News Bombshell

Remember how I like to sleep with CNN on all night? And remember how I enjoy the dreams it produces all night long?

You don’t remember that? Well, I just told you about it a couple of days ago.

Anyway! Last night was a real doozy.

Wait, let me backtrack thirty years. . . .

Remember my previous story about meeting Eileen in college and writing the Horrible Folk Song about coming out?

“Sit back, relax, take you shoes off for a while
Make yourself as comfy as you can . . . "

Okay, you remember the rest. Please see above for details.

Anyway, Eileen and I became really close friends for a couple of years and then she transferred to the University of Alaska in Fairbanks because that’s where her brother lived.

We stayed in touch, wrote lots of letters, made lots of very expensive phone calls at 40 cents per minute that my dad paid for, and we’re still in touch to this day.

We email now. And complain about how messed we were in the 70s.
It's cheaper.

I was recalling all this in my dreams last night as Anderson Cooper was lulling me in and out of sleep. There was, no doubt, some coverage about Sarah Palin caused me to dream about Eileen in Alaska.

Then, in my semi-conscious state, I remembered a particular detail that Eileen had told me about way back then when she was in Alaska. You know how when you’re half asleep, you can remember details long forgotten? Like how nutmeg smells like your grandmother's violin case when you were nine?

I remembered that when Eileen was a senior, she fell head-over-heels over this freshman on the women’s basketball team whose name was Sarah. I got SO tired about hearing about Sarah. Sarah this, and Sarah that. Sarah, Sarah, Sarah. Eileen could never stop talking about this “baby-dyke” who was so cute and who was just coming out, etc.

Then I remembered that they both joined the gay & lesbian organization which had just formed on campus. I also remembered that I had kept most of Eileen’s letters from her sojourn in Alaska.

Well, I got up to pee and couldn’t go back to sleep.

I kept thinking about those years that Eileen was in Alaska so I retrieved the box where I kept those letters and began going through them. (It smelled like a mixture of 1982 cardboard and Ralph Lauren Polo cologne for some reason - - God, who couldn't but love that smell!)

I got quite a few laughs as I read through those letters from so many years ago. There was the record-breaking winter of '79 when it got down to minus 56 in Fairbanks.
She had a Dodge Dart that exploded one winter when she forgot to plug in the space heater.
I wired her $200 bucks for a plane fare to come to Texas. And then I showed up at the Austin airport so high on . . .something.

God, we were young!

I came across one of particular interest. Eileen and Sarah had just joined the gay & lesbian organization on campus and Eileen had sent the program to me. It was dated September of 1982.

There at the bottom of the program was the list of four names of those who were new members. There was Eileen and at the bottom of the list was Sarah.

Here's a closer look at the list of new members:

Sarah Heath.

Sarah Heath.

Heath?

Heath?

I hopped on to Wikipedia.

Holy cow!! That’s Sarah Palin’s maiden name!!

Let me see, Sarah Palin is 44 years old, so that would have made her eighteen years old in 1982. A freshman. In Alaska. On the women’s basketball team. And a baby-dyke.

A cold chill ran down my spine. Have I got a ticking time bomb here in my hands? Could I be holding the evidence in my hands that would cause McCain’s sure defeat?

Most of all, would I become famous??

I was SO excited. I was going to be famous. Who should I notify about this? How does one go about notifying the press?

Most of all, would I get to meet Anderson Cooper?

Then, as always, that’s right when you wake up from a really good dream.

Damn!

See? Sleeping to CNN not only causes entertaining dreams, but it causes you to dream about dreaming and waking up from entertaining dreams as well.

And I was SO looking forward to meeting Anderson.

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