34 posts tagged “insomnia files”

"everything! everything! everything!" (violent femmes)

facebook is gobbling up the energy/thoughts I would otherwise expiate here. but abbreviated and at the mercies of a larger and less self-selected/sympathetic audience than voxdom, and so I question the wisdom of this time/energy use.

I've been up since approximately 2 (it being now 5:18) at which time the feller came to bed and showed me all the pimping he'd done to my cell phone. with which I take fewer and worse photos than I did with the lower-end LG, which irks me.

I'm definitively not in michigan, where I thought I'd be right about now, probably still driving-- visit determined not needed, so fine-- I'm here, but not really ready to be here, having thought I'd be there-- not ready to go to work today, having thought I'd be taking it off, and yesterday being such a dreadful headcase making me want to avoid the site of such uncenteredness entirely.

among the million things, was called a "cyber stalker", meant in jest almost surely, tho it stings since I'm such a watcher-wallflower and have loathed it for years, dreading those moments when my well-intentioned gaze is unwanted and garners tiny smackdowns-- this tag, I should mention, in the context of fb public wall posts, so the truth of the suggestion clearly compromised, but still. the suggestion of it stinging.

oversensitive overreacting excessively inappropriately awake

hahahahahahahaha: all that I cannot say in fb space and that clangs around the cranium in odd hours. and so I purge it here. and you, if you are reading this, oh lord tread lightly-- lack of sleep and judgment no doubt induces overmuch sharing of insecurity insanities.

and now back to bed, to breathe the air of puppy and fella and try to calm and sleep at least a smidge unto this undesired workday.

I will find myself tossing, one side, then the other side, this position and then another, drifting off, dozing, only to jerk awake with a sharp intake of breath at some shapeless dreaming anxiety. who knows what parts it's due to, thirsty, having to pee, distracted by a change in the weather, blinds slapping against open windowframes-- but eventually I will quit fighting it, wake up, rise, wander the mostly-dark apartment aimlessly, picking up small things here and there, a glass, a plate moved from table to sink, stand staring in a doorway, wrap myself in a throw blanket and sink down on the couch, lie gazing up at moving shadows of tree branches cast across the wall by streetlights, listen to the base thump of a passing car or some random walker's laughter in the night... I think, ultimately, it has to do with the acute sense of life passing, simply and inevitably, right this instant, then this one, and the next, each and every and all of them leafing away and sinking without trace into the well of time-- and the overwhelming urge, desperation really, to do something, whatever, meaningful, resonant, actual, I don't know, just something that makes sense, that serves to tie those passing instants together, to weave them into a thread, wind that towline, and gradually drag myself back up from the vanished depths.

...everything slows down enough. life and heart are like that cup running over, and I have been missing time to reflect and mull. living space continues to be in flux through the end of july, the conjunction of collectors presenting challenges and dilemmas and little bits of wrassling will ("but it's a perfectly good dresser! and it's storage. oh wait, now the front door won't open..."). there have been summer evening strolls by the lake and sand between the toesies, weddings with bagpipes and drums, concert picnics under the stars. there have been burgers at the billy goat and parking under bridges and pelmeni from the skokie market with vinegar and butter and icy sweating gin and tonics and sweet surprises of all kinds. there has been a plague of small but preoccupying health issues and the day-in-day-out of work routine. there have been visits with family and car trips and the thrill of planning actual proper roadtrip vacation. there is booking trucks and burly men. there are secrets and blessings and whispers. there are will-o-the-wisps of temper and mood and aggravation. there is hunting for parking and fireflies in the dusk and swarms of beetles winging six inches over the grass, illuminated by swooping headlights. it is a rich, good life. and the only thing I'm really missing is a coffee date with a girlfriend to just, yknow, blab.

so I decided I wanted to photoshop up a spiffy little "Embassador of Vox" sash for karen, just, yknow, because it's so her (and, uh, yeah, this is the sort of thing I do at 3 a.m.).

so I did a little google image search for a sash image I could manipulate...

and ended up just getting all waylaid-- because sashes are some freaky &$^*(%#@, man--

sometimes I want to have something coherent and profound to say but just don't.

not that that stops me from opening my big gob a good portion of the time regardless. ;)

lately this blog seems to be doing a lot of skating along the surface of things-- mostly pictures and media posts and not a lot of commentary. i should perhaps count this as a boon, as I well know how durned bogged down in words I can get. just that I find it odd, kind of unnatural, like some sort of holding pattern. well, maybe there's a change afoot. isn't there always a change afoot? a foot achange? step-ball-change.

one change is that I'm trying to have less insomnia, because it is insalutary. except here I am, hello, awake. I blame navarone time. well, not really. I blame the cat and also the profound and irresistible appeal of the internet. and also the dog who seems to have figured out how to snow me into thinking he reeeeaaally needs to go out, even at 3 a.m. when apparently he doesn't all that badly.

sometimes it seems my life is one long series of distractions that don't really amount to much. uh huh. like I said, sundayitis.

I was obsessed with this book as a kid-- the haunted houses, the bizarre occurrences of talking animals, the whiff of an underside to this prosaic world. just thought of it.

Strange Unsolved Mysteries

Margaret Ronan

the insomnia knows no time zones.

beginning to suspect I may be operating on navarone time, which could substantially foul up my calculations for a certain device I'm contractually prohibited from discussing. likely as not, documented inconsistency of staircases in my "chicago" apartment building denotes a glitch in the matrix.

meddling with the time-space continuum is no job for sissies.

• wash 5-6 loads at pirate laundromat (braving 100 yds of treacherous snow & ice) done! yeargh!
  
• vacuum house, so that pet-sitting friend is not horrified by squalor and fur tumbleweeds sort-of done-- that is, did not employ a vacuum per se
  
• check flight information for north carolina done
• pack for trip done, slap-dashedly
  
• think up something clever to contribute to blog of navarone story jam regrettably, not done
  
• pick up bottle of herbsaint for most delightful nc friends attempted, I swear, but half dozen places called not carrying
  
• get cash done
• figure out ground transportation to and from airports done, thanks to most excellent friends
  
• pick up coworker at 8:15 corner of lawrence and california done-- well, more like 8:45...
  
• solve certain new product line wallpaper emergencies done and never done
• give animals pets and love prior to desertion done
• consider bank balance and other matters of irresolvable dilemma not done, probably just as well
  
• refuse to look too hard at ongoing Life Questions done!
• do dishes and clean up spilled cat food done!
• remake bed with clean sheets (once washed) not done-- rather, freshly washed sheets dumped higgeldy piggeldy for pet-sitting friend to make bed herself
  
• walk dog done!
• fill up car's gas tank at the cheaper station near work done!
• clean out disastrously untidy car not done-- rather, rendered further disastrously untidy with basket of last-minute dried laundry-- why indeed interfere with a good run of grunge?
  
• lay out clean towels for pet-sitting friend done!
• write note/instructions re: pet care not done-- good thing pet-sitting friend is so ace
  
• um, sleep? not done
• acquire time machine I am contractually bound to silence on this matter.
  

(the upside-- weather in raleigh:

• Today: Abundant sunshine. High 54F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph.
• Tonight: Mainly clear. Low around 35F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.
• Tomorrow: Partly cloudy skies. High near 65F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph.)

sometimes it visits us at odd hours, in surprising guises, sneaking up and tapping us on the shoulder with its groucho marx glasses in place and whispering all sneaky-like into our ears while we're in the midst of doing something totally silly and slapdash... but whenever wisdom deigns to sneak on through, I feel we should make space to acknowledge the grace of its passing. and so. on the tail end of my gazillionth round with insomnia and the latest cl experiment, I suddenly know this: there is no reason on earth that I should waste my good energy, angst or time on people who themselves make little or no effort. whew. the smartest things are damn obvious. and now, I'm going to make friends with my pillow for a few last minutes of darkness. ta ta for now.

twice in the last few days I've had people remark to me on how I'm always moving, work hard, etc.-- this from random  folks who have no real stake one way or another in flattering or insulting or really passing any sort of judgment-- they're just commenting on something that looks weird and noteworthy to them, one of the the samples ladies, one of the shipping guys-- and I'm sure part of it is cultural: I'm a whitegirl, driven by that ingrained protestant work ethic fer shizzle; but part of it is also personal-- I'm just like that-- a few years ago I articulated it for the first time: I have two speeds, Go and Idle. lately I've been spending my downtime in wicked Idle, like seriously-- mostly hanging out in bed, reading, snacking, watching movies, reading and reading some more, snoozing. and then I get up and Go again. lately I've been thinking a bit about how I don't do all of this very strategically or smartly-- I could, say, take some of that downtime and allocate it to rather less down activities, in my own interests, say, improving myself, my station in the world, and so on. I'm quite sure that a lot of other people with my amount of education are working a lot smarter than I am, and this troubles me somewhat, that I runrunrun but not to any particularly chosen or outlined ends, only expending energy and then recovering and doing it all over again. but, too, this is a particular phase-- I am nothing if not superduper phasey. generally speaking, the last few days I've felt remarkably calmer and more peaceful and even happy with the course of my life-- it's nothing that I've envisioned or plotted or planned and it's awfully hairbrained and kind of pointless in some ways and could use some tweaking and tucking, but really, yknow what? it fits. this is the way I am. and it's not all bad. hello, perspective from today.