...(a.m., CDT) and immediately try the NYT spelling bee. I can always get to genius, which is a caption I think is suitable enough for an online word game but rather too encouraging. I can get to genius in 5 minutes and then spend the rest of the day trying to get the rest of the words.

It's also kind of like the NYT crossword, where the editor has favorite words like palapa, muumuu, and ratatat, but doesn't recognize ululant or various other words that people complain about in the forum.

I’m going to bed at 230 but that’s because I have to start paying for 6 kids to go to college over the next 15 years starting in 2.5 years. What the heck is your excuse???

....I drink a cup of water as part of my evening ablutions. My cousin, a well-regarded southwest suburban cardiologist, told me once that there's a thought out there that dehydration can lead to stroke (assuming other contributing factors), and I've had a few friends and family die in their sleep of stroke or infarction. I wake up between 2 and 3 about 4 nights out of seven due to the need to micturate and also, I'm sure, due to being aetatis 69 and not as efficient in the sleep department as I once was. It doesn't bother me. I get 7 or so hours, up around 6 or 6:30, and feel fine...until 10:30 or 11 when I start nodding off.

Now I'm thinking that a latter day Studs Terkel could put together a book of interviews asking people of all ages and stations in life about their sleep habits.