Sleep deprivation is quite possibly the most insidious form of torture, made even worse by the fact you can easily inflict it upon yourself. Last week I housesat for friends whose dog is recovering from an enlarged trachea, so periodically he will break out in a hacking wheezing sound that might or might not indicate that he's on the verge of suffocating and dropping dead. All night I'd awaken, sitting bolt upright, trying to gauge whether the noise Buddy made was just a sigh or if a 30-mile midnight trek to the 24 hour emergency vet was in order. Toss in the unfamiliar bed, screwed up schedule, and being on the wrong end of one of the worst commutes in the Bay Area, and needless to say, I didn't get much rest.

When I'm feeling low, I like to go to Big Lots. Big Lots often seems like some kind of museum for monumentally bad ideas (cf. green spiral Kraft macaroni & cheese), but sometimes you stumble upon really great stuff. The other day, for instance, I found the holy grail of breakfast convenience food: Hello Kitty Pop Tarts in Meow Berry flavor. The only hard part is getting past eating the little white sprinkles shaped Hello Kitty's head.

On Friday I also officially started my archival practicum at the African American Museum and Library of Oakland, working mostly on Oakland mayor-elect Ron Dellums' Congressional papers. On my first day I measured shelving, designed a box label, and did some miscellaneous processing on a box of Ron's official schedules from October '92 through December '94. Congressmen are busy guys. Wonder how well they sleep.