I keep a half dozen books in the toilet, mostly old autobiographies I've picked up real cheap.
One of the books is by Shelly Winters and I read the part where she meets him at the airport and he's looking "all shriveled up" and she decides he needs ten hours of sleep, since he's nearly starved but for wine he drinks abundantly. So she gives him a little pep talk and nothing but reassuring and encouraging words, so much that he's able to eat eggs and bacon for breakfast and then she "pops a big red sleeping pill" into his mouth and holds to his lips a glass of water. He has no choice but to drink the water instead of choking on the pill. She leads him back to the bed where he's fast asleep in 5 minutes.
That is the passage that helps me get back to sleep.
I imagine in my weary brain that I have my own Shelly, who lovingly pops me a sleeping pill seeing that I'm miserable in my poverty and my desperation. Somehow, this helps me sleep most nights and when it doesn't I have other favorite pages of other books.
I read a biography of Joan Crawford when I get up in the morning. Her self discipline and drive help me face the exciting day ahead of collecting carts and bringing them back into the store.
When I watch Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, I know I'd rather be Jane, an over aged middle aged woman with the reality problems, she really can get into the idea that she's young again, maybe not again, maybe she's just never been old or even grown up. She get to shop for gorgeous dresses while Joan Crawford or Blanche only gets that one dark, dowdy dress.Then again, Blanche is the victim at that point, we don't know until the very end that Blanche really was the instigator.
Baby Jane is a drunk and those looks into her liqueur cabinet show she goes through a huge amount. She does look the part with layers of caked make up.
She plays make believe but doesn't know it isn't real. Best of all she shops for costues and dresses. Oh , I love how she calls to Edwin!
When you have money like her (although it's stolen) you can afford to have an Edwin to your very own and get him to play up to all these fantasies.
I'm on my second half of my pill and my fifth beer and I'll suffer my hangover tonight rather than in the morning which is more accommodating to my job.
Better than that I'll have a little nap to delude reality for a short while.
