible. tick-tick-tick...I swear. I am going to throw out this watch when I get up. Of course, it wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't so darn quiet...and I'm still thinking about ice cream. Maybe we have some chocolate chip cookie dough. We had some in there. How long ago was that? I was trying to visualize the freezer from my last trip in there...crap. I do not need to get up for ice cream.

I try to clear my head, think of nothing, go all Jedi, but suddenly I the silence is broken and I canhear  the dogs begin to bark at the house next door, on the other side of the house as my bedroom. And then, they're quiet again. Mind tricks be damned. Silence. It's just torture and now my mind is attempting to fill the void again.

I wrote about this one time in college, about trying to fall asleep. The uneasiness, the struggle all the way down to finally sinking into the mattress and drifting off. I wonder where I put that? I read it in college for a voice articulation class. I gradually lowered my voice as it went on, inadvertently (I'm just good like that) and I think one of my classmates actually fell asleep. Maybe I should be a hypnotist. That would be cool. Know what else is cool?...ice cream. Damn!

I wonder what kind of flavor I would be if I were ice cream? Certainly not rocky road or butter pecan. I don't like nuts, nothing with nuts. Although, I am a little nutty myself...Not chocolate chip or cookies and cream, or moose tracks...nothing interesting there, somebody just added topping to a flavor and, oh look, new flavor, um, not really. Hmmm....I'm not just plain vanilla, and not really chocolate, plus chocolate gets a bad rep and there's lots more people that don't like chocolate than you think there should be. I don't get it personally.

I could have my own flavor, like Cherry Garcia, you know a play on Jerry Garcia from the Grateful Dead? God, I'm old. Or maybe like Liz Lemon. I mean, she's not even a real person, just a character from 30 Rock on Television, or Netflix, whatever...I really feel like I'm more than one flavor. I need to get out more, I can't think of any more flavors.

Vanilla and chocolate aren't so bad. I can fit in anywhere like vanilla, chocolate is a little more interesting...I'm not just one flavor though. There's something missing...I wonder if that's where Neapolitan ice cream came from. I remember having ice cream in grade school. Always Neapolitan, a little something for everybody, but nothing specifically for anybody, very non-committal. I mean does anyone sit around and say, "You know what? I could go for some Neapolitan ice cream." I doubt that very much. I mean that's what you get when you have no idea what you want, for a picnic, a family event, some corporate outing.

There was this one time when a girl came into the store where I was working and she asked me if we had 5 gallon buckets of Napoleon ice cream. I was trying not to be surly, and I don't think she took it that way, but I corrected her question as I responded. "Do you mean the one gallon buckets of Neapolitan ice cream?" I showed her where it was, she grabbed a tub and left. Really?! Even the people who are looking it for it don't know what they're looking for...Dear God! I...am Neapolitan ice cream. Well...that's going to keep me up the rest of the night...

So that's when I started the informal poll. I simply asked random people (mostly co-workers) whether or not they liked Neapolitan ice cream. One or two liked it, but it wasn't exactly their favorite flavor. And only one out of about every five ate all three flavors. I was getting all the answers that I expected. A lot left the strawberry. I mean vanilla and chocolate are the basics, they can go together. I have no idea where that pink flavor came from anyway. (I refuse to Google that.) One of my survey takers simply didn't like that all the flavors are touching. I thought they were divided quite nicely, goes to show what I know about people.

The most poignant remark came from one of my acquaintances to which I posed the question.

"It's like it doesn't know what it wants to be," she said. 

That one comment has haunted me for some time now. Doesn't know what it wants to be. Remarkable. Poignant.

That's where the rubber means the road. I never really made my mind up about what I wanted to be when I grew up. But, is it so bad if you don't want to grow up? Worked for Walt Disney. Robin Williams had a child-like energy. Pee Wee Herman. Ok. Bad example. That's what happens when you don't get enough sleep each night...thinking about being Neapolitan ice cream.

There's a fine line when you're a parent, walking the tightrope between encouraging your children and helping them find their path. I had many experiences growing up. I played baseball and soccer, even was captain of the bowling team in high school. I'm not sure if that's bragging or embarrassing. I enjoyed the stage too, so I performed in dramas and musicals. I did well in school and participated in academic competitions.

I was always near the top of everything I did, but I was rarely the best. I wasn't the fastest, strongest, smartest, most creative, best singer, actor, artist. I always knew I was one the best, and it was generally recognized that I would be near the top or at least very good, but I never distinguished myself as the unequivocal leader. I gave all of myself to anything I chose to do, but never threw all myself at one thing. I was never discouraged from doing anything...except playing football. I liked soccer better anyway. Anyway, I was into a thousand different things, all at once. I still am.

Everybody has a thing. Something you have or collect, some activity that you enjoy, that one thing that others recognize you for. (Like ending a sentence with a preposition.) That person pops into your head when you hear a song, see a car, watch a movie. Maybe they're your go to for computer questions, a fan of a sport or team. You probably know what you are.

It's a little after four a.m. now on yet another sleepless night and the wheels are still turning. I try to go back in my mind to figure out where I went wrong. Or maybe, just maybe, this is my path. I think about my neurons firing, everywhere, all at the same time, like my own internal brain storm.

When I was in the fifth grade I wrote a story for an assignment. It was a simple story about friends enjoying a great day. We had a big storm and we rode through the neighborhood, checking out the almost overflowing creek and riding through the puddles left behind. It was pretty good. I think that was the first time I considered being a writer. It was about that time that Mrs. Califf told me to start printing because my cursive was terrible. But that was fifth grade. That was the same year that I watched Ernie Jewell perform in the Delran High School production of Damn Yankees as Mr. Applegate, the deal-making devil. He was amazing. Charismatic. I wanted to be like him, and I wanted to be an actor when I grew up...if there is even such a thing...as growing up.

Somewhere between then and now I have wandered and stumbled, from one thing to the next, and I lost myself a little in trying to be responsible. I gave everything to the job. I lost touch with friends from high school and college. Even family stopped working around my schedule. If I could be there, I would be there, either way...

I'm not the guy you call when you want to go have a beer. I was probably working then too. No need to ask if I want to go to that big game with that extra ticket you have. You have other friends, closer friends, more dependable friends, old friends, whatever...I'm not first on that list. Maybe not anywhere on that list. I don't really have any friends to speak of. Lots of acquaintances, co-workers...all of whom I am very friendly with and appreciate greatly....but we don't do friend things. I remember so many names, faces, moments, people. I wondered what sort of impression I made on people and why I just fade away...like Neapolitan ice cream...

Now, I'm just staring at the screen, wondering what comes next. Probably more rambly crap that my editor hates...I still have that song in my head.

My mind is set on overdrive/ The clock is laughing in my face/ My crooked spine, my senses dulled/ Passed the point of delirium/ On my own, here we go

I really didn't need to find any more to think about than I already have in my head, but I've gone and done it again. I need to write more. I need to be able to shift gears and train my mind to work the way that I want it to. Damn. Still ended a sentence with a preposition. No matter.

I need to connect with more people. Reconnect with people. Fragment. Crap. If it wasn't for Facebook, I could probably disappear completely. The last few years have brought so many changes, and I've made at least some effort to build more relationships, find old friends from college and even visit them. I'm just not good at the process...with anything.

I have ideas. I start activities. I just want to have it perfect and finished and done, right away. I'm willing to work hard, sometimes I just don't know where to start or how to even go about starting. It makes me look like a procrastinator...I prefer the term perfectionist. But it does have it's drawbacks...like taking too long to get where I am right now.

It's time to shake things up. Do things a little bit differently, perhaps. Take new paths. Meet new people. Not be Neapolitan ice cream for crying out loud.

So let's do that. I don't normally encourage guest posts. But I have one that is special, and will all make sense soon. Until then, I am Neapolitan ice cream...for now. But somehow I think that I will always be, the Incomplete Writer.