I skim the New Yorker cartoons every week, and usually they just trigger a slight smile, but when I saw this one I laughed out loud. And then I started a giggle fit, which I couldn't shake for half an hour even though I was alone. Every time I looked at the cartoon, I started giggling again.
Because it's as if she climbed in my brain at 3:00 a.m., Readers. These are the exact categories I furiously shuffle into the wee hours, and for which I want to kick myself in the morning when I am haggard. I've always thought Roz Chast was a genius, but this time her insight is downright spooky.
Talk amongst yourselves--I'll give you a topic. A quote from Sartre: "Three o'clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do." Discuss.
9 comments:
I totally get the cartoon except for the 'people who have wronged me' bit and 'ideas for a screenplay'. For me it's more like 'WHY WOULD SHE DO THAT?' and 'ideas for a sitcom (dark comedy, people would be disturbed by the strange hilarity of my life)'.
This morning it was, "oh, the power just went out" (ice storm)--I was already lying awake thinking, "I have to go back to sleep and the more I worry about it the more awake I am!" Then it was, "oh, no--we won't be able to open the refrigerator in the morning!"
Miss J
"Diseases I probably have", this one gets an extra giggle from me!
The Sartre quote feels like a metaphor for my life most of the time. Too young for this, too old for that, too early, too late...
xoxo
s
Hahaha....I'm afraid I fit into one or two of those categories! At 3 am this morning I was on the couch, staring at my computer screen, blogging, responding to some crazy bloggy warfare (is drama even ALLOWED after midnight?!) and waiting for some late-term pregnancy heartburn to pass so I could GO TO BED.
Funny! Slightly scary that anyone else lies awake with the same categories in their head, but funny ;).
So scary! So me! And where did you think this novel of mine came from, anyway? It was a way to drown out the din of those other categories -- the only way I could possibly get to sleep over the past year or two, especially.
Imaginary fights are a lot more fun to fight than the ones your brain provides at 3 a.m. (and why is it three a.m. for everyone?).
One of my favorite lines in a song is from Elton John's "Someone Saved My Life Tonight":
"It's four o'clock in the morning, damn it!"
Obviously written by someone who started some ugliness at three and hasn't gotten back to sleep.
"Talk amongst yourselves--I'll give you a topic. A quote from Sartre: "Three o'clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do." Discuss"
Three o'clock makes me think of a extra cold morning, waking up exhausted because I procrastinated and had to stay up until after midnight the night before. Now I am being forced to function on minimal sleep, mad at myself for being me!
Three in the afternoon? It's almost time to get the kids from school. Where has the day gone?
Oh, BTW--my last category would be
"Situations Requiring Public Speaking--the terror!"
I loved the diseases category. Right on the money!
You read the New Yorker??!!!! Wow! I'd never even held one. But I do have a subscription to People--does that count? (And you claim to read trashy mags!)
Three o' clock is tough. I am always so tired after teaching all day. Must say, ever since they took Magnum P.I. off the air at three o' clock, I have come to dislike the hour.
oxox,
Mary
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