Posts Tagged ‘dark humor’
Sleeping Well
It’s one of those days. I can’t help it. When nothing specific has happened, it’s as if nothing but dreams start bubbling up in my head and flowing out of my fingers onto the keyboard. I suppose it doesn’t help that I gave in to an urge to rewatch the insane Steven Conrad dark-comedy-spy-drama series, “Patriot” last night. A lot of this series is like a bad dream.
Rewatching a much-loved television series is like visiting with old friends you haven’t seen in a long while. It’s why we returned to the beginning of “Reservation Dogs” after finishing the last season. We missed all the characters.
I’m wondering if the spy movie, “Argylle” might have triggered my memories of the “Patriot” series. I understand these shows aren’t for everyone, and I don’t know what my appreciation for them says about me beyond my comfort with dark humor, but they seem to ring some pleasure bells in my head.
Yesterday, I allowed myself to fade into a mid-day slumber in the recliner and dreamed I was floating with a life vest in some water and trying to answer a question Cyndie had asked me from her seat in a low-riding boat. As I attempted to answer I found myself sinking below the surface and I couldn’t do anything about it. My eyes wouldn’t open and my hands and feet wouldn’t move.
I thought to myself, “If I could just open my eyes…” but I couldn’t because I was sleeping at the time. And that is what woke me. My ‘dream self’ began to recognize that my ‘real self’ was asleep. I find moments of lucidity in dreams to be a gift.
Sleeping well enough to enjoy my dreams is also a gift. I do not take for granted my good fortune of having cultivated good sleep habits. I owe a lot of my sleeping success to the information I learned in Matthew Walker’s book, “Why We Sleep – Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams.” I highly recommend it!
Since good sleep is one of the more important aspects of optimal health, it is something of a chicken-and-egg dilemma. There is a positive feedback loop in that good health allows for good sleep and getting good sleep is high up on the list of healthy things we can do for ourselves.
If you are out of sync, for either health or sleep, I don’t know if one is solvable before the other. Which comes first?
Don’t bother pondering the question. We can’t lose if we set our sights on striving for both at the same time!
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Latest Binge
With unfettered access to streaming television episodes this weekend, we ended up binging, “Patriot,” a five-year-old Amazon Prime Video that is a dark, comedic, assassin drama. I’m kind of a sucker for the merging of quirky dark humor in reality-based situations of high-drama, national “off-the-book” intelligence agent action. The series repeatedly involves situations where a relatively simple goal becomes complicated in multiple, and often messy, ways.
Riddled with a fair number of plot holes and illogical setups that all deserve to be ignored for the good of the rest of what’s so absorbing about the series, I would guess this 2-season story is ripe for critique by those who choose. I’m not interested in doing that.
One aspect that I appreciated about the writing was the merging of local authorities trying to process scenes resulting from international espionage type of incidents. A more conventional spy story will either ignore or have “the agency” wipe a scene so the main operative can carry on a mission unburdened by the consequences of previous actions.
In addition to that, there are multiple side dramas by coworkers at the firm where the main character had mischievously landed a “cover” position allowing him to travel to off-limits countries.
In “Patriot,” the persistent pursuit by local officials trying to solve their mysteries as well as the interruptions by people with personal agendas becomes a primary interwoven thread of the ever more convoluted challenges faced by the protagonist. It’s a bit like a Bourne-style CIA assassin story with ten times more real-life having a constant complicating impact.
Binging the story provided an entertaining escape from reality for a couple of rainy days at the lake.
Between showers on a walk with Delilah, she walked deeper in the water than is her usual preference because of the enticing sight of ducks lounging around on the floating mat. I had no plan of getting wet so stood by nervously waiting to see how bad she wanted to go after them. I figured I could quickly kick off shoes and wade further in if she decided to swim, but that wasn’t my preference.
She has shown no interest in swimming all the other times we invited her into the water.
Delilah decided the ducks weren’t enough reason to change that pattern and returned to shore to finish our walk.
Worked for me. There were a couple episodes left to be binged before bedtime.
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Relative Something 