To sleep or not to sleep

Ayee, too much work. Reading the study guides for The Scarlet Letter that I thought I did not assign this summer. In class I forgot where the story takes place and got all owly with students when they called me on it. Boston or Salem? Oy. Boston, but Hawthorne lived in Salem--what a stupid trivia question. This absent-mindedness I am attributing to 1) my dad's side of the family--his undiagnosed dyslexia--I've got it when it comes to remembering people's names, street numbers, and numbers, period. Oh, you're saying, everyone has that. No!!! Not like me. I could forgot the name of a former best friend. It is like a huge hollow space in my head and then suddenly, three days later it pops into my mind. I could memorize a scene from Macbeth and then suddenly four whole sentences will be gone. I reverse order of words all the time. It's embarrassing to run into your former babysitter with the unusual name that you know starts with a V and not be able to remember that his name is V---I can't remember now--Ventura! I got it. It gets worse when I haven't had enough sleep. I don't get enough sleep when my back is acting up, which it did this weekend. MISERAble. I'm trying not to complain out loud, though. So I'll just do it in writing. What does this mean for my writing, though? I have to clear the air, get rid of the frustration with pain, find a quiet and pain-free space and a line that keeps repeating itself inside my mind--a line that wants to be a story or a poem. A sentence that someone uttered, a moment that sticks. What is it? I can remember those. I remember standing outside the French doors of our newly remodeled basement and not speaking to my husband. I remember seconds and flashes of moments, but not names. You could tell me the name and the number of the street and two, no one, second later, I will say where? This isn't Alzheimers, it's for life. Ahh, the brain. I hear exercise is good for it, so maybe I'll go work out, or else go lie down.