So much on my mind, I just can't recline

Allow me to share one of my favorite hip-hop lyrics. From Black Star's "Respiration": "So much on my mind, I just can't recline/blasting holes in the night, until she bled sunshine..."

That's really how it is for me, so many nights. So much on my mind, that I just can't recline. When I was little, I was afraid I would miss stuff when I went to sleep. There was always a firefly I wanted to catch or a TV show I wanted to watch or another storybook I wanted to read. So I literally hated to go to sleep.

A few days ago, Mom was reminiscing over what a cute little Lilo I was, when she mentioned how I "mixed up" my prayers at bedtime. I always tried to say "God is great, God is good" instead of "Now I lay me down to sleep." I finally confessed to her that there was no mix-up. The bit about how "if I should die before I wake" absolutely terrified me! I'd lay awake, my thoughts racing, and when I could sleep, I'd have nightmares. It certainly wasn't the only reason I was a little insomniac, but it surely didn't help.

Today, I saw something in Boundless, a "hip" webzine for young adults from Focus on the Family, about sleep. You can see it here, if you like. It starts off being practical, but the ending paragraphs include: "Sleep is also a reminder of our mortality. The threshold of sleep is the very edge of life. "Sleep is a gift of death," Rossi said. "In sleep we have no more money, memory or consciousness. Each night, we experience a small death as a prelude to our ultimate death, and each morning we experience a small resurrection." George MacDonald echoed his sentiments, saying that in sleep our bodies are "sown in weakness, but raised in power." Excuse me, but WTF?! It made me grateful I don't believe that stuff anymore. I feel so, so sorry for insomniacs who will read this and *do* believe that stuff.

I was also grateful to find out, from an e-quaintance, that there are gentler versions of that horrid prayer for Christian kids nowadays. "Now I lay me down to sleep /I pray the Lord my soul to keep/May angels watch me through the night/And wake me with the morning light." Sometimes I need the reminder that the FOTF brand of Christianity, which was really the only kind I knew about until adulthood, is far from the only game in town.

And there are other things on my mind, too. Like, can y'all BELIEVE what they pulled on Survivor, teasing us with the question of whether Cirie or Danielle is the one who gets ejected?!?! I'm telling y'all, between Chris' ejection from American Idol and this, I ain't watching any more reality TV...um, after I find out who wins *these* installments.

National Geographic has samples of ALL KINDS of world music, with store links!!! Hide the credit card...I just got introduced to hip-hop in Maasai and some heartbreakingly beautiful yet fun to dance to oud-playing. (The oud being a Middle Eastern instrument like a guitar.)

The Palm Beach County school district blocks gay sites and allows anti-gay ones on school computers. The poor kids! And of course, this is in Florida!

The good news is, a polar-grizzly bear hybrid was discovered. The horrible news is, we know about it because the first of its kind modern humans have seen was killed by a hunter!

I need some funny now.

Let Jolene Sugarbaker, the diva of the trailer park, teach you to cook a Corn Chip Pie! Make sure you cook out that mad cow disease! And you do have to watch the video; it's even better than a playground full of pandas!

Finally, do lesbians prefer women to be shaved or natural down there? Don't know about anyone else, but this bi girl just likes a *there* there, and isn't all that finicky! I do have a definite preference when it comes with men--*as nature made them*, hair and all, and wonder just who wants that new Norelco body razor for men anyhow. Because at least when it comes to women, we're not fooled by the "optical inch", only wondering why a guy would feel such a need to add one!