dream ranch

I knew I was having anxiety problems when dawn reminded me of “The Scream.”

Sleep has been a battle lately, more of a jerky series of bad-ending dreams. I know it is mostly the news — Trump and coronavirus — especially too late in the day, but I haven’t been able to shake the worries from my system.

Even back-to-back Curb Your Enthusiasms haven’t cured me, the humor just too rude for my already battered nerves. Last night, I tried the Lewis and Clark expedition journals of Patrick Gass, thinking it might help to know how socially-distanced mountain men dealt with pain.

I am not beyond fighting back. The word “hopeless” tried to slip into my vocabulary for the first time at sunset. I rejected it immediately and returned to Patrick Gass, even though tobacco poultices probably won’t help either.

I was encourage around midnight by the prompt story from Russell Contreras of The Associated Press (http://twitter.com/russcontreras)  on the founder of Cowboys for Trump saying “the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat.”

I think the guy might have tried too many tobacco poultices, or maybe too much hydroxychloroquine.

But what encouraged me was my belief that even straight news coverage of screaming clowns ultimately results in most people seeing them for what they are.

Call me a Pollyanna, call me a dude, but I remain hopeful, even through loss of sleep. And, by the way, when you read today that the president of the United States, using one of the older deceptions in the book,  is protesting the mailing of absentee ballots to Michigan voters, realize that what actually are being sent to Michigan voters are applications for absentee ballots, not actual ballots — as many alert Twitter readers quickly pointed out.

I don’t like curtains and dawn wakes me daily. After “The Scream” appeared in my brain this morning, Cowboy saw me stir and hopped up on the bed. I thought for a moment he was concerned as he looked down at me, seeing how I was doing. Then I realized that he more likely was watching my lips for favorite words: food, friends, walk.