sleepless in Ann Arbor and corn on the cob

I couldn't sleep last night. I got up , walked up the the fridge and inspected it carefully, looking for something juicy. The closest thing I could find was corn on the cob, packed in plastic. It wasn't cooked but I didn't care, I had raw corn like this before when I was a kid and we were robbing corn fields together with my father. He would keep the engine running and I would dash into the field, grab a few cobs and run back, sometimes chased by an enraged farmer holding a random gardening utensil.

I plunged my teeth into it and devoured it in two minutes, spending the following ten trying to get all the hard bits from in between my teeth. Earlier in the evening we went to an Italian restaurant with a bunch of people, the food was better than I thought it would be, especially the bread the waiter brought for starters - it was just pure deliciousness with some olive oil and salt. The company was great too - all without exception intelligent, good folk with spark and sense of humor. I had Heather to my left and Jonathan to my right and the waiter was really sweet. So sweet that I took an espresso when he suggested it even though nobody else did and used it to flush an ibuprofen down my oesophagus. My period was coming and I could feel that numb pain in my groin which made me want to crawl to bed as soon as possible. After everybody said goodbye and assured everybody else how great it was to be in their company, we walked over to the car and drove home. When I finally got to bed I noticed I'm awake, wide awake and even though I felt tired I couldn't fall asleep. I tried finding a Very Comfortable Position, which helps sometimes but didn't work now, not really. After a good amount of fidgeting I gave up and turned the light on. The sheet I was lying on was all twisted into a rope and lying at my feet. I sighed and grabbed a book I had on my night table. I wondered: why was I sleepless? I thought I was tolerant to caffeine to the extent that an espresso at 10 pm wouldn't keep me awake. Maybe it was the combination with ibuprofen? I remember reading of the synergistic effect - that caffeine made the analgesic effect of ibuprofen stronger. But could it work the other way too? Could ibuprofen make caffeine's stimulatory effect stronger? Another life's mystery I could solve the following day on the internet. Or not.

cocktail cherries, straight from a tree

Bright red cherries, covered in shiny layer of ice, still on the tree and ready to be picked! OK, they are not really cherries (I don't know what the hell they are but when I bit through one of them risking deadly poisoning, it tasted half-edible).

Look carefully: heavy wind must have been blowing while it rained; some of the fruit are pointing upwards, instead of hanging down.

It's Ann Arbor, Michigan. It's wool hat and gloves kind of weather here. People don't speak so much with each other on the streets or on the university bus that I take in the morning to the central campus. It's chilly and I notice that my cheerful hello to the bus driver is turning heads, just like yesterday. The driver is a pretty black woman with short hair and she gives me a big smile (she saw me scurry from the other side of the street with a dangling camera in one hand and an open backpack in the other). I get on.

random town in Michigan

The girl in front of me is reading a study book and trying hard to concentrate. She compulsively takes a wisp of her long auburn hair between her fingers and slides them until the ends, smoothing them out. The Indian-looking girl at the table next to hers is reading her lecture notes. She too is playing with her hair, laying her head on her arm, giving herself a hug with the other. This is seriously advanced pose, I estimate, she must have been here for quite a while. Her long fingers slowly dip in her black pony tail. Looks like it must feel good, to have one's fingers in such lush black hair, shiny and smooth.

I'm in the Cafe Royale at the main campus of the Michigan University and everybody around me is studying. People with laptops, Greek dictionaries, big piles of loose papers, and concentration problems.

The Indian girl is now swirling a wisp of hair around her index finger. The redhead succeeded at extracting a hair and is now examining it in detail with the help of her long fingernails, still looking at the notes. Her nails are painted pink.

I touch my own hair - it's seriously smooth; yesterday I bought this great shampoo, made for blond hair especially. I feel sorry for people with short hair, like the guy next to me. How can he concentrate on his reading?

Oh oh, there is some action! Some fat guy sits at the table of the redhead. She says OK but is obviously not so happy to be disturbed. She probably thinks that the guy wants to flirt with her (it's obvious: he's fat and she has beautiful auburn hair). And soon enough he gives it a try, followed by her embarrassed reaction. They exchange a few uneasy smiles and ten minutes later he packs up and leaves and she returns to sliding her fingers through her hair, all the way until the ends.

I notice in the corner of my eye that the Indian girl got out her driver's license and is giving it a thorough examination. Now is the moment, I tell myself and say out loud: you cannot concentrate anymore, huh? She's visibly relieved that someone has chatted her up and we start talking. I ask her about the trip I plan to make to Chicago. Not long after the redhead joins in. They turn out to be medical doctors, studying for their level 2 exams (whatever that is). When they find that out they start exchanging tips and I leave them alone, happy to have connected two people who probably wouldn't have talked to each other otherwise. I get back to my own reading.