Is Brainstorming Ideas a Good Idea in the Middle of the Night?

image credit: Roy Lichenstein c. 1986

I feel like my best ideas come to me in the middle of the night. Or, I'm like "Oh my God! I left the baby on the bus!"

I try to get a good night's sleep. I have a ritual for bedtime. I turn the curtains and turn on the white noise machine. Sometimes I take a Melatonin tablet. Sleep comes easily enough. I'm a deep sleeper but when I wake up I'm awake. It's one o'clock in the morning I'll wake up with a start. If it's a school night I automatically think of something school related. While I don't advise it, I keep my mobile phone next to my bed. Once I use it - it's a death knell to sleep. My brain starts whirring and I start to input ideas into my Google Keep app (I also like Day One Journal).

The last couple of nights I've woken up with lyrics from the Scissor Sisters stuck in my head. It's not uncommon for me to browse my Amazon.com purchases. Yes, I know. I hate that I do that. It's nervous energy. Once when I was sick in bed I wrote up an entire emergency lesson plan so my substitute teacher would have something to do for my students.

I wasn't always this way. As a kid and as a teen I went to sleep before eleven o'clock and woke up at quarter past six in the morning. I had a bus to catch! Times were simpler then; or, more accurately, I think when you're young you're preternaturally ignorant to the ways of the world. It's the paradox of youth. Young people are so into themselves that they've inoculated themselves to certain things. It's partly because adults have constructed a world - a youth culture - to protect them. It's not to say youth are not stressed but there's a qualitative difference between being a dependent and then becoming a tax-paying adult.

Why I like Fifth Century Thinkers like Socrates and Confucius

Confucius and Socrates Represent a Renaissance of Thought

I was trained to begin with Socrates. But what about Confucius standing next to Socrates? Confucius was Socrates’s contemporary. "They probably never met," you say. A Queens taxi cab driver told me their meeting was possible – how could there have been such a confluence of ideas in both East and West without either Socrates or Confucius never having met? The fifth century before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth was a renaissance of thought. It was a time of emerging thought, of dynamic ideas – that would forever change the course of human history.

What does the Great Wall of China Have in Common with Supermarket Swivel Chairs at Checkout?

Guard Tower, Great Wall, Simatai, China © 2017

When I was sitting at this sentry gate at the Great Wall last Summer with our school group - I first thought about the many soldiers who had to man their posts at these gates. Then I thought about swivel chairs (which I will explain in a bit).

The wall is dotted with guard towers like this one in the Simatai portion of the Great Wall north of Beijing. How did the soldiers get up here - what was the supply line like when they had to stand guard and maybe were hungry? How many men or women had to stand guard here? What whispers were spoken? What tragedy was befallen?

I am also sad that Airbnb canceled its prize of a night at the Great Wall. It was a thing, and now it's not.

I am then reminded of today's workers who have to endure jobs where you stand in one place for like eight hours. It boggles the mind that in the United States grocery store clerks have to stand at their posts. Wouldn't it be a great idea if we gave workers at our grocery stores sleek work chairs that swivel?

In German and Belgian supermarkets, clerks use ergonomic swivel chairs.

PDF Copy for Printing

Tempus Fugit - Photograph of a Green Landscape in Jingdezhen, China

Jingdezhen, China

Image source: Patrick X. Liu

PDF for Copy for Easy Viewing and Printing

Short Time Lapse Video of the Garbage Train that Runs from Bushwick to Virginia

A CSX garbage train rolls underneath 41st Avenue in the Elmhurst neighborhood of Queens. Waste collected by New York City's Department of Sanitation is picked up by the train in Bushwick, then it wends its way through Middle Village, then into Elmhurst, and in Astoria, it crosses the Hell’s Gate bridge where CSX takes that trash to Virginia - the home of cheaper cigarettes.

PDF Copy for Printing

Today is Harry Potter's 38th Birthday

Harry Potter turns 38 years old today (and yes, I am keeping up with the birthday of a fictional character). Also, it's J.K. Rowling's 53rd birthday. If you don't know what I am talking about, then you can pick up a copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and start reading.

In 2008, I dressed up as Harry Potter

Our lives have run parallel, Harry. When you were 11, you were on your way to Hogwarts School of Magic and Wizardry. I was in Sixth Grade set for middle school in Louisiana. At 38, you were a husband with three kids and slightly depressed working for the Ministry of Magic. At 38, I was gay and single, working as a High School English Language teacher.

Where do our storylines lead us now? Will J.K. Rowling write stories about a forty-something Harry Potter? Has the world had its full of Harry Potter and his wizarding world?

PDF Copy for Printing

Three Observations from People Watching on a Recent Trip to Washington, D.C.

In this blog post, I recount conversations overheard and undertaken on a recent trip to the nation's capital.

At the Penn Station Amtrak Waiting Room, N.Y.C.
Two women from Nanjing ask me how to find the track in Penn Station for their Amtrak train to D.C. The women are surprised I know how to say "Hello" in Mandarin. Coincidentally, I am boarding the same train, so I help them out. *** On the D.C. Metro
Two deaf teenagers have an in-depth conversation in sign language at the Gallery Place-Chinatown Metrorail station. Their signing is rapid-fire, and they apparently have a lot to talk about. I feel happy for the two of them. ***
N.Y.C., Penn Station Food Court Two would-be customers in the food court at Penn Station at 10:15 in the morning are slightly miffed that KFC and Pizza Hut aren't open yet. ***
The Neighborhood of Anacostia in D.C. When I board the train at the Anacostia Metrorail station, I notice two five-year-old kids seated side-by-side on the train. One of them wears a charcoal gray t-shirt that says: "Cheer up, Dude."
***
East Hall of Union Station, Washington, D.C.

In the East Hall of Union Station, waiting for a friend, I watch two professional photographers take photographs of the station. I am inspired to take my own. Creativity is contagious.

A centaur aims his bow at a fleeing stag

National Portrait Gallery, Washington D.C.

I slightly embarrass my friend in public by shouting out exuberantly - "Hey, miss you!" - to the official portrait of President Barack Obama, whose likeness hangs in the National Portrait Gallery.

PDF Copy for Printing

Image Credit: Greig Roselli © 2018 East Hall, Union Station, Washington, D.C.