3am is my inner alarm clock every morning. I’m 52 so sleeping the whole night without using the bathroom is rare. It’s usually around that time. Rarely do I look at the clock. If I do my head starts its little mathematical equations

“it’s 3am you have two more hours of sleep if you can fall right back to sleep”

“It’s 3:55am now you only have about an hour chance of extra sleep”

“4:15 you might as well get up there’s no point in falling back asleep now”

If there could possibly be even one complaint about putting the bottle down is if I wake up I’m alert in 10 seconds. It’s not really up to me to fall back asleep. It’s still better than waking up with zero clue as to where I am and who I am.

I usually fall right back to sleep but I’m dealing with the all too familiar “life is coming atcha fast again” anxiety I get whenever I open up a business. It’s not a shock. I know it’s going to happen. I even try to prepare myself for it but is it really anxiety if you’re braced for it?

I’m sure this goes for all business owners or just about anyone that has a big event or project on their mind. I’m not exclusive. My sleep overall is much better when I stopped drinking. No more hangovers to keep me awake. No foreboding sense of doom or dehydration muddled with depression. The anxiousness gets to me. I’ve said 100 times I lost a lot of my confidence after Covid. You don’t just shake it off. It’s still there looming. It’s a long process to overcome for me. Like almost drowning in the ocean and expecting to wade right back in with no floats on. I know how to swim. The ocean doesn’t care.

Also it’s monster fucking soup. I don’t know how you swim around in that shit. Would you hike in the Serengeti at night? I’m going waste deep in clear water. I see a shadow bigger than my head in the water I’m out.

Where were we?

Ah yes anxiety.

I’ll try to fall back asleep and my brain goes “is there sufficient lumens already in place overhead for a kitchen?” Will I have to add more? I didn’t plan that into my budget”

There’s no back door. Will an electric convection oven fit through the front door? Will there be enough juice to power said oven? I don’t have added ventilation will a big oven heat us out? Shove it in the corner?

Menu? Piece of cake right? My dude writes menus all the time. Yeah! I’ve been toiling the idea of this deli for over a year.

“How many sammiches have you written down so far?”

0

Salads?

0

You see I have this (these) ideas but I haven’t translated them onto paper yet much less a plate.

Staffing. Fuck don’t even get me started on that.

How many people? Well that depends on the menu I haven’t written down. Skill level? This won’t be Subway. Aesthetics with speed is important. That means higher pay. I don’t mind paying anyone what they are worth. I just have to make sure the checks don’t bounce. This is a completely different monster for me. I’ve been working alone for three years. I’m also in control of the volume. The more I hire the more I have to crank shit out. Not sure where I want to go with that one. I did a little R&D at a place I consider somewhat competition although it’s really not but after watching the sheer volume the kitchen spit out for 30 minutes my anxiety spiked.

I wasn’t thinking about all the money pouring in. I was thinking “what happens on a day like this if you’re short-handed?” I waited 25 minutes on a sandwich. I’m a service industry guy. I don’t mind but at the same time I won’t go back in their unless I have ample time to wait again. So already I had a reason not to go back in there.

I don’t want that shit. So I have to create a plan that doesn’t fall into that hole.

I should probably work on a menu. Soon.

But first

I have to create a kitchen floor plan out of mid air. There’s no existing kitchen. I’ve always had a kitchen to build around this is quite the opposite. I’m not throwing around money so I have to be frugal and creative. No electrical engineering. No cad ops just me and a tape measure. And fingers crossed because it’s in the city I’ll have every fucking inspector in my face until I take the paper off the windows. Signage? Cost you $3k just to take a shit in a sign company’s bathroom. Used the same sign guy for my old company for years. For whatever reason he along a few others including some purveyors unfollowed me after my parting with my old company.

Ok. New people will be getting new checks I suppose.

I’ll always be petty

All of this I dealt with from 3am to 3:30am. Yeah I never went back to sleep. I go to bed at 8:30/9 every night so I still get about 5.5-6 hours sleep not shabby. More than I averaged for 10 years.

I don’t sleep very well in strange houses. I need my mise en place. The older I get the more I gravitate towards it. My bed, where I rest my phones, steps to the bathroom. My kid brought a friend with her to the beach so my night attire is business casual.

I don’t sleep well in clothes.

Room is shaped different so I sleep different. Windows moved, door is on the wrong side of the bed. Bed is soft but it’s not mine. Took us 15 years to find the right bed/comforter/mattress ensemble that works perfect for us. I don’t mind really. I’m at the beach with my family.

Sometimes when I can’t sleep I try to clear my mind so I can fall back into it. I don’t count sheep. Never got that. I do have this weird ritual of repeating in my head “white paper, white paper, white paper” to clear my head. Any Gen Xer that was a big fan of The Greatest American Hero may get that reference. To clear his mind to use his super powers he would envision clear white paper. It stuck with me. I’m not afraid to admit a moment of me standing on the edge of my bed as a kid with a blanket wrapped around my neck like a cape repeating “white paper, white paper, white paper” in hopes of flying like he did. Thankfully my bed wasn’t that high off the ground.

I like this house we are staying in but the lighting is terrible

Another game I used to play in my head to help me sleep was thinking of each state and it’s respective capital city. That just kept me awake. Fuck you Frankfort. It should be Louisville. And Jefferson City? WTF?

Also this house reeks of mothballs. I’m a bloodhound for a nose. I’ve always said it gave me an advantage cooking. I taste with my nose. The downside is any odor can overwhelm me. It’s why I don’t like most deodorants, perfumes etc. If you have an animal in your house I’ll smell it before you open the door. I can literally smell when my dog uses the bathroom across the yard with the door closed to my house. Numero uno and dos. Mothballs are offensive. And the odor has kept me up. I’m combating it with coffee but I don’t have a side table to reach for my coffee like I do at home so my whole morning is just fucked. Just a little early morning hyperbole folks

I enjoy writing out my thoughts. It’s like mental masturbation without the paper towel (you’re welcome for that image) but if it has any downside it’s that sometimes I start writing in my head when I wake up. Which also keeps me awake. I don’t mind. It’s a healthy habit. Writing is an efficient way of pulling out some of those old dusty words you haven’t used in awhile. My verbiage is usually grunts mixed with made up profanities but now I find words coming out of my mouth I haven’t seen since I used to read Cormac McCarthy. I have no doubt that I use them in the wrong context but I never said I was an intellectual. I also enjoy making up words because fuck you it’s my words.

Im starting to talk like I write. As I write more. It used to be the opposite. I reflect before I speak much more often. I’m sure that makes my wife ecstatic. My spelling isn’t really that bad. You see, I wear contacts to see far away. The downside is my contacts impair my vision close up. Without my lenses I can see a mosquito’s dick close up. While wearing them my phone is at arm’s length and if it autocorrects sometimes I don’t see it. No some of my words really are misspelled. The English language is a bucket of shit. I will look certain words up so I don’t look like and idiot. Sometimes I’ll google a synonym just to look proper.

Also

You become self conscious about using the same words over and over again. What’s a word that has become vernacular to me? (Also real fast I’ve been wanting to use that word this morning I hope I didn’t fuck it up). I sat and write the word “just” about a thousand times a day. It just comes to me. Fucking adverbs can just kiss my ass. Remember that school house rock song? Loly loly loly get your adverbs hurrrrrr. Just fuck off

It’s really bothering me not having a side table for my coffee. I just might have to relocate

Another word I overuse is “myself” but I’m journaling about myself so it makes sense. My autocorrect however types out myslef and it’s fucking infuriating. It also autocorrects to thier. Just pisses me the duck off.

Often times when I start a sentence with “just” it autocorrects to Judy. And then my brain goes to Goober doing his Jimmy Stewart impression on Andy Griffith “hey Andy! Wanna hear my Jimmy Stewart impression? Judy Judy Judy!”

Ask me why I have trouble sleeping again?..

Listen, (see this is another word I’ve fallen into the habit as a sentence introduction) I don’t have any idea what I’m writing today. I woke up. Needed to do my daily journaling and this is what I spit out. This was a healthy one though. I’m just vomiting words onto my phone screen. I’m either anxious, happy or both.

I enjoy it though. I used to paint but it just (there we go again) took so much time to set up everything and clean. This is easier for me. And less expensive.

I’ve been doing many express vacays this year. The upcoming brick and mortar poo poos on any grand adventures this year but that’s fine. They were becoming obligatory and not adventurous. I needed a break from adventure. Which is why I’ve been vibing on sand and not rocks this year.

It’s healthy to realize and submit to your limits. As long as you prepare yourself for it. I don’t have to climb every mountain to be happy. Or to prove myself.

Sometimes that 1 mph mosey on the beach is just what Dr. Chad ordered. In fact that’s what I’m about to go do right now.

Think I’ll plug some John Prine in my ears while I go.

Happiest of Mondays yall.

Also historically I’d be nursing one hell of a hangover today to celebrate my 50% Irish heritage.

“And I got no hate and I got no pride

Well I got so much love that I cannot hide”