There's a story my parents sometimes tell, of something I said when I was very small -- I think around age 2 or thereabouts. A friend of theirs had come over, and was going down the stairs as I was climbing up them, deep in concentration. They said hello to me, to which I looked up and replied, very seriously and emphatically, "Don't BUG me," then continued on my way. This might be verification of the general suspicion I read somewhere that girls come out of the womb already prepubescent in attitude, but I'm told it was highly amusing.
There are times when it would be useful to have a t-shirt or small sign adorned with that very same phrase. Friday afternoon after a week with very little sleep and waning ability for coherent communication would be one of them.
After work, I had traded in my "librarian look" for the half-librarian look -- now minus my red-framed glasses which had been replaced by my sunglasses -- and had just arrived at the university library. (Yes, even though I'm no longer a student, I am still continuing with research for articles. The university library is your friend.) Some unsuspecting soul -- unaware of how tired and fuzzy brained insomniac me was right at that moment -- walked in behind me as I was pushing my sunglasses up to perch atop my head. The following ensued:
"Is it really that sunny outside?" they ask me, as I'm checking to make sure my cell phone is turned off.
She says pardon? I look up, probably with a half-puzzled, half-pained expression on my face.
"The sunglasses," they continue. "Do you think it's that sunny outside, to be wearing them?"
I check behind my shoulder at the world outside the entrance doors, to make sure I haven't been hallucinating for the last half-hour since I left work. Yup, just as previously noted and experienced. Blue sky, sunshine out to play in all its full glory. Hmmm. Strangely enough, I do believe that this is the very type of day sunglasses were invented for.
Oh, but they continue. "Or are they the 'in' fashion thing right now?"
Exercises in tired self-restraint #1: Refrain from giving mini info-session on weather and appropriate accessories, along with the merits of protecting your eyes from the UV rays and preventing premature crow's feet that can be caused from too much squinting, as one might do when faced with bright sunlight.
Exercises in tired self-restraint #2: Resist sarcastic agreeance that most definitely, it's just a fashion thing, because who doesn't know that sunglasses are just a passing trend? They'll never last past the next issue of Vogue.
It went on from there until I escaped to the sanctuary of the fifth floor of the building, where I had been headed to get a few books for some background research I'm doing about Buddhism in Sri Lanka. As I left, I saw the same person sitting outside, and opted for the tunnel route to get back to my car, heading off any potential for graduation from inquiries about my sunglasses to a full out summer footwear inquisition. I could just picture it:
"Do you really think it's that warm here in Canada?"
"???"
"To wear sandals."
"Umm..."
Meaning, I'm wearing my glasses and my hair is tied back in a knot. (Literally. It's long enough that I can tie it into an actual knot that will stay without any pins or elastics, and I can vary how many times I wind it around before pulling hair through. It's difficult to describe, you'd have to see it. As for the glasses, no I don't wear contacts, I have glasses for night driving, watching small TV screens from far away and occasional use when my eyes are bugging out. I love them though, they have red frames. :)) At any rate, one of my co-workers just came to joke about that and I was all, "No, actually, it's the 'I can't sleep and my eyes are @%)*^ tired look.'"
Is it possible to spontaneously develop insomnia? This week it sure seems like it.
Now, granted, I got home around midnight last night. I'd been downtown with some friends for a going-away for one of them, who is moving to Japan for a year. Still, I should have been able to fall asleep. I even did the Dristan thing I'd done for the last two nights to help. As soon as I laid down, though, it almost felt like an adrenaline rush was happening and then I was just buzzing with energy. This is more annoying than I can possibly put into words. On a weekend night I wouldn't care as much, but on a weeknight when I need to be up and alert for work, it's bad!
I'm thinking I might have to try cutting all sugar from my diet for awhile to see if this is the cause. It's not caffeine, because all my caffeine consumption happens before noon (which, by the way, is usually the grand sum of a teeny half-cup sized mug of coffee, and a cup of tea). Sugar is a weird thing, though. I remember once a few months ago I was awake all night because I'd had a glass of fruit juice a couple of hours before bed. Why? I don't drink fruit juice, not unless I'm out for dinner with someone and it arrives in the form of an ingredient of a cosmopolitan. I haven't for years. It falls into the same category as soft drinks (that aren't merely the club soda carbonated water) -- because I'm not used to having them, they're too syrupy sweet for me, and apparently knock my blood sugar level more sky high than I've ever seen anything else do.
All I can bring it back to is sugar, and I really need to figure this out soon!
A good, hopefully more alert and rested Friday to all.
Sincerely yours,
She Who Should Be Nowhere Near A Computer And Network Drives Right Now
My mind needs an outlet like you would not believe. It has been on constant blah-dee-dee-blah-fnhur-blah-dee-dee for a few days straight. I had three nights in a row where I just could not sleep (until the wee hours of Monday night/Tuesday morning when the thunderstorm happened... of course, that was around 3:30 a.m. and I get up at 6), until finally I remembered to go buy some Dristan on Tuesday evening and have just knocked myself out for the last two nights. That sounds worse than it is -- one extra-strength capsule and sleep comes easily. "I'm not an addict" -- I just have some weird, temporary, derivative form of adult-onset ADD.
There might have been a three-hour shopping trip with Karen.
We might have gone to Kevin and Sarah's Stag and Doe.
I may have been given the karaoke stage name "Skyÿ" by Desoto and Smoky Hamilton.
"Baby One More Time" might have been involved, even though Skyÿ was entirely sober.
I still think the guys' rendition of "Do They Know It's Christmas" wins everything, hands-down.
Also, it is official. I have a crush on Tommy Lee's hair. (Memo to Michelle, Rachel, and possibly my mom: some things, including cool hair fixations, never change. You can stop laughing now.)
An explanation for the rest of you: it is entirely possible that more than a few messages in my high school yearbooks made reference to "cool hair guys." It is also entirely possible that my awesometastic friends often indulged me in scoping out such cool hair guys. So much so, that the term was granted uppercase/lowercase status (Cool Hair Guys) and at some point should probably have been given a ™ symbol.
On that note, I think lunchtime is about over now. ;)
If we could have a thunderstorm every night, I would be the most rested, refreshed, rejuvenated and relaxed person in existence. I'm told last night's storm was pretty spectacular, which confirmed my suspicions -- the crazier the thunderstorm, the better I sleep. I had opened the bedroom blinds to watch the storm as I laid in bed, and was out cold within ten minutes, sleeping soundly until my alarm woke me up this morning.
I can't even count the number of times I've been asked the morning after a storm if it woke me up, as those asking recall how loud the thunder was, how much wind and rain were whipping around, and how the sky lit up from lightning. If a storm starts in the middle of the night, 99% of the time it will not wake me up, but put me into a deeper sleep (so my answer is usually no). I'm not sure why thunderstorms have this effect on me, but I love it. I love watching them for as long as I can stay awake, and waking up the next morning feeling as though I've had the best, most restoring sleep of my life. They soothe my soul.
There are no storms in the forecast tonight, though...
I just finished watching Rock Star: Supernova and oh, how I wish I could thank Dilana right now, because THAT is a cover of "Zombie." It totally smoked the Cranberries' original. Awesome. :)
The best P.P.S. from an e-mail ever, sent to a few of the grad school alum by my friend Kevin (hi Kevin!) about the Hawaiian-themed Stag and Doe he and his fiancée are having this weekend:
"I TOTALLY need you guys there, otherwise no one will be able to point out that our 'Hawaiian' themed party is just an example of orientalism and a colonial mindset that trivialises the culture of the indigenous peoples whose lands we rape and pillage!"
Oh, how I miss seeing the grad school peeps on a regular basis. This is why I lurve them so!
I will report back on what we can find to say about the karaoke. ;)
The secretly sappy side, hidden below the cynicism
Now I know the second reason why I don't watch much TV. In my old age I am turning into a total sap, when it comes to the good shows that are out there.
Seriously? Every time I've ever watched Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, I haven't been able to keep it together. Right this instant is no exception.
I added another chapter to what I call The Binder of Completion today. That felt really good. It was a chapter I've revisited on a few occasions -- probably the one that has given me the most trouble. Finally, with some rearrangement of how things occur in the book, and with some rewriting and editing, I think it's now my favourite chapter.
I always forget how long this process actually takes. It doesn't feel like a long time while I'm doing it, at all, but when I look at the clock and realize that several hours have passed, rather than just one, it reminds me. I have to take things one piece at a time, to not overwhelm myself into thinking I will never be able to finish it. Things all come together when I tackle individual parts bit by bit, toward a polished whole.
I am notorious for writing, then editing, then re-editing, then re-editing again, until everything flows as it should. I'm an unabashed perfectionist, although there are times when I think it would be nice to be more laid back, and not so Type A! Yesterday is a good example of that. When I'd discovered the problems with Gallery and Moveable Type after my web hosting provider migrated my site to its new platform, I had to get it fixed. The Moveable Type issue wasn't apparent to any visitors to my site, but the Gallery problem was glaringly obvious. That's how I ended up in front of a computer for something web-related, when I really did not want to be! I hadn't been all week.
This week I had a taste of what it's like to just use my computer for writing, checking e-mail, and playing a Pogo game here and there. It was definitely nice. There's something to be said for the writing life, for waking up in the morning and brewing a pot of coffee or boiling water for a cup of tea, and spending hours bringing words to life on a page.
I'm in the final hours of my holidays now and doing my usual Sunday night stuff to prepare for the work week ahead. I didn't go to bed (again) until 4 a.m., but got up around 9:30 so I wouldn't be in too much trouble when trying to get to sleep tonight. It's back to real life for me tomorrow, but I'm really glad I had this week to just chill and rest, and to get a lot of writing and reading done.
Times you'd prefer to just throw your computer straight out the window...
It's not the computer's fault, really, I just had no plans to be sitting anywhere near one for longer than the time it took to check my e-mail today. As soon as I post this, I'm departing its company.
Long story very short, my web hosting provider migrated me to their new platform last night and oi. There was a time today that I couldn't even get into Moveable Type to post anything about the funky Gallery php errors that were also going on. 'Nuff said!
In further technological oddities, for some reason I can't dial out to Thunder Bay today... I don't even want to know why that is.
I have spent most of my week happily writing away. :) At one point I'd thought I might drive to Toronto to see some friends and go to the zoo, but the writing took over, and my schedule became a very not normal schedule (going to bed around 4 a.m.), so that didn't happen. I definitely wouldn't mind another week away from computers and the Web!
"Summer summer summertime... time to sit back and unwind"
No one ever told me that historical romance novels are like crack. Maybe by this time next week they'll have returned me to my teenage state of being a dreamy, idealistic romantic. (What? And lose the sarcastic cynicism? Say it isn't so.)
The last two days have been blissful, I tell you. Blissful. Books have been read, writing has been worked on, rollerblading has occurred, and much coffee has found its way into my bloodstream, regular and flavoured. (The coffee, not my blood.) I think tomorrow's forecast includes thunderstorms, which is brilliant. There is nothing like a good thunderstorm to stir my creativity and to have me focus on putting words on a page. There's just something about thunderstorms... I love them. They're different than regular rainshowers to me. They're filled with power, they charge the air, and they're inspiring. (Well, when they're not lulling me to sleep, which is something they can also do.)
I grew up in a city that gets a lot of summer thunderstorms. When I was a teenager, I spent many a summer night scribbling furiously on pieces of paper, stories that when I read now, I can't believe I'd written then. I think I'll always relate thunderstorms to perfect summer nights, to finding just the right words, and to that state of happiness and fulfillment that being completely captured in the writing process can bring.
Pop culture, it's time that you and I become reacquainted...
How did I not know about Jay & Silent Bob Do Degrassi: The Next Generation? If anything was a signal that it's time to re-immerse myself in pop culture, that was it! You only think I'm kidding. Someone told me it was an episode of Degrassi: The Next Generation, and I seriously have to see this. I couldn't stop laughing when I discovered it on the Rogers Video site and read the title and description.
Yay, Friday! I'm on holidays next week, and can you guess what I'm doing? Think the opposite of what I usually do when I take holidays. That's right, I'm not going on a trip! Nor am I working on a paper or defending that paper! Well, I will be working on/finishing two writing projects, one of them being my article, but writing to me in this context is relaxing and not stressful. The point of my holidays is to relax, actually get some sleep, finish these projects, go rollerblading hopefully every day and do a lot of yoga, read chick lit and romance novels and Alistair MacLeod's No Great Mischief for good measure (I can't entirely abandon my love for actual literature, you know!), and in general, rest up and recharge and enjoy summer while it's here. The fall is gearing up to be very, very busy -- enjoyably so, but I'm going to need all of my energy.
I went for a nice, long 'blade last night. I'd almost forgotten how much I love rollerblading. When I was little, you couldn't keep me off rollerskates. I'd also forgotten how many different muscle groups it works, which is excellent. I feel really good today, with lots more energy than I usually have first thing in the morning.
Every once in awhile, I'll wake up wishing I was tall and voluptuous. Today is one of those days.
So instead I go out and buy really tall shoes with four-inch heels/platforms that make me all of 5'6 (woo-hoo :P) and peruse the Victoria's Secret catalogues. Well, their Angel bras work. But still. There are days where being little and "cute" (quoting those who call me this) wears thin. Those days are usually when a very striking, very tall and model-like woman who works a few floors below me gets on the elevator. (Yes, this did just occur.)
And now I will eat my muffin and hope that some of it goes to the right place, even though I am 26 and that isn't happening. La la la.
Yes, yes. Grateful to be healthy and have full use of all my muscles and limbs, and to be at the low end of the BMI, God bless genetics. But it's morning, and morning and I do not get along.
(Or, "If I go crazy then will you still call me Superman?")
Last night I went to see Superman Returns with a friend, which was fun both because 1) I haven't seen her in quite awhile, so it was muchly cool and enjoyable to; and 2) if you didn't know me during the first several years of high school, well, I seriously lurve me some Superman. To say I was a Lois & Clark addict would be putting it mildly.
The film, it brought that all back. I was riveted to the screen from the very beginning. And even though the entire Superman series of pretty much anything involves some gaping plot holes and requires suspension of disbelief... I still adore it. I'm sort of sad that it will be months before Superman Returns will be available on DVD.
And, in a weird way (yet not so weird when I think about it, although it could take me pages to explain)... in the middle of the movie, I suddenly had this flash of writing work itself out in my head, having nothing to do with the movie I was watching or Superman at all, but something pertaining to the novel. When that happens, it's just incredible. It makes me very happy.
I also realized that HEY CHRIS CARTER & CO., we need another X-Files movie now!
The biggest realization, though? Of last night, and this weekend? How much I love my "dork" stuff. Last night was the perfect night for me -- time with a friend involving a trip to the bookstore, grabbing some coffee from Starbuck's, a movie (specifically, a Superman movie), words of writing forming themselves in my head... earlier this week was cool too, just being nestled amongst pillows, wrapped in a blanket, reading a book. I love this kind of stuff. Downtown (clubs/bars in the Market, or along Elgin) I could take or leave, and really, I prefer the second option. Downtown really isn't all that fun for me, and I know sometimes people have a difficult time understanding that. The things I like though, these are the things that make me who I am, and are where I'm most comfortable being and what I most enjoy doing.
The new design is now up, for the most part. There are still some things I'll need to tweak (gallery, final blog look, revisit the new bio which was written pretty quickly, etc.), but not this weekend!
I'm really excited to have this up, even though it is a very wee hour of the morning. Now, I'm off for the rest of the busy, fun, Canada Day weekend. I hope everyone has a fantastic time -- and if you're not in Canada, just have a great weekend in general. :)
