NEWS FLASH...UNCLE BOB DOESN'T SLEEP LIKE THE REST OF YOU

Drivin' innnn to Darlington County...today's my lucky day for sure alright...

Sorry...still got The Boss ringing through my head 36 hours later.

Hey!

Guess what?!?

I actually got some SLEEP last night!!

Of course...I went to bed at 7 freakin' o'clock to get it.

Watched "Ed"...was dozing off towards the end and passed the sexual intercourse out after it was over.

Slept for eight and a half hours.

That's practically a new record for me.

I haven't slept that much since I was a baby.

Have you noticed that this diary is starting to turn into me talking about how little sleep I get each night?

How fucking boring is that??

I think I'd rather read my mother's poetic waxings on her menstrual cycle than somebody bitching about their sleep patterns.

But hey...as always...that's just me.

Speaking of my sleep patterns ... I called the sleep disorder clinic yesterday to see if they had my test results back yet.

They did. And just like my shifty-assed realtor...they were "just about to call me".

Okay...let's hear it.

Well...according to the stats taken during the night that I only slept for two and a half freakin' hours...I only choked nine times an hour.

Nine times an hour.

Twenty two times in a two and a half hour period, I stopped breathing and my brain told me "WAKE UP SO YOU CAN BREATHE, YOU FREAKIN' MORON!!"

Guess what??

Apparently...that's not good enough.

Neigh...they want you choking 20 times an hour before they give me a breathing machine so I can get some sleep at night.

I honestly think I said "What the FUCK?" when the girl told me this over the phone. I'm blaming it on ... naturally...my lack of sleep.

I'm no doctor...but personally...I don't think it should matter if you stop breathing once a night or 1,000 times a night...dude...YOU'VE STOPPED BREATHING AND ARE CHOKING. For God's sakes...GIMME THE F'N MACHINE, YOU BRAIN-DEAD HUSSY!

So I have to go back to the doctor that made me wait an hour and 45 minutes in the exam room and bored me to the point that I was yanking out nostril hairs and leaving them in his drawers AGAIN on Monday.

My nostril hairs haven't even grown back yet.

Something tells me somebody's getting a drawer full of pubes on Monday.

Andrew hasn't exactly reached "The Terrible Twos" yet. But his daycare provider did certify that he's reached "The Tearful Twos".

My God...this kid is crying over EVERYTHING.

Yesterday, probably due to the fact that I was extremely tired, he was getting on my last nerve.

Crying because he didn't want to get dressed.

Crying because he wanted a banana.

Crying because Daddy was picking him up off the floor by his nostrils.

Susie tried to tell me last night that the reason he's crying so much is because he can't communicate with us because he can't hear so his efforts to speak are gibberish and his only semi-successful method to communicate with us is through crying, the same method he's used since birth.

Well, thanks a heap Dr. Spock. I've got the brain of your average coffee table, I would have NEVER figured that one out on my own.

Jeeminy Christmas.

This whole surgery of cramming tubes in the kid's ears cannot come fast enough.

And we're two weeks away from it now.

Gah.

Back to Tuesday night and the Springsteen concert, Susie and I got there way too freakin' early (an hour ahead of show time...and we had awesome reserved seats)so we sat there and actually talked without a crying two year-old competing for our attention for a change.

During our talks the difference of going to concerts 20 years ago compared with going to concerts today became painfully obvious.

Twenty years ago, my biggest worry about a concert would be if the artist failed to play my favorite song of theirs.

Today, my biggest worry is how bad of shape is my body going to be in the morning.

I swear, I sat there thinking "I hope Bruce takes the stage on time, that he doesn't play a marathon show, that traffic isn't too bad when we leave, that we get home before I fall asleep at the wheel, that I can go to sleep when we get home, that my ears aren't damaged any further from the loud music, that my hips and back aren't aching, that I can walk without looking like I rode a water buffalo home last night, that I can speak without sounding like Demi Moore on a cocaine binge, and that Andrew f'n sleeps in in the morning."

Bruce was an hour late taking the stage (but he worked hard to make up for it), the show only lasted two and a half hours, we sat in traffic for five minutes, I drove 90 miles in an hour and 15 minutes, I tossed and turned until 2:30 a.m., my ears are ringing a little but I'm not any deafer, my hips and back are fine thanks to Momentum Pain Relievers, I'm walking normally with a slight limp from being on my feet on concrete for 2.5 hours and I was really only hoarse before noon yesterday. My voice came back after that.

And Andrew slept in.

But cried like a pimp-slapped bitch when he woke up.

So my worries were somewhat relieved.

Did I tell you guys that Bruce brought Emmylou Harris on stage with him to sing "My Hometown"?

Does anybody really care?

Seriously...if he's coming to your town, scrape up the $75 it takes to see the guy and go see him. It's worth every penny, even if you're not a fan. You'll be a fan by the time you leave.

Susie says she's a fan now.

But yesterday, when she got home from work, she was back to playing Contemporary Christian music in the car rather than the Bruce disc I conveniently left in her CD player.

I think she's a damned liar myself.

And she calls herself a Christian.

BROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCE, baby!!

BROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCE!!!

Man...I did my "BROOOOOOOOOOOCE" after every song, trying to get everyone else in my section to do it.

But I was surrounded by geriatrics and mentally challenged cretins.

They almost ruined my night.

Thank God Bruce was there to make sure the night went okay for me.

I've gotta warn ya...tomorrow's entry is OFFENSIVE.

I've already written half of it and it offends me.

So be prepared...if you're a sensitive person and are easily offended, you might wanna go spend some time at www.hellokitty.com tomorrow or something rather than check in with your ol' Uncle Bob.

You.

Have.

Been.

Warned.