Aidan stretched up, her paws on my shoulder, warm nose poking at my cheek. With winter's cold already here, she has moved into über-cuddle mode. Cute, but annoying when I'm typing on the laptop and she worms her way up and across my chest, like a furry Gollum.
Acute readers might notice that I'm typing this when I'd normally be at church. Call me a slacker, tell me I've gone to the dark side, whatever. I decided to help small children capture a bit of the excitement I felt when I was little. (Also, I snuck a peek at the art at church when I was there this afternoon & decided I didn't want to go and be told to feel guilty.) So far I've had about 15 kids (and the adults from next door) stop by. The surprise of the night is that gum is far more popular than Snickers bars. The 20 packs of gum are gone, but there are still 8 of the 15 Snickers left. Just as well that they're left over, since I don't chew gum. The little monsters (and princesses and cats and giraffes) have 14 more minutes before I shut off the porch lights.
For those of you wanting an update on my sleep problem: I'm tired. It's 7:17 and I'm tired. This after a weekend where I didn't go to bed on Thursday night until 5 am on Friday, stayed up until 2 am Saturday and about 1 on Sunday. Lack of sleep and little food (because I don't eat when I'm sleeping so little) meant that my low alcohol tolerance dropped even lower. 1/3 of a drink (granted, a VERY large drink) and I was tipsy enough to be glad I wasn't driving. I spent the night in Colleen's spare room and enjoyed the opportunity to just hang out with girls this morning. I feel like I don't get to do that very often, at least not without specific plans and a cross-town drive. A massage from Marlene this afternoon also helped me feel better. After Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and Disgruntled Housewives, I'm heading to bed.
I am exhausted. Empty. Tipped over, spilled out, and shaken to remove the last clinging drops.
Sleep has not come easily this week. What little sleep I have is disturbed by dreams - one night I woke after two death/murder/danger dreams and felt upset all day. I cannot fall asleep easily. Last night it was after midnight. I then woke around 3, hit snooze from 6:30-7:30, and managed to drag myself to work only 15 minutes late. No time for a shower, so my hair looks gross.
I've always been a night owl, but this nocturnal schedule has shifted and I don't know why. I can't really think of anything I am doing differently these days; no 6-packs of Mountain Dew right before bedtime or anything like that.
Perhaps it's the depression? When it gets unbearably bad, all I do is sleep, but perhaps this is the pre-sleep stage? I was going to make a doctor's appointment for tomorrow but... well, I just never got around to it. Last night I did manage to find my insurance card, which was a big enough victory. Maybe next week.
Other things I haven't done this week: cleaned the litterbox, picked up my crap from every flat surface in the house, listed the things on eBay that I need to sell before Christmas, tracked down whether I missed Sue's birthday (bad friend! no biscuit for me!), blogged.
I feel just as unproductive at work. I think I've accomplished very little this week. My concentration is just shot to pieces. I can't focus enough to sit down and pick out color schemes or hunt my boss down to make him answer my questions. Spider Solitaire is about the limit of my abilities, quite honestly. Lunch will be over soon and then it's 4 1/2 more hours of filling a chair.
It doesn't help that this week my body is shouting "breed! breed!" and I'm just about ready to tackle any available man who passes near me. I will start to work on a project (a website, eBay, new career options), only to have my thoughts go zinging in a gazillion different directions. And then I might as well just give up and watch ElimiDate & read, because nothing else is going to get done.
But mostly I'm tired.
No, not that kind of beaver. Get your minds out of the gutter.
Today I: slept in; cuddled with the cats; sat in front of the sun lamp even though it was so bright that my eyes hurt; went to the library; had lunch at India Palace; sent emails to several clients; picked out paint chips for my bathroom, my brother's living room, & Colleen's dining room (surprise!); tried to buy a dryer vent brush, but the hardware store didn't have one; finished stripping the last wallpaper from the bathroom; fixed the bathroom window*; and started chipping paint from the bathroom radiator.
*The top sash of the window was painted stuck, but in a lowered position, so that there was a 2-inch gap at the top. I'd never been able to fix it, so I just put duct tape over the gap & then taped plastic over the window. This has worked for 2 years, but I decided I should try to fix it since I was fiddling around in there anyway. Success! And I discovered that there are 6 layers of paint on the window frame! That will be fun to strip. I'm not the first to think of painting the room pink, it appears.
Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me. - Psalm 42:7
I have been thinking about different kinds of grief, and how some of it comes upon you suddenly, like a tidal wave, suddenly overwhelming you, while other grief is more like the steady ocean tides, wearing you down to tiny grains of sand with constant motion that never goes away.
My grief is the ocean tides, relentlessly scuffing me away one layer at a time with longing for things I may never have. The way things are going, I don't see how it will ever leave me. Tidal wave grief must be the sudden loss of something you have (at least in part).
I wonder which is harder to deal with?
On another note, I was truly shocked today to receive an invitation to a birthday party and see my name tucked right in there with all these women I consider "the cool people." After spending most of my life with only one or two friends at a time, I am still taken aback by the knowledge that people like me, despite the fact that depression often seems to get the upper hand and my jeans size is several larger than I'd like.
A few days ago I picked up an assortment of produce at Rainbow. The poor guy at the checkout counter had no idea what most of it was. To his quizzical look I replied "Parsnips. P-A-R-S-N-I-P-S." I guess there isn't much demand for them these days, even though Rainbow had an abundance, both loose and pre-bagged. Perhaps I should have told him they were albino carrots?
Parsnips rolling merrily down the belt, he successfully identified beets (with some help from the attached label). Squash was a bit harder; I had to come look at his list of squash types to tell him which it was.
Yes, I have become the person that all the checkout folk dread. They will tremble in fear as I approach, wishing I would just pull out a few boxes of Cap'n Crunch and a frozen pizza or two.
For dinner, I roasted a big pan of parsnips, yam, onions, and beets with olive oil and sea salt. Mmm. Today I had leftovers for lunch and I'm looking forward to finishing it off tomorrow.
Perhaps this is the perfect food, sensuous in so many ways: the velvet texture of yams as they fall apart and dissolve in my mouth, the tang of olive oil, the breathtaking crimson woodgrain-like patterns on the beet that were revealed as I peeled it (holding it in my stained hand like a cool heart). I wanted to spend the whole night just standing there in the kitchen, peeling beets and reveling in the color.
I was just told that the big freelance project has been indefinitely postponed. Sigh. At least I knew enough to keep myself from being too excited about it. The extra money would have been very nice. I have a potential roommate in the works, though, so maybe that will offset it a bit. (A very little bit, but every dollar helps. I just cancelled my garbage service & am splitting a trash can with my neighbors to save $3/month.) This weekend I'm going to go through the house and find stuff to sell on eBay.
My mood is low, for numerous reasons. I don't have the energy to go out and mow the grass. Plus, it's cold. I spent the whole day shivering in my office, my hands so chilled that they hurt. Maybe I'll do it in a few days when it warms up. My body wants to hibernate - I've been tired & ravenous all day.
I just spent almost a week in Vermont, hanging out with my delightful niece Catherine (and her mom & dad). At almost 5 months, she is fascinated with faces and mimics everything I do. She can roll from her back to front, but not the other way around. She cries when she wants you to read her a book.
I love this kid.
Vermont was beautiful, with crimson and gold leaves sprinkled through the green. Each morning I looked out my bedroom window at the distant mountains, wishing I could see them from my room at home. It was so quiet and so beautiful - just such a different life than I lead here. I have adopted a bit of their early-to-bed, early-to-rise lifestyle, going to bed early every night this week and waking by 6 or 6:30. Yesterday I was in the office at 7:20! Who knows how long this will last, though. Perhaps I'm just worn out from travelling and fighting off either a cold or allergies.