In my mind, I can hear some TV talk show house – because I often hear him in real life since by daughter-in-law likes that man I find annoying, Dr. Phil. (He’s not in the same category as Joe Biden, who, I believe, will anytime start actually foaming at the mouth and avoiding water.) I can hear that annoying man asking a question in his cloying accent, not to mention the phrasing of a man who feels “I know better than anyone else how to do/handle/rectify/ ameliorate/ eliminate anything.”

Oh, am I meandering again, distracted by petty emotions? I’ll bet I am. So, on with it. I hear Dr. Phil ask, “And who stayed up very, very late because they were trying to figure something out that is totally not necessary, consequential, or even relevant to your life and is now really sleepy and groggy?”

Oh, Phil, old boy, this time, you hit the nail on the head. I know, you’re so gosh darn good at everything.

I was lying with my eyes closed last night at about 11, after having read for an hour or so, when I happened to remember my mother and my aunt sitting at the dinner table discussing something that had popped up earlier in casual conversation. One of them had referred to some small town soap opera drama that started  before either of them had been born – and, realize my aunt was then in her late 80’s.

My ears had perked up at some implied information that didn’t make sense and I started asking questions. It was the wrong thing to do because, like  math teachers who can’t just tell you the answer, they got involved in getting all the “steps of the proof” in order. And what those steps involved was about four generations of people being related to people they thought they weren’t – but everyone of a certain age knew they were. Those people had names, sometimes they shared the same name and they weaved around and it was inevitable that Mother and my aunt would digress into getting a link just right.

It finally came to the point that Mother got a piece of paper and started making a diagram that went back and forth and doubled back on itself. Somewhere along the line, one of the participants committed suicide, but his reasoning for doing so had nothing to do with “The Secret.” After much discussion, they had it straight and I had followed this trail of, by then, mostly dead people.

Then, last night, as I said, I remembered the lazy afternoon. Only I couldn’t exactly remember it. And then I realized with the online census history and other tools, I could jog my memory. Well . . . yes, but, you know, those census takers weren’t uniformly competent. But I did manage to get most of the characters lined up, but they were floating around, not neatly sitting on a shelf in my mind. And some much history does not contain those incredibly important little tidbits of information just dropped in conversation here and there.

Try as I might, I could not make things fit together – as they neatly had on Mother’s diagram. I was about settled into sleep when I my eyes snapped open and I knew REAL LOUD in my mind that it was Sidney who had committed suicide. This felt like a breakthrough, but it was not at all, although adrenalin had been produced by my body.

I sit here this morning, hungover after a night of puzzle-working with no completed picture to show for it. How, just a few hours ago, could I have been so vigorously alert and ready for Indiana Jones discoveries? Gosh, I guess one of the snakes bit me.