- Thursday, July 17, 2008
Excuses
Work has been busy. Summertime always results in people spending more time being active... some of them making poor choices, sometimes resulting in injury. Aside from work occupying a lot of time, I have not felt much like writing anything.Saturday, retired the batphone (nextel) and stood in line (for about an hour) and purchased an iPhone 3g. I spent that evening (and a portion of Sunday) customizing my new gadget and loading it up with useful goods. On my way to work I have been listening to downloaded podcast (of talk radio I miss out on since I am not driving these days), and while on a lunch break I was able to watch part of a downloaded TV show I missed last season. Next, I plan to get my hands on the episodes of Penn & Teller's Bullshit! that I have missed. Good times.
I saw J the weekend of 21 June. We went to dinner and caught a movie. I tried sushi for the first time in my life and it wasn't bad. I had avoided it up until then, being very reluctant to put anything in the animal kingdom in my mouth in its raw state. After dinner, we went to the early showing of "The Happening" -- which in all honesty I filed under "disappointing". Beware! The Wind Blows! This weekend, if I can break away long enough, I want to see The Dark Knight.
Sleep, as usual, does not come easy, but overall I feel pretty good. I am reading three books right now, and listening to The Tipping Point (Malcom Gladwell), which was recommended by lotek. (I am not sure if he is actively posting anywhere.)
I have not yet purchased the Lunchsense containment system mentioned in an earlier post. My lawn has spawned some kind of brown fungus growth which I am trying to get under control (read that as eliminated). That sums it up!
Labels: batman, shopping, sleep
pero @ 6:46 PM | œ | 0 comments
Please don't wake me.
For the past few months, I have been following a typical (for me) sleep pattern: Lay down between 10:30 and 11:00 - fall asleep within ten minutes. Wake up an hour later (relieve the bladder, wash hands, brush teeth, drink water, go back to bed). Lay in the dark for twenty minutes or more, waiting for sleep.. Start thinking about all of the things that I need to do-- which prevents me from being able to fall asleep again. Roughly an hour later, fall asleep again... waking up a few times to repeat the same pattern, and having extremely weird dreams during the times I do actually manage to sleep. While I was not frightened (but entertained instead) by them, I was disappointed when the dream(s) ended before a solution to the problems were found.
In one of the more recent dreams, I was living in a town which was (?) occupied by a poltregiest --I guess that is what it was. I know that spirits are not likely to "haunt" an entire town, but I don't know what else to call whatever she was. When a person in the town wasted water, she would appear from the water and the person that wasted the water would die. (Combine the freaky girl in Ringu/The Ring and what Lady in the Water could have been as a movie... and you have the basic idea of the dream)."You idiot, ticking noise is the fan. It is stuck again and cannot oscillate. Moron." I got up, fixed the fan, and went back to bed wishing I knew how that would have ended.
I was running around trying to talk sense into (be in control) of the idiot townspeople who would not listen to me. Eventually, four or five of us were hiding out in a house. Water was leaking out of various places (unknown sources from the ceiling, the kitchen faucets, and the fish tank).
Unfortunately, the alarm clock popped on and woke me up before I could finish the dream.
---
In another (pretty amusing) dream, a creature of some kind (Leviathan, The Thing... something large and unseen) was lurking around an old barn.
Whenever a person would eat a poor diet (high sugar/ starchy carb / high fat, high sodium foods) and not work out (be lazy) the creature thing would come out of the barn and hunt them down and kill them (rip them into many pieces). Minutes before the creature thing was "coming to get you", a soft tick-tick-tick could be heard. Eventually, people caught on, associating this sound with the creature thing. The people divided - those that appear healthy outwardly* in one group, and those that were above "ideal weight" in the other.
For whatever reason, people tend to follow the idiot mentality when they get into groups like this. One of the guys managed to get a group of people angry; they were convinced that the creature thing was coming because "THOSE PEOPLE" were "FAT" and that was why it was here. They seemed oblivious to the fact that some of the "healthy looking" individuals had also been killed by the creature. There was no evidence that anything about the person(s) selected being random.
While sitting in the non-group group (of course I would pick the neutral group of seemingly calmer people that appear to have their shit together), I started to analyze my diet and recent choices. I was thinking (in dream, still), that I haven't been working out lately at all. With all of the hours I have been working, paired with being so tired... I just haven't had... no. just haven't MADE the time to do anything once I get home from work. Tick-Tick-Tick. Tick-Tick-Tick. He's coming for you I told myself. Don't endanger the others. Go out to the barn and face the creature thing.
I walked towards the barn's large open doorway, which was very, very dark despite the full moon having provided great visibility everywhere else. I stood with my back to the door, facing the people I had left at the house.
Tick-Tick... My conscious brain then took over, telling my sub-conscious dreaming brain...
pero @ 7:14 PM | œ | 0 comments
Wouldn't You Know It?
I closed my book, placed it on the bedside table, and turned the light off. I closed my eyes and got comfortable. Not more than 30 seconds later, the room flooded with light, and the previously quiet room was filled with the sounds of the alarm clock radio, a fan and the cordless phones emitting their loud BEEPS, alerting me to the fact that they now had power. I had been lying in bed, reading a book about the walking dead with a flashlight, when I decided I was finally tired enough to (try to) go to sleep. There was, afterall nothing better to do.Tonight, after working a double shift, I came home to find that my entire street was in total darkness. No street lights, no lights in any of the homes; only the flicker associated with candlelight in the windows of the neighbors' home. I unlocked my door and walked (cautiously) through the darkness of the living room. "Always be prepared," my subconscious whispered. Yah, whatever.
I made my way to the kitchen and grabbed the flashlight. I was glad to find it where it belongs and that it had not disappeared along with many of my other possessions, that have vanished over the last few years; an extension cord, a Rubbermaid trash can lid, two garden hoses, a lawn sprinkler and my ironing board (which has since been replaced). Flashlight in hand, I was able to (easily) find the many, many candles I keep for just such an occasion.
I am sitting in my living room, surrounded by eight candles between the living and dining rooms, and three in the kitchen. The rest of the house remains dark. I am eternally grateful to have a laptop with a pretty good battery life (around 3 hours), and a mobile phone, since my (non-cordless) phone has not been seen in the last five or six years. I used to keep one for events such as this... I do not know what happened to it.
The dog and cat are excited to see the house in a new light (pun intended). I am concerned about and closely watching the cat to make sure that he does not knock over a candle or set himself on fire. My daughter says it is "like we camping or in the olden days like on 'Little House on the Prairie'". This is the quietest my life has been in months. The only sounds are a distant train, the wooden wind chimes belonging to the people next door, and an occasional car making its way down our dark street.
I have no idea how long the power has been out, or what caused the problem. I do not know if the food in the refrigerator and freezer has had time to become potentially fatal. I am hungry. Extremely hungry. I may go check to see if the food in the refrigerator is still reasonably cold, and take a chance on a piece of leftover fried chicken.
I do know that there is no power on my street (and probably a few others). I cannot publish it until the power is restored, and there is really no place I am willing to go at ten at night to PLUG IN and get on the internet (free of charge). If I was not so tired, I could use my power adapter which works in the car to power my laptop and drive to a house with an unprotected wireless network and park there until everything returns to normal, but that would be unethical.
Labels: sleep
pero @ 11:54 PM | œ | 0 comments
I finally had something worth sharing here, and finally found the time to sit down and key it in. I was lying in bed with my head propped up by pillows and my laptop in place, ready to write something profound. The instant I hit the < enter > key after typing in my user name and password, something happened. It was just like being in the middle of a spoken sentence, and forgetting what you were about to say. The blinking cursor mocked me. The too-bright LCD induced squinting, which in turn brought on a feeling of a need for sleep. I spent a few minutes, trying to grasp the kite-tail of the idea- that had not come easily in the first place- before it disappeared altogether, but I failed to do so.The idea had come to me this morning while I was in the shower. It was similar to the scene in Stranger than Fiction where Will Farrell's character is a character in a novel a woman is writing, and he can hear her narration as she writes her book. A perfectly formed idea in the form of a thesis statement or other statement of purpose. Since I do not have pen and paper near the shower (and because it would probably not prove an easy task to use either while standing under running water), I actually spoke in whispered tones, to myself what I had planned to do with the idea. I sometimes do that, talking to myself, in an effort to help me remember things. "A loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter"...
Several times throught the day, the idea expanded and developed. I was able to remain focused on my job but in between tasks I let the idea occupy my thoughts. I had a plan to write something profound (at least I think it would have been so,) but The very moment I clicked that SIGN IN button and the browser loaded... the concept vanished almost entirely. I only remember that it was based on a childhood memory. I hope that once I give in and allow myself to fall asleep, that the idea comes back to me.
Labels: sleep, writers' block
pero @ 10:44 PM | œ | 0 comments
Don't Go so Soon...
Counting Sheep! Come back, I'm not done sleeping!No matter what time I go to sleep, no matter what I ate or drank the previous day, no matter the state of mind I was in minutes before drifting off; I wake up four or five hours later. If I go to bed at two o'clock in the morning, I wake up at six; if I go to bed at 11:30 at night, I wake up at two. Last night I went to bed at 10:30 and I woke up at 4. Yes, your math is accurate, that last one has an extra hour tacked on to the end. I took a MetaRest just before bed.
I have no reaon to be awake now; no more reason than any of the other mornings that I woke up prematurely. I do not recall any dreams. I did not wake needing to drink (nor pass) water. It would not concern me If I wasn't so tired... constantly tired.
There is nothing on my mind other than:
"So, why am I up at four am on a Sunday?"
Should I remain in bed and pray for sleep... or should I get up and clean the house?
It is going to be a LONG day.
pero @ 4:36 AM | œ | 0 comments
* Here is the lost post from Monday. I am sorry for the delay. Maybe for my next post I'll fill you in on what my computer has put me through this week.
What the?
Last weekend, I finally got around to cleaning out the junk drawer in the kitchen.
When I did I found this:
That is all that it said.
? What does it mean? Why do I have it? What was I supposed to do with it?
I may never figure this out, but I have given it a lot of thought and I have two theories.
Theory #1 - Somebody suggested that I look into these people (maybe they are authors?) and they gave me the wrong spelling for both names.
Likelyhood of Theory #1 being true: Very High.
Theory #2 - I have TDS (Tyler Durden Syndrome).
Written on that scrap of paper are the names of alter egos that I use when I *think* I am sleeping and having strange and vivid dreams. I just might be ruler of some underworld or street gang. (Hey, it could happen!)
Likelyhood of Theory #2 being true: ??
Labels: More Like This, sleep
pero @ 11:45 PM | œ | 0 comments
Good grief I slept past eleven. I never do that when I have not worked the night before.
I've never been one to have a regular sleeping pattern. On nights I work, I go to work around 22:00, and come home around 09:00. I sleep on average four hours, and then I'm awake for the day. On my days/nights off, I go to bed somewhere between 23:00, and 03:00, depending on whether or not I am tired--and sleep anywhere between four and six hours.
Last night, I was up until about 03:30 or 04:00, helping Q with her weblog. She is still trying to find the color scheme she wants to use at this point. Q is my newest html prodigy and is doing a remarkable job. Don't get me wrong they all did great, its just that some of them went the route of WYSIWYG programs and a few actually are learning the source code way. Both work, nothing wrong with either one - it's just good to know the source code to make adjustments if the WYSIWYG has any limitations.
Anyway, I went to bed around 04:00 and woke up once [thanks to a telemarketer] around 09:00. I should have gotten out of bed then. I fell back asleep relatively quickly following that disturbance.
It was between those next few hours that I had the dream. I should have gotten out of bed when I had the chance. If you have any ideas on the dream interpretation let me know; I'd be interested in some opinions. I already used the web-based interpreters, I just want your personal thoughts. I think I might have some deeply rooted issues. [ha-ha]
pero @ 2:11 PM | œ | 0 comments
