Cozy Cave Confession

I am not a person who always needs complete darkness to sleep, but I do employ several sleep masks for bad sleeping nights. I like the coziness of the blackout darkness when I sleep.
We also keep the heat very low during the night, about 60°. So sometimes I toss on a zip-up hoodie if my pajamas are not warm enough. On these nights, I will pull up the hood, snuggle down under the blankets and pillows and pull the drawstrings tight on my hood so only my mouth and nose stick out. I'm like Kenny-from-South-Park in reverse. Instant blackout mask! And, for some reason, I think there is something luscious about breathing the lovely cold air while the rest of my body is toasty warm and floating on the cloud of bedding and mattress.

Cats are fuckin' insane.

I really could just end the post with the title, couldn't I?
I've always loved cats and dogs, but since my first two cats I had who were solely my pets died, I have yet to meet a cat with that special spark with me. I love my cats, but they are both insane. NCL (pronounced nickle) is Evil Insane. Born of incest and the hardscrabble barn cat life, he's just never been "right." Gertie is a lovely cat and happy to be here, but she's as Neurotic As All Hell. If she were a person, I wouldn't even be able to be friends with her, and we all know how mentally healthy I am, right? Somehow, though, the two of them get along. They stage late night pranks trying to get the dogs into trouble by getting the dogs all riled up and then hiding so it seems the dogs are the crazy ones. They picket our bed every morning demanding their fair share of rations as if they haven't eaten in years, chanting little cat versions of militant slogans. If the had thumbs, I'm sure they would have signs, or perhaps even chain themselves to the bedroom door.
Yesterday saw the last of their food, but I didn't know until it was too late to go buy some and it is still too early to go to the store where I buy it, so right now they are rioting upstairs. I'm not kidding. I hear myriad pounding footsteps as if they were an army of toddlers. I hear things falling, sliding, scattering, strange yowling, meowing, shrieking, litter scattering. And yet when I went up I found nothing amiss and both cats sitting at the top of the steps looking at me as if to say, "What? We're just sitting here. Totally not staging a peasant uprising. My what a pretty neck you have..."
Ten o'clock will not come soon enough for any of us.

The fog creeps in on little cat feet.

For months, I have been excited about a new study the University was going to be conducting on behalf of the Army and NIMH. The original job posting seemed to imply there would be travellers hired in addition to people centrally located to certain bases. The study is close to my heart because of both my own mental health struggles and my respect for our soldiers and my belief more needs to be done to protect their mental health. One of the big requirements for the job was public speaking experience, which I have in spades. The study was postponed so they could revamp a few things and then they reposted the positions. The new posting clearly states that a firm requirement of the job is living within 30 miles of specified bases. None of the bases are anywhere near me.
So the job search I had been half-heartedly conducting while I waited to hear about said study now must proceed in earnest.
The thing is, with no degree and the "gap" of having been a stay-at-home-mother and the tight economy leaving fewer jobs and even fewer people wanting to take chances on unproven workers--like myself--the prospects seem a little bleak. Add to that my unwillingness to go back to retail--oh god, especially during the holidays--and I am, in a word, screwed. (Nearly 25 years of on and off full- and part-time work in retail has left me with a horrible, nasty, disgusting taste in my mouth. After having done "real" and meaningful work, I just cannot go back to that hell.)
Between the health questions swirling around me and this new wrench in the work works and full-on Autumn pounding me over the head with its short days and dead flora...like the poet says, "The fog creeps in on little cat feet." He forgets to say that before it moves on, you need to figure out how to kicks its ass the hell off of its "silent haunches."
Thanks to a few reminders from my bestie I finally bought a light box to try to help with the seasonal aspect of my depression. I have noticed my sleep patterns shifting a bit back towards a normal person's. Maybe a tiny bit more energy throughout the day.... But it is hard to judge its effect on my mood, because I don't know what it would be right now if I were not using the box. Ah, the paradox of the afflicted. Is it me or the "meds?"
For now, I guess, ONWARD! (Meaning not that I might give up on living, but that I may fall prey to total inertia. So here's to one foot in front of the other, y'all.)

I can't fool me!

I have two alarms set on my phone.
One wakes me an hour before I need to get up so I can take my "empty stomach" morning pills. Then I go back to sleep.
The second alarm is so I get up even if I have nothing scheduled. This is so that I maintain a routine even though I am not working outside of the home right now.
Apparently, "sick me" realizes I need to take these pills every morning and they need to be on an empty stomach, but "irresponsible me" says, "Fuck it! I have nothing scheduled today and I want to sleep!" And turns off the alarm without ever waking up.

(And no, the morning pills are not sedating at all; if anything they should help me wake up.)

Like a Laser Beam

This morning I did not go to bed until the men were all leaving for the day. I always marvel at how my men--and I do mean all three of them--can stand around or wander around aimlessly while waiting for others to be ready to leave the house, but as soon as it's time to actually leave, one or more of them suddenly remember seventeen things they need to do. Many mornings, I hear Nate (who drives the boys to school because it's on his way to work) say this: "I'm leaving with or without you." This is after many "clock" warnings and with much impatience, of course.

This is how my men are with many things in life, not just getting out of the house. School projects, homework, cleaning up after themselves, completing chores and errands and on and on. Much "wandering around aimlessly" and a flurry of activity at the end that threatens to derail the whole task at hand.

But if they get a project in their heads about which they are excited. BAM! The "focus laser" comes on and nothing can deter them.

My youngest came home today and proceeded to gather supplies from around the house and work on his Halloween costume for quite a while without getting distracted before he was done. And then? He cleaned up after himself!! Wacky, wild and weird in this household, let me tell you.

Cucumbers smell good, but not as good as madeleines, apparently.

I forgot to sleep again.

I have been keeping vampire hours, but I have also been getting a solid eight hours most "nights." Last night, however, I just never got sleepy. So, once again, I am going to power through the day and hope for an early bedtime. No more than a two hour nap, no later than noon. Last time I tried this I still ended up staying awake until well past midnight and had mild hallucinations, but hey, it's worth another shot. The hallucinations, I mean. I have a TaB, a bunch of lit ginger/citrus candles, all of the downstairs lights on (it's rather gloomy out there today), loud '80s music and the promise of a hyyyyyooooooooge mug of coffee once I hit "Publish Post," so I think I will be good until about 10, when I will definitely require that nap.

I was still trying to read all of the Internet when Nate's alarm went off. I told him I'm halfway done as he made his way to the kitchen to make dinner in one of our myriad Crockpots. (I am the world's worst unemployed wife. I don't ask him to cook, though, he just does, so I guess I shouldn't feel quite so guilty.) He had pureed some mangoes this weekend unbeknownst to me and had taken chicken out of the freezer last night, so this morning he chopped up a few cucumbers and added some other ingredients and we will be having Caribbean chicken with rice for supper tonight.

My whole house now smells beautifully of cucumbers. There have always been cucumbers in my life; it's one of the few vegetables my mother's family seems to like fresh. So I was hoping the smell would bring to mind some writerly musings on my life. Alas, my brain is collapsing in on itself due to its vast emptiness.

I did want to write a short post about a few things I miss from my childhood, but said post will be neither profound nor literary, so I'll save that for later.

And now, WE DRINK. (Coffee...)

Asleep, Awake, Really Awake

I was feeling kind of "blah" after dinner. I think I was worn out from being in and out of the heat all day today. It was the first day of Autumn and it was 90° all day. Pretty hard to get into the "spirit" of the thing while I'm sweating my arse off, but anyway.
So I did the roll-over-and-take-a-nap maneuver at which I always--always--fail. It's not that I can't fall asleep. It's that I can. And then I sleep for too long, just like I did tonight. I woke at about 11 and tried really hard to not wake up any further, hoping to drift back off to sleep and wake up in the morning like a normal person. At 11:17 I had to give up the ruse. I was really awake now. Like, ready to go partying and grocery shopping and jogging (not necessarily in that order) awake.
I did, however, have another of my short dreams which seem to exist only to amuse myself.
In the dream, I had to get an upper GI with a barium swallow. (Don't ask me why; I think it was all a set up for the "punchline.") Now, if you've never had to drink the vaguely radioactive "creamy" barium, I will tell you: it is awful. Truly disgusting. But the manufacturers flavor it to make it "more palatable." It does not make it more palatable. The flavoring may even make it worse. In the dream, the nurse comes in and says, "You can choose your flavor. We have 'Chalk-olate,' 'Vaguely Vanilla-ish,' and 'Sorta Strawberry.'" And then I woke up.
I do think if they used truth-in-advertising names like this (think "Crazy People" ads) that people would not think the drinks tasted as awful. They wouldn't look at the creamy-looking drink and, knowing the woman just called it "Vanilla," expect it to taste like a milkshake, so that first sip wouldn't shock you so much and the rest of the drink might only be half as bad by comparison to the expectations you could have had.
Hopefully, I can trick my brain into fall back asleep in hopes of another amusing--to me, anyway--dream.

Running on Empty

It's 6:31 AM as I start this entry. I have been awake since yesterday morning when I awoke with joints so swollen that I appeared to not have joints in a few places. I took the anti-inflammatory, rubbed on the topical of the same drug, did stretches and moved around. Nothing. By the time the boys came home, I decided it was okay to take a few pain pills, which made me sleepy, but did not lighten the pain enough to allow me to sleep. And I've been on a cycle of pain pills since then; still with not enough relief to sleep. So at this point I will attempt the "just stay the hell awake until dinner" maneuver. Though I may break up the day with a long, warm, smell-good bath and a short nap. I do have to take Ethan for a haircut, so that will force me to not nap straight through dinner and then be awake all night again. Hopefully, this plan will come off without a hitch.