A Tale of Two CDs

A Bourgeois Tragedy

So many of my digital obsessions stem from my ongoing struggle with insomnia. The first (or most obvious, or most ironic) was that one-month stretch when, each night, sometime after midnight, I'd watch Fight Club—a story that begins with its main character's insomnia...

When you have insomnia, you're never really asleep, and you're never really awake.

The insomnia comes and goes. I'd thought maybe I'd beaten it for good when I invested in a fancy "memory foam" mattress; though it's my most prized possession, its effect on my sleep patterns has been, well, hard to quantify. Subtle. And that's why, late last night, I gave up trying to sleep, wandered over to my new TV, and asked myself the eternal question:

Video game or DVD?

[I'm such a geek.]

On my left was a shiny plastic disc that said "Halo 2", and on my right, one of those signature red-and-white Netflix envelopes. Like the angel and devil looming over the shoulders of some conflicted cartoon character. At 1:23AM.

With insomnia, nothing is real. Everything is far away. Everything is a copy of a copy of a copy.

Video game or DVD?

My life is completely owned by these little shiny pieces of plastic. Because what else can you do at 1:23AM (in a city that sleeps...)?

I held that video game disc in my hand, spun it around on my finger a few times, then dropped it to my desk and tore open that red and white Netflix envelope instead. I peeled the DVD out and tossed the envelope aside. And it landed—adhesive side down—on the Halo disc.

I spent the next hour trying to get the glue off of the shiny surface of the game disk—hot water, soap, alcohol, a sponge—but in the end I'd only managed to smear it, and scratch it—ruin it. Ruin my night. Ruin my early morning.

There's an aphorism in there somewhere: "Indecision is another hobgoblin of small minds"? "A DVD in the hand is worth two on the desk"?

"The things you own end up owning you"?

Or maybe it's something simpler, like, "Go to bed"... ?

This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time.

Go to bed...

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P.S. Sleepless Nights May Mean Days Off Work