Found a copy of Blood on the Ice on my nightstand. I’m thrilled. It’s the Slap Shot of hockey writing. Hockey in the seventies, before it was full of grace and Europeans and skills. It was a Canadian game, then. Putting on the foil. Old time hockey. Eddie Shore. Dead history, alright. I didn’t even know I had the book. I’ve never read it. I’ve read Ira Gitler’s book on Be Bop, which is essential for a jazz fan, perfect, but never his Blood on the Ice, which is essential for a hockey fan. That’s what happens when I leave anything on my nightstand. It’s because I fall asleep instantly. People who fall asleep instantly have no idea of what secret treasures lie just inches from the snoring head. Insomniacs have their nightstands memorized. Their ceilings too. And every minute of the day that just passed. And everything they ever could have done in their entire lives but didn’t. People who sleep all night wake up refreshed, their minds swept clean by deep REM sleep. Insomniacs sip their coffee, haunted, and wonder if they should call that old girl friend they had tossed and turned about all night, and if she would remember him, and if she would sleep with him, or if she would call the police.