Musings, Jokes, and Dreams to Wake Me Up 5

I have a certain routine that I like to keep, but that hinges on me waking up within a certain timeframe. I like to be up and getting ready between 7:30 A.M. and 8:30 A.M. Sometimes, I don’t wake up within that timeframe and it winds up being afterwards, but it isn’t as if I can’t still do many of the things that I want to do throughout the day. But everything gets pushed back, or I often wind up with less time for certain things, etc. I don’t NEED to be up this early and I CAN wake up an hour later, but when I do it too often, my other projects get less time.

I go into detail about the long explanation here:

The short version of the story, I have to create something that I NEED to do each morning. So, this is the solution. I am starting my routine, taking a quick one or two minutes to write any musings, jokes, or dreams on my mind, timestamping myself, and then going on with my day. At the beginning of each week, I’ll post last week’s thoughts… with timestamps. There is no hiding from my successes and failures. I’d prefer to be succeeding more often.

9/21/26 8:04 A.M.

It’s funny to even think that someone invented italics. Bold and Underline were clear, they brought attention to words with loudness. But someone was like, what if I want to bring attention to a word, but without added volume? Maybe just with some emphasis?

And then the way they decided to do it was make the words the tiniest bit more wavy? And they lean forward like a drunk guy who just got kicked out of a bar? That’s what italics is, right? Right?

9/22/26 8:14 A.M.

This date always stands out to me because September 22nd is the date I started working at my current job… 12 years ago. In some ways it feels like an achievement, but in others not so much, as I have other goals I’ve been trying to accomplish in that time. This job isn’t what I’d ultimately want to do in my life, and so it just stands there as a measure of time against my actual goals. I guess I’ve been chipping away at them, and accomplishing a lot. But 12 years feels like such a long time. 

Funnily enough, I moved out to California and started a different job, and I worked there for 5 years and just a few weeks before starting this one. The date was August 27th. So, I realize I’ve been at this job for 12 years, and can instantly determine that I’ve been in California for 17 years… and 1 month basically. It’s been a while that I’ve been here. Nothing comes easily or quickly, so I shouldn’t be down that I haven’t reached all my goals, because I’ve definitely been reaching some. And it isn’t all about reaching goals. I’ve been happy out here overall.

But wow, 12 years and 17 years will make you think. Only old people have worked somewhere for over a decade, right? I’m not allowed to think of myself as young anymore. So then, why am I still so immature? Riddle me that. 

9/23/26 8:25 A.M.

There are some days where I’ll realize that my underwear and undershirt are the same exact color. And when I’m wearing just those, it looks like I’m wearing a onesie. And then I wonder, how would it be to wear a onesie?

Probably not so great. It looks like it would be confusing to get out of. Where do you start? And what if you need to get out of it in a hurry? I remember once, my friend and I dressed as Mario and Luigi for Halloween and the costumes were big onesies. We went to a busy bar in Boston with friends, and I went to use the bathroom, and I had to use the stall because the only way to allow myself to go pee, was to take the whole thing off and get completely naked. It was not well thought out. It was a good costume though. We had some great pictures. Just not a fantastic costume to wear when you plan on drinking many liquids. 

9/24/26 8:21 A.M.

Yesterday I burnt my finger on something lethal. You might think of all the worst things you could burn yourself on, but you’ve probably never realized there’s one so awful, so deadly, so dastardly… and it’s hiding amongst its own deceptive beauty.

The sugar on top of a turnover.

I toasted my turnover in the toaster oven, removed it, and then went to close the door but my finger landed on top of the turnover. Ouch! Hot! I pulled my finger away… so why is it still burning?! Oh, because the sugar from the top of the turnover is sticky and it has glued itself to my finger to give me a continuous burn! It kept burning me until I was able to wash it off under cold water. Now one section of my finger looks like Deadpool’s face. It will heal. Unlike Deadpool’s face. But wow, that was an awful burn because it didn’t just last a fraction of a second. It was ongoing. Quite the attack from my pastry. Remind me never to tussle with baked goods ever again. 

9/25/26 8:27 A.M.

I do wonder why at the end of the year, they ended September, November, and December all with the same -ember… and then they ALMOST pulled the trigger on October, but didn’t quite do it. You were almost there! You might as well have named it Octember!

It’s like telling someone your deepest sexual fantasy but then leaving out a minor detail at the end to spare yourself. You already told them about the jumper cables and the feather duster… why leave out the whipped cream at this point? 

9/26/26 8:27 A.M.

When people tell you your pet is cute, what’s the natural inclination you have? For most it’s to say, “Thank you.” But why do we do that? What credit are we taking? What hand did we play in their cuteness?

None.

I try to think of other things to say, and I usually can’t, and then too much time passes after they’ve said my pet is cute, and it feels awkward because I’m saying nothing at all, so then I awkwardly say thank you anyway after an inordinate amount of silence. So yeah, I need a better response for that situation. 

9/27/26 8:27 A.M.

If there are certain colors that dogs can’t distinguish, then why do they make dog toys in those colors? Is it because the toys are actually, on some level, for the humans? Are they making dog toys for people? The people are the ones buying them. They’d have to approve of the toy in order to buy it.

When you buy a dog toy, it’s for you. You’re the dog. You’re the pet. A pet owned by big-dog-toy-conglomo. Whoa. It’s like finding out you’re in The Matrix.

9/28/26 8:27 A.M.

I was thinking about an episode of Friends where Joey and Chandler are talking about what things they’re allowed to share as roommates. Joey questions the soap in the shower, and Chandler says it’s fine because it’s soap… it’s self-cleaning. And then Joey tells him that the next time Chandler uses the soap, he should think about the first thing he washes with it, and the last thing Joey washed with it.

Clearly, he’s saying, when you wash your face, think about how the last place that soap touched was, well, I guess his ass or crotch, no?

And it got me thinking, they made a pretty big assumption there that everyone would wash themselves in the same way. I got the joke right away, and many did. But I don’t know, is that a universally accepted thing that we all wash in the same order? I do wash my face first, and then work my way down from top to bottom, but that does mean that last on the list is feet. Not ass or crotch. Those are squarely in the middle. I also don’t share a bar of soap with anyone, I have a loofa and liquid soap. But I suppose when I lived at home as a kid, we probably did all share a bar of soap. But I don’t know, is that the universally accepted order of operations for everyone?

9/29/26 8:27 A.M.

My thoughts above got me thinking, what about when brushing your teeth? Does everyone do that in the same way? Probably not. Do people even consistently brush their own teeth in the same method?

I know I do. I start brushing in the front, then I go to the left, back to the front, then to the right for a while, then front again, then left again for the finish. I spend the same amount of time in each area I’m pretty sure, and because I only go to the right once I’m there for longer, but I have no idea why I do it this way. It makes sense while I’m doing it, but as I type it out now, it just sounds like lunacy. Or… maybe someone else does it that way too? 

9/30/26 7:59 A.M.

OK, I finally had a night in which I remembered a dream, and then I remembered WAY too many of them. In one I was looking on a world map for “the golden staircases” which appeared to be something that I had a lead on but that no one else had found and people though to be mythical. I’m pretty sure there were seven around the world and I was going to find them and become famous. But before I could finish finding them, I had to take my friend’s pet outside that I was looking after. It was a Doduo, a Pokemon which is basically an ostrich or emu with two heads. I saw one of my neighbors while walking him and was talking about how I don’t make banana bread well at all. (Never even tried.)

Yeah, that was one nonsensical dream. Then, I had another where there was a liquor store my friends went to, but they had a secret way to get into it which involved heading up a few flights of stairs in a building and opening a door to nothing and then walking across a two foot wide plank along the side of a building. I took it and then came back, and Timothy Olyphant and his gang were waiting for me, and they were maybe going to kill me, but were definitely going to steal my backpack. I was so upset, but on the way over, I had come with my friends and friends of friends, one of which was Tom Cruise, which never dawned on me as a big deal until after I woke up… because I bet he and my friends were going to kick in the doors and save me and my backpack.

And then I also had another dream where I worked for some government company and it was believed that one of us was leaking information, so I had to investigate my coworkers. I was also quite aware my coworkers were investigating me. Also, we worked inside of a mountain. So, it was an eventful, not so restful, sleep.

10/1/26 7:44 A.M.

I actually have something that I needed to get up early for today. A couple publications that I had been waiting to submit to open their submissions today, but they both have a cap for submissions, and they’re popular publications. In the past, the submissions window has hit its cap within hours of opening.

I don’t want to take chances, so since they both open at 8:00 A.M. my time, here I am. Preparing. 

10/2/26 8:28 A.M.

My mind is nearly a complete blank this morning. I was just lying here and heard the baby in the building next to us cry. I wonder what babies think of mornings.

They’re probably like, “I went to sleep when it was dark, and then I woke up and it was light again. I swear, that’s happened most of the times that I went to sleep. I’m starting to think there’s a pattern here. Also, I need to figure out what a pattern is because I have no idea… I am a baby, after all.” 

10/3/26 8:25 A.M.

Sometimes I look at the shower and think about how I’ve come up with so many ideas in there, that it must be the best place for me to come up with story ideas. I bet I’ve come up with more story ideas there than in any other location.

I wonder if I could go back and identify how many of my stories originated in there. There’s something about being in there that is so freeing, and the mind can wander. For me, anyway. If I ever needed a new idea, I think I’d probably grab my shampoo and my soap and get to brainstorming. 

10/4/26 8:25 A.M.

I had a dream that a football coach/analyst was showing me pictures of himself back when he played. I told him that his uniform looked the exact same as the tank top that I was currently wearing, so that meant I could play in the NFL right now. He agreed. This was all happening while I was microwaving a shoe.

I’m not sure that I want to know what all of that means, other than I was ready to wake up and watch lots of football.