This has happened enough times that you’d think I’d recognize it immediately when it occurred again. I’ll give you a hint: it’s a favorite PD topic, rhymes with leap and Bo-Peep. I’m talking about you, you of the irregular REM cycles and the oh-so-annoying insomnias and the maddening restless legs— SLEEP!

I was rudely awakened at 7:00 the other day. It was dark out, which was totally disorienting, until I remembered “Aha! We just had daylight savings.” Or, as it turned out, were about to have it. The following week. Mistake number one.

Anyway, I answered the phone with much trepidation, wondering what bad news was about to land upon me, for surely nothing good could come of an unsolicited early morning call. My friend Renee started chattering away about nothing in particular, and I’m thinking she’s slowly preparing me for the news of disaster that is about to ruin my day as it has undoubtedly already ruined others.’

“Why are you calling at this ungodly hour?” I finally asked, just before I realized that it was 7:00 PM not AM. And that I had made exactly the same error many times before: I start to read around 5:00 and promptly fall asleep. ( I have yet to find a reading time when I don’t conk out almost as soon as I turn the first page.). I awaken in darkness, and sit in a stupor while attempting to figure out not where but “when” I am. Invariably I’m in the early evening but initially convinced I’m in the morning of the same day. I can see how I might have become disoriented regarding time of day on occasion, but repeatedly? I don’t get it. And I don’t like it.

Is this state of asynchrony (ha! I thought I was coining a new word here but I got as far “async” meaning out of sync with time before autofill kicked in. Anachronistic was also suggested. Oh well, care to join me in this synonym rabbit hole I seem to have fallen down? Didn’t think so.

Back to the business of reporting on the very weirdness that is Parkinson’s. How many more times must I awaken thinking “it’s eight o’clock and damn it, I’m running late for my dentist appointment.” ( This really happened.) I grabbed yesterday’s jeans and a cleanish recently shrunk shirt (Bridget Jones, get the hell out of my blog), called an Uber, and went outside to wait. But wait! The sky seemed to have grown a teensy bit darker. Was this a surprise eclipse? And how come nobody told science, let alone me?

And speaking of the sky, it suddenly “dawned” on me not only “where” I was standing – on a street corner waiting for my ride, twelve hours early -but “when” I was. I cancelled my ride, fulminating over the cancellation fee I’d be charged but of course my ire was totally misplaced. I was angry at myself for being such a ditz. But again, nope, anger misdirected. My anger was truly deserved by whoever selected me as a worthy recipient of this disease, illness, condition, whatever we’re supposed to call it these days. I’ll just call it a bite-on-the ass bit of bad luck. Because really, what else can you do?

Keep on truckin.’

Recommendations

Scorsese’s latest, Killers of the Flower Moon is a must-see. I take that back; it’s not for everyone. It’s very long, clocking in at a hefty three and a half hours. I’d almost decided I’d leave about halfway through it before I’d even taken my seat.

When it was over, I thought “Yup. This needed to be this length in order to give this story its due. And surprisingly, I was never bored. The friend I saw it with actually wished she hadn’t seen it at all, so disturbing did she find it.

But it’s an important and I believe not widely told story of the inhumanity we are sadly capable of and have gotten away with for ages.

Starstruck (Note: I may have recomended this before. It’s worth the duplicate mention)

After seeing Killers, you might want a comedy “chaser.” I have just the thing. Starstruck is a truly adorable rom-com series about an implausible romance between a movie star and a “civilian.” It’s well worth suspending your disbelief for. Oh and by the way, thank you UK for being so goddamn funny.

And if you’d like to help me get more attention for Parkinson’s, click here.