Two nights in a row of back-end insomnia. So those one-offs were random just as everything about my insomnia is. I even rode 37 miles yesterday after the first night. But I've already established that exercise doesn't affect insomnia. I'm planning on heading to the gym today, first time in a week, keep it easy.

The effects of insomnia are also pretty random with various amounts of fatigue ensuing, from no noticeable effect to complete zombification. I think the zombification is the only thing physiological when the effects accumulate.

I'm starting to read "Walden" by Henry David Thoreau (pronounced THOR-oh). I don't know why it struck me to read it, but I know how. I was re-reading Maxine Hong Kingston's quasi-memoir, "I Love a Broad Margin to My Life", and she mentions the cabin where much of "Walden" was written. Her title is itself from "Walden", as she explains.

I think I'd easily list Maxine Hong Kingston as one of my favorite authors, and as I don't have a list of favorite authors, she's probably my favorite author. Her "Tripmaster Monkey" is easily one of my favorite novels.

"Broad Margin" was no disappointment, she totally bends the genre of memoir on its head. There's a lot of self-referencing not only her work, but her life, so you kinda have to know that (such as the Oakland firestorm of '91 and that she had lost a nearly complete novel in it), and I do and I'm sure there's still a lot I'm missing.

She then revives the protagonist of "Tripmaster Monkey", Wittman Ah Sing (yes, a Walt Whitman reference), brings him forward in time as an old man and she melds her identity with his and combines his continued (fictional) journey with her own (non-fiction) reflections. Her creativity makes me giddy.

So I don't know what her mention of "Walden" triggered in me, but I went to look for it in the library shelves and found it. Maybe I felt I should respect literature that she obviously respects since I respect her so much. Also "Walden" is considered an American classic, so I'd be remiss to not be exposed to it.

But nothing attracted me to "Walden" before. Never studied it in high school and on its face and on paper, so to speak, it seemed kinda boring.

Well, I just started reading it, and it's not an easy read. It's not written in a style that's aiming to be easy to be read, unlike my way of writing, influenced by law school writing which taught to be simple and succinct. Not necessarily interesting or entertaining, but I try to keep it simple, stupid.

Ironic that legalese is such an incomprehensible, unreadable mess, because that's not what's taught in law school. Actually not so ironic, because simple and to-the-point writing is part of creating legal thinking. But once an attorney, confusion is the name of the game.

But I'm fascinated by "Walden" and I'll slog on. It's not what I expected. Although I expected pretentiously heady and I think I got a little bit of that, already there are parts where I wondered if he wasn't just some punk-ass discontent without any real insight!

He's described as a "transcendentalist", and I suppose that label went over my head. Once described in spiritual terms, it resonated that that's fundamentally exactly what I am. The manifestation may be completely different, but the ground philosophy is the same.