12 missed calls

As was the case during most of the game-changing events in my life, I slept... through a fire; my parents still tell the story of firemen trapezing through the [hotel] room; me dead to the world... college exams; zzzzzzz... through free tickets to the sold-out King Tut exhibit... I've even been dumped in my sleep; the flashy new boyfriend wanting me to walk him to an early train; "If you can't get your ass out of bed...!". I didn't catch the rest of it. Even my 'how we met' story requires inclusion of how excited I was waiting for Michael to call that I kept the phone right next to me- in bed. Of course I fell asleep and knocked it off the hook (remember hooks?). On his end; busy...busy...busy, "Oh, what an asshole!!". I sat on the front stoop of my apt. building [where I first met him] for two days until he walked by again- to [alas] convincingly deliver the lamest story in the history of 'call me tomorrow'. Yet still... there he is picturing me passed out in a gutter with a missing kidney every time I'm out of town and sleep through his calls. '12 missed calls' should be etched on my tombstone. It inspired this haiku; No good thing happens, and the gods plot against me, when I am sleeping. This morning I popped up at 5: something in a gut-churning panic. Sweet Lord, what year is it! It can't happen- I'm allergic to foreclosure! Blearily, I found the right button on the remote..."Barack Obama Elected 44th President". Exhale. It was game-changing in a new way. For the first time in my life something good actually happened while I was surrendered into the arms of Morpheus. I mean it, I thought it was a curse that would follow me past the job a hundred miles away I'm supposed to show up to at 6am tomorrow, through both of my children's weddings to their future first ex-wives, through my Tony acceptance speech (hope springs eternal), to the day when I keep Jesus and my Grandmother standing there tapping their wrist watches in the beautifully lit passage to the hereafter. Jesus:"Does he know how tight my schedule is?". Things I had lost sleep over; North Carolina, Nevada didn't even matter. The grayness of every November 5th in my memory this day seemed 'cheerfully' gray. The last thing I remember is texting a friend in South Carolina to gloat over his state being on the wrong side of history- all the sweeter after being there so many times myself. In the re-telling , I know where I was and what I was doing- even if I can't actually remember it happening.