View from the North 40: The sound of fandemonium

“Love your columns,” the email starts. No “Hello.” No “Dear Pam.” Not even a “Hey.” It just jumps right into the middle of a declaration of my awesomeness. Welcome to my beautiful life.

A girl dreams, for years, of something like this happening. You work toward the goal, but sometimes you can’t bring yourself to belie—

You do know that when I said “girl” I meant that as a nice, light-hearted, casual, way of saying woman, chick, broad or whatever to mean me since I started writing my column, not me when I was actually a girl-aged girl. That girl-aged me dreamed of having horses and filling a B-cup.

I achieved the horse dream by the time I was in my mid-20s and the other a few years ago when I got my middle-age, “I traded working with horses for working with keyboards,” poundage. Turns out the B-cup and the horseback riding aren’t really compatible, but I still counted it as another dream fulfilled, then moved on.

You’re not really living unless you have something to live for, so you fulfill one dream — that B-cup — and you replace it with another: Write a weekly column that manages to make a difference in people’s lives through laughter or to make someone snort their drink out their nose (either is a win), then, get written confirmation of said laughter or nasal flushing.

Let’s just start at the beginning:

Linda from Alaska writes that I’m totally awesome and she and her awesome mother, read my awesomeness weekly and they laugh awesomely. Score! But that’s not the end because Linda from Alaska is worried about me. Yeah, me and Linda, we’re like “this” now.

After my column last week about not being able to sleep because of noise, she said: “Why don't you get a sound machine. It saved my marriage & sanity. (smiley face here) As my son once told me ‘you have such sensitive hearing Mom I swear you could hear a mouse fart.’”

It’s almost like we’re twins.

Let me just say:

Dear Linda,

Thank you for your kind words of praise. (smiley face back at you) Thank you, also, for your advice and words of encouragement. I would also like to commend you for raising such an insightful and eloquent son. Are you sure he’s not a Burke?

Anyhow, I feel I should ease your worries about my well being and sleeplessness. I actually discovered a few years back that earplugs are a great sleep aid — when I use them. I would have loved to use drugs or alcohol because I think it would be a conduit for becoming a best-selling author, which is the standard issue writer’s dream.

It seems that “a tortured soul, whose dark humor and gritty stories rise from the bottom of a bottle and a dime bag” fits the novelist profile better than “she sometimes is really drowsy when she tries to sleep without her foam sound-stoppers.”

I guess the New York Times best-seller list will have to go on without me.

Interestingly, a few months ago I attended a weekly mindfulness meditation group because I read somewhere that it would be good for me. I also read that drinking more water is good for me, too, and I’ll get right on that when it flows from the tap tasting like Diet Coke.

Anyhow, I thought I’d try thinking of nothing for 20 minutes for my health. I’m no Buddhist-level meditation Zen master, but the time passes quickly and peacefully. Plus (and the whole point of mentioning this activity), one of the surprising side effects of the meditation — even done once a week — is that I sleep better, even without earplugs.

Turns out I have a gift for thinking nothing for long stretches of time, so no worries, all is good here in Pamville.

Say “hey” to your mom. She rocks.

Pam

(A girl could dream up a wildly glorious destiny if she weren’t sleeping so soundly at [email protected].)