Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Middle of the Night

I am having sleeping problems.  I have three modes of sleeping: heavy, deep, sleep through loud sounds; entirely too full of nightmares; free of nightmares but restless and unpleasant.

I am currently experiencing the third state.  I was flopping around in bed, messing around on the internet, but I have now moved to the couch so I can type and watch tv without bugging NB.  Though, judging from the snoring I can hear coming from the other room, I didn't much disturb his sleep.

Work is very annoying right now.  Basically, I was promised a promotion by my boss, and then his boss vetoed it and additionally said some not so great things about my role in the organization (as in, doesn't understand what I do or see any value in it at all), which is not great.  So I went from my usual caring a lot about work to being very checked out, but I just can't do it.  Because then I stay awake at night and think about work.  So, I've got to find someway to balance caring enough that I am not stressed about by my atypically slack attitude toward work, but also not stressed out and devoting extra time to work because I am trying to do the most super special awesome job either.  I don't really want my work to make up so much of my identity, but how do people do that when the A) spend a lot of time at work, and B) rely on work for health insurance, paycheck, etc.?  On top of all that, I believe in the work of the nonprofit where I work, and I believe in the work I do to support that, so how do I maintain appropriate distance and balance?  Still figuring this all out.

Tonight I am getting together with some friends for the scary story writing group I mentioned in my last post.  We are supposed to have something actually written tonight.  I have some starts of stories, but nothing great yet.  I was into writing when I was younger (like pre-teen to early teen years), and then got really into acting, which took up most of my creative energies.  I kept that up into freshman year of college, but didn't really replace it with another creative outlet when I decided that acting was no longer the thing for me.  Since then (about ten years), I have done some small visual art things, but I have been much more a consumer of artistic and literary products, rather than a creator of them.  So, I am glad that I joined this writing group, but holy fuck, it is hard!  I am a little nervous, to be honest.  Everyone else is much more experienced than I am and while I know they won't be jerks, I also don't want them to be completely and utterly bored with what I bring to the table.

I am excited that it has gotten all warm out and I am really itching to ride my bike.  NB and I were supposed to go on a short ride and then to the bar after work yesterday, but we discovered that one of his tires was irreparably damaged, so we went for a walk instead.  I just checked the weather and it looks great so I will ride my bike to work today.  I am not very hardcore - I have major respect for people who bundle up a ride regardless of cold or rain, but that's not me, so I am excited for this good weather.  I need to stretch and move my limbs.  I can bike to work more quickly than I can get there via public, so perhaps today I will leave at my usual time, or maybe even a little early, and then use the extra time to go to the coffee shop and read before work.  I've got a couple different books going right now.  The one that is getting most of my attention is The Mind's Eye by Oliver Sacks.  Last year I read The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, which is mostly about individual patients that Dr. Sacks has worked with.  This book has some of that, but also deals quite a bit with the author's own loss of vision in one eye plus a lot about how eyes work and the brain works and how eyes and brain work together.

Alright, I am going to stop breaking the sleep hygiene rule of no computer use and try to get a little more rest.

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