Sarcomical

The Mysterious Case of the Returning Zonk

Well, as I sit here becoming a bit eyelid-heavy just before 10:30pm, I'm left confusedly yet happily grateful. Considering the nature of my last post detailing the misery - OH THE MISERY - of my perpetual (years, years, years) insomnia which had recently reached chipmunk-on-speed levels of debilitating alertness, I'm left only able to guess at what has happened to suddenly give me the gift of feeling a little bit more human again for over a solid week so far. And now, I'm not only getting to bed at a reasonable hour, I've also been getting up naturally early, which IS BEYOND BIZARRE for a girl for whom hitting the snooze button for an hour at a time or being completely oblivious to a herd of elephants is nothing short of typical.

Here's how this all came to be...I think:

I retreated into an information semi-blackout for just over two weeks from before Thanksgiving until last weekend. This, I believe, helped by eliminating a lot of anxiety-ridden pressure I usually numbingly obsess over. I didn't worry about writing, photo editing, replying to emails, keeping up with news or any of the things that make me feel guilty when I know the pile of responsibility has barely shrunk.

I also had just come off a very unhealthy snippet of not sleeping for about 72 hours straight, which I can confidently say is not a lot of fun unless you enjoy thinking you see shadowy figures sitting next to you out of the corner of your eye who disappear when you face them directly.

Just after this, I spent about 2 or 3 days napping during very odd hours, and I continued my hermit-like aversion to the outside world. All I knew was that I was EXHAUSTED and for once I was choosing to listen ONLY to my body and ignoring my pesky, trouble-making mind.

And then, I woke up one of those days, stayed awake for a reasonable amount of time, and wonder of wonders I found myself actually yearning for my pillow instead of feeling the typical agitation I have battled for years when it comes to dragging myself into the bedroom for hours of sleepless torture. I didn't feel that familiar urgency to stay awake and...WHAT, exactly? There has never been a logical reason for me to stay up beyond the bounds of sanity. I would rarely get anything of value done in those hours anyway, yet I felt the anxiety of needing to do something...that I was trying to catch up on something I'd failed to accomplish during the day. Or maybe I was MISSING OUT on something, some feeling of satisfaction or peace. I certainly wasn't missing anything good on television. Trust me, after 2am you just hate yourself more and more as the Roseanne episodes pile up.

I'm not really sure how long this will last, but I'm doing all I can to not fall into the old trappings of restlessness. I am hyper-vigilant to take notice of my first inclination to be sleepy and LET my mind rest.

Mr. Sarcomical's theory?

"Maybe it's like when Superman had to circle the earth really fast to make time move...maybe you finally stayed up long enough that you circled back around your body clock."

Yeah. Maybe.

No Rest for the Bleary

I have become quite possibly the world's (or at least the county's) most heinously ill-adjusted sleeper. Honestly, I thought it was bad enough when 2 or 3 a.m. became the standard, but lately it's become increasingly common for me to go to sleep around the time the annoyingly chipper local sunrise newscast begins. I then sleep about 4 or 5 hours, and the cycle begins again. Maybe it's partly exacerbated by the fact that Mr. S. is frequently out of town, and that I don't yet have any children to weaken my will in the daylight hours. This doesn't happen every night, but the occurrence existing at all is...well, to say the least...irritating.

Anyone not new here already is aware of my night owl tendencies. However, I'm starting to wonder if the only solution to this increasingly sub-human situation will be circling the clock entirely until I end up back at normal.

I'm aware enough to understand that for me this probably isn't actually a *sleep* issue, but a result of the spinning top that is my brain activity. 'Round and 'round she goes...where she stops, nobody knows. It's awful and true. I once heard that often insomnia (on the FALLING asleep end) is a result of the anxiousness created by not feeling as if you've accomplished enough during the day. Maddeningly, I know full well this is my main source of sleeplessness. Yes, I KNOW this. I'm continually battling my flawed sense of discipline and overzealous imagination. I could not be more disgustingly aware of this. And yet...

I am awake.

What sort of things am I doing between the hours of 2 and 6 a.m. on these unfortunate days, do you ask? What could possibly be worth staying up that long if one is not required to, hmm? Well, the answer to the second question is NOTHING. NOTHING IS WORTH IT. But to answer the first question...

Working Out:  No, it doesn't look quite this rad when I do it, but I have been known to unfurl the yoga mat and pull out the resistance band and weights a time or two well past midnight. Hey, if I'm going to be awake, I might as well use the time edging closer to getting into every one of my pairs of skinny jeans, right?

Watching Old Movies:  I often turn to classics to soothe my mind in those wee hours. Of course, I'm also more susceptible to achey swooning and resenting my birth date while watching my beloved Jimmy's withering gaze. Throwing in a bit of Redford's "Barefoot In the Park" buttoned-up rwawr doesn't hurt, either.

Writing Scribbling:  I seem to think I am blessed with strokes of brilliance during the wee hours. Unfortunately, little of substance is written, and much of my GENIUS is relegated to the width of Post-Its, or scribbled on notebooks spread throughout the house. So...yeah, that's pretty productive. It ends up looking much less THIS...

...and much more THIS. 

The Internet Time Suck:  I don't think I have to explain to any of you how this one works.

Reading Until My Eyeballs Fall Down:  The effectiveness of this is directly relative to the quality of the book. The problem with this is:  Big Ta-Dunk of a Book = Zzzzzz; Delicious Book = Voraciousness. Frankly, I don't think I can make myself read a snoozer just to bore myself into a coma. However, even a good book will eventually get me to the land of Nod if I'm at least in the bed.

Editing, Re-Editing, Editing:  Of course, as a photographer and debilitating perfectionist, I can get easily swirled down the soapy drain of tweaking photos for hours upon hours, and if I'm not careful I'll end up with 5 versions of each photo. This is a particularly dangerous task to take up in the middle of the night, because critical thinking is simply...well, simply squat. And after more than 4 hours editing, I begin to look slightly crazy.

Doing THIS:

(feed reader folks, there's a video here)

Writing This Post:  So, you see, if any of this seems disjointed or babbling in nature, there is a perfectly logical explanation.

Oh, people, people, people. I have tried hot tea with milk (decaf), shutting my eyes and waiting (does. not. work.), pre-bedtime bubble baths (pleasant, but not magical), Unisom (made me doped & dizzy the entire next day), relaxing music (annoyed me), white noise (less annoying), melatonin (noticed little if anything), working out like a crazy person at night (okay, this works a little bit)...the only other thing I can think of is to do each of these together and desperately hope they create the perfect storm of exhaustion that will not merely make me sleepy, but make my brain WILLING to take me to dreamland.

Insomniacs, holla.

One Way or the Other...

*psst - i am currently culling over 500 photos from our week in new york city and getting ready to tell you all about my trip in the place i would like to marry or at least have some babies with. until then...

Here's what I've noticed.

There are a number of similarities between the way I behave when I've had a tumbler of coffee too late in the day and the way someone behaves (not me - NOT ME, of course, oh my silly pet hahaHAAA I don't do that...ahem) when "they" have imbibed a bit more than a wee glass of wine. How so, do you ask? (THAT'S RIGHT, YOU'RE ASKING; YOU KNOW IT, DON'T DENY IT.) Well. Allow me to count the ways:

1. I talk a little faster (yes. faster.)
2. I want to call or email every single person I know.
3. I believe everything I'm thinking is rather brilliant and write down little notes all over so that I don't forget to expound upon the most creative thoughts ever thought by a human the next day. In either case, I wake typically only to find cryptic and disjointed messages, such as "kick in the butt along with other factors", "Jimmy - speed it up", "cynic. perceptive. true." and "balloons so the boxes float". (These are of course examples, heh-heh, of, you know, POSSIBLE things I would write down, uhh...purely hypothetical and not just gathered from a stack of post-its in my desk drawer..nooo way.)
4. I chat up my dogs a lot. No, A LOT.
5. I concentrate intensely with great physical might to ensure I appear completely in charge of my faculties, i.e. "no, no, I'm not hyper/tipsy, I'm totally calm/sober you see, because caffeine/wine doesn't really affect me and LOOK how deliberate all of my movements and thoughts are, no jitters/slurring!"
6. I make very unfortunate food choices (as in, YES I think I need that burrito the size of my foot, please).
7. I'm pretty sure I can feel my body vibrating a little.
8. I begin to lose my fear of singing in public. Or, at the very least, want to do it quite loudly while alone.
9. I find myself giggling. It can become annoying.
10. I start to consider both HSN and QVC unironic and even slightly soothing television viewing choices.

Fuzzy

"There is nothing worse than a brilliant image of a fuzzy concept."  -Ansel Adams

It's become clear to me over the past two weeks or so that I've approached an unavoidable crest of decisive moments in a few areas of my life. It's not that I find this daunting; I actually am grateful for the will to even make determinations in light of the fact that my soul had been laying low and soft for a long time, zipping up inside of itself just enough to allow me to function on auto-play, get through days without experiencing any loss or disappointment or bare-naked vulnerability. Yes, I've been often tucked away on the other side of the wall over the past year and a half, and have peered out from the mouse hole during the last few months to observe the action bustling about in this bright room, and I want to do more than warm my face in the sunshine and then scurry back to the hideout.

One thing I'm most happy to see re-emerge is my intention to allow myself to feel the fear of journeys I've wanted to embark on for a long while. I'd convinced myself that I didn't care what I was doing or where I was going in my life, because things had spun so out of my own control that my defense mechanism flipped into hypersonic mode and told me to go numb. Numb. I can't stress strongly enough how destructive the state of numbness is to a person's spirit. Sometimes, the brain doesn't know what else to do with information or circumstances that are too intense to bear; it's a part of our chemistry. But left to burrow and nest unattended, it will smolder the soul in a cloud so black and so acrid that it will choke out even the desire to emerge from it.

Freeing myself has largely been a task I have borne alone. I don't have a large social circle from which to draw support and there is no family member I have the type of relationship with currently that lends itself to that sort of sharing. Mr. Sarcomical has at times tried his best to be supportive, but his own personal struggles and a schedule that has taken him frequently on the road often has limited what he can provide in terms of accountability and active encouragement. Sometimes when both spouses are working through individual difficulties, it's like two people treading water. You have to start kicking your own feet or you'll both just be going nowhere and running out of breath.

I am kicking as hard as I can.

I am going to dive back into some parts of LIVING I've all but abandoned - experimental cooking, getting messy and making objects with my hands, writing every day, having a sleep schedule FRIENDLY TO HUMANS, etc. I'm going to rely on a lot of physical exercise to be my antidepressant drug; it's something I've come to realize is unavoidable for me at this point. But hey, bonus! NICE ASS, which I think I can live with. I have to let go of the guilt of feeling so far a disappointment to anyone who ever nurtured my intelligence or talents. I have a personality which naturally hesitates at hint of failure, smack talks itself out of going after a frighteningly wonderful opportunity. The cyclical thinking which allows someone to stay stuck in Numb is ridiculously simple for me to slip into. But if I can each day do ONE thing that excites me even a little bit, or take ONE step in the direction of something I intend to be, I can be confident that my soul will be able to breathe easy. Emerging from Numb is an incredibly difficult process, but I don't need to worry about making it all look perfect.

I can be a fuzzy image of a brilliant concept.

I will put the hurt on you (a bedtime nightmare)...

The other night, as we were getting to bed and the dogs were assuming their regular positions (Lucy & Ricky on top of the bed, Shiloh under it), I crossed the room from my closet and saw something that troubled me greatly. One of the middle support casters under the bed was leaning crooked.

There is a good chance you are possibly already saying, So what? What a stupid thing to worry about. It's not like they are actually bearing the brunt of holding up your bed or anything; it's not like the entire unit is going to collapse; it's not like your bed will split in two...your bed sits on a wooden frame, those frakking wheels might as well be ornamental.

This is basically what my husband was trying to tell me.

However, what I heard was, That caster is the only thing keeping this bed one piece; it is the only thing standing between you and wood-splintered carnage. This bed is going to crr-reak in the middle of the night, and before you realize what is happening you will crush your dog with the very weight of your own selfish, too-busy-to-stop-and-fix-the-vitally-important-caster lumps of flesh. You will crush him and he will die and also you will have to move because how could you continue to live in a house where you killed your dog with your stupidity and carelessness and OH also your body weight? Now, GET UNDER THERE AND FIX IT YOU LOSER!

And so, because I could not be swayed with reason OR cookie bribes, I got down on the floor, sat facing the errant metal leg, braced myself on the carpet, and pushed it back into place with my foot. Aha, sweet safety.

EXCEPT.

Being down on the floor allowed me the opportunity to see the more precarious and more threatening BACK caster. It was practically making a right triangle with the floor. This was unacceptable. THE HORROR MUST BE PREVENTED! Of course, this meant I got down on my stomach and shimmied toward the middle of the underbelly. Now, mind you our bed is quite heavy, being an oversized King, and I could not get myself enough leverage to pull or push this leg back into place. Could you go lift that side of the bed up a little? I implored from under my one-foot prison.

This did not help.

And now, I was battling not only the goddamned caster but also my inner Freakoutometer, which was threatening to bubble and smoke as the floor seemed to begin pushing me tighter and tighter against the roof of my tiny compartment. Be cool, I thought. Just be cool. And I WAS cool. I managed to spin myself around underneath the bed and get myself in a position where I could brace my feet and puuuullllll. Voila! Straight as an arrow. And now...to simply get out. I started to wiggle backward and try to un-twist half-inch by half-inch, like some rewinding earthworm.

This was where my husband for some reason decided it would be a good time to ask over and over Can you get out? Can you get out? Can you get out? and I consequently told him to shut up!!! shut up!!! are you kidding me shut up!!! before I lost all memory of how to breathe correctly.

Yet somehow, as I clawed my way toward light and life, I was able to form this thought:
When I get out of here I am going to kick you in the kneecaps.

A Salute to the Culture of Oversharing...

We love to see the bloopers.

When I get a DVD, which - come on, what with DVR? - is pretty rare these days except in the case of my favorite television sitcoms, I look most forward to seeing the outtakes - the bloopers. I like the idea of knowing how a character is supposed to respond, then being let into those moments when it all goes to hell and an actor breaks character. I like seeing how that person really laughs, how they naturally react after they've made a mistake.

We love to see the bloopers. We enjoy the imperfections.

Sometimes I ask myself why I slowed down my writing here so drastically in the past year or so. I ask myself why I stopped blogging regularly about the mundanities of my life, even though I was able to make you laugh through much of them. The truth is, you aren't the only one subjected to my self-imposed cut-off. Let's just say I developed a distrust of the safety of sharing and of embracing others into my "world", and that's something that I have been wrestling with a lot over this time. 

Accompanying this depression-slash-hermitage-slash-intense level of MEH-ness, grew a general crabbiness each time I tried to sit down to write. The truth was, all that was really going through my head was the mishmash of how I was trying to unravel my own confusion and gain some deeper understanding of my life events, my purpose, my direction, my my MY ME ME ME blahblahblahblech. I really grew exhausted of subjecting this space to what I felt was merely becoming a virtual spewing of self-therapy. And I thought, after FIVE years here, is this all I have to put 'out there' again? I'd really rather be be making you all insanely jealous with some kick-ass project I was taking on or bragging about my clumsy yet successful completion of some marathon or at the very least come off as the Über Sexy Confident Mastermind Take Charge of the World Creative Genius I wish I felt like.

In all fairness, I bet some of you would have really liked if I had borne the discomfort and written it all out anyway. Not that I haven't read about someone's struggle or heartache and felt intensely grateful for their ability to share, their adeptness at putting into words something that I myself had felt yet been unable to clarify so well. The fact is that some of those moments deeply define and even cement our relationships online; that's part of the inescapable nature of this culture of virtual friendships and stranger adoration.

We love to see the bloopers.

If I had been writing more during this time, I would have probably told you about feeling abandoned and betrayed by people close to me, about our dealing with my husband's diagnosis as a diabetic, about feeling inadequate in my talents, about turning into a vapid lump for long periods of time, about compartmentalizing to the point of numbness, about our first concerns regarding the possibility of children in our future, about reawakening, about making new friends, about almost auditioning for a musical, about INSOMNIA DEAR GOD, about yoga's amazing and strange healing, about a quest for mindfulness, about having to induce a little brown chihuahua to...er...regurgitate the ear of a plastic teddy bear and crying guiltily the entire time, about taking on special photographic projects, about learning to say the word "photographer" without a self-deprecating shoulder shrug and a ready dismissal of my abilities, about my hair finally growing to bra-strap length and the trip to the stylist who ripped out about a 1/4 pound of it with her fingernails, about our desire to move ANYWHERE but here, about new dreams of writing and creating...

As I grow past this shedding of skin, yet another stage of life that I suppose I have had to go through as part of my experience...my desire is to make myself Write It Out whether I feel the muse slap me against the head or not. I want to be more wildly open with you again, if only to be more wildly open with myself. Perhaps I'll even tell you the next time I crack open the door of a theater, peek around the velvet curtain just inside it blocking out the sun, barely view some young beauty in a sweatshirt reminiscent of Fame chatting up some guys, and turn & run like hell back to my car with my Singer's Anthology to drive away and get a giant self-loathing Oreo Blizzard from the Dairy Queen drive through.

After all...we love to see the bloopers. We enjoy the imperfections.

asteroid? no thank you.

I'm sure that at least by now you have heard the (disturbingly? I mean HELLO) tiny mentions of the asteroid that missed sideswiping Earth by a decidedly UN-funny margin last week. I do realize that in the grand scheme of the universe, perhaps this was not as massively uncommon or unlikely as I like to pretend it is, but bear in mind that this is a girl who starts to verge into anxiety attack territory when she pauses to seriously contemplate the possibility that she could be hanging somewhat upside-down (or at least sideways) from the planet at a given moment.

Oh, yes, you read that right. I can talk myself momentarily out of my faith in gravity.

It's understandable then, no, that I might get a little twitchy when I, say, do the search to find that link up above and in the process come upon animated satellite images of the earth's tilt changing in a fashion and speed I do not find pleasant.

Also not in the cheerful tidings department, did you catch in that first CNN link how the guy indicated that "oh yeah, there are totally official-type people designated to be on top of all of that HURTLING, MONSTROUS, SPACE ARTILLERY" - lots! of people! looking years & decades ahead! - and yet he just happened upon said Not Tiny asteroid LAST WEEK???

I was not comforted by this information.

Oh, and also. Apparently we have been discovering them more and more, nearly 100 each year. (P.S. - for the love of God, do not type "asteroid 2036" into Google unless you really want to dwell on some unsavory material.)

But listen, I'm not here to be an alarmist...as nervous-handkerchief-waving as this entire entry may seem to have been. Despite my uncanny ability to get worked into a fizz over outer space, deep water, suspension bridges, and The Shining, I don't honestly live my life in fear of things. And really...I'm sure this asteroid-careening business has always been this way. We just didn't know about it. 

...aaand one more point for Ignorance!

Now If My Ass Would Actually Respond to Such a Task...

There was a night last week during which I felt SO wired and a bit anxious SO into the wee hours, and needed to get up somewhat early, that I was practically desperate to calm my breathing, relax and slow down my spinning & whirring brain. So I decided to try imagining myself doing something else, focus only on that mental image, and hopefully finally fall asleep. Kind of like sometimes when you try to picture each body part relaxing at the end of yoga.

I decided to picture in slow detail that I was getting ready to go for a walk. (As I said, desperate.) Ideally, I would have mentally put on my tennis shoes, walked out into the garage, opened the garage door, stepped outside and enter the code to close the garage, then head out down the sidewalk.

Slight problem.

My concentration sucks to a high degree of suckitude, even at times during the day. This little nighttime experiment wasn't going so well. I told myself that any time my mind wandered even to the tiniest degree from the imaginary task, I'd have to start over. I know I was awake at least another 45 minutes.

I never made it to the damned garage.

If you get in a space today where you can try to do something like this, give it a try. Is it just me?

technorati tags: NaBloPoMo

Sigh. This One's a Little Raw.

Okay, this gets heavy toward the end. Sorry, I'm feeling way tired and all other kinds of things.

The Master Cleanse, Day 5 Update:

• Woke up feeling even better than yesterday. Had an appointment to get my hair cut, and then went Christmas shopping afterward (having to skip the original lunch date I had set up with my stylist afterward and rescheduling for next week - I am SO EXCITED TO EAT THAT SUSHI it will be fantastic but not as fantastic as what The Brother-In-Law makes HINT-HINT a Sushi Feast Extravaganza would be, um, really WELCOME, you know, in case you guys are reading and wanting to make me cry tears of Food Appreciation after this is all over).
  
• Was feeling very "up" and brought some of the Lemon Drink with me in the car, but I didn't load up enough between parking lots to avoid the slump I felt after four hours. Uurrrghhh...
  
• I hit the lowest feelings of inability to continue today at around 6pm. It was strange because of how great I felt this morning, even telling my hairstylist that I actually hadn't had any major detoxing symptoms that I've read about. But later, I just felt sluggish and down. I came very, very, VERY CLOSE to veering into any place that would serve me fries or even a sandwich. I read when I came home more about how this could be right before I really clear some toxins, and they could be what are mobilizing and making me feel this way. So, despite the extreme amount of restraint it has taken me not to break this cleanse tonight, I am going to wait until tomorrow to see how I feel before I decide if I can finish out the complete 10 days. If I don't begin feeling better, I will probably end it when The Husband comes home on Saturday. I honestly believe the key is to not stop drinking the Lemon Drink at least every 20 minutes. Because you'll feel great, and not have any for a while, and then it will HIT YOU.
  
• Here's what I had going on In The Brain today - I have come face-to-face with some of my negative thoughts, and in a bare kind of way. While shopping, I was at this mall that tends to have lots of very, very wealthy people shopping in it. I came across a certain woman in a store and she was so put-together, so classy and gorgeous, with her perfect hair and face and shoes, and she looked like she might only have been my age. She seemed to be very professional, and gave off an air like an New York City fashionista. I caught myself being intrigued by her, and wondering intensely what she does for a living, how she lives, etc. I have had this problem with getting pangs of jealousy when I see people like that, who seem to have no financial worry, and it hit hard tonight.
  
  This is especially since another thing that's been on my mind today is our financial situation, and how I am not really helping it in my effort to be this "creative, artist-type" person who can't seem to handle the restraints of normal working situations. (Must be free like a bird! Must have higher purpose! Gah.) I'm still doing some freelance work that's bringing in a (VERY) little money, but I feel very guilty. My husband has a great job, works hard, and makes a good salary, but we can't get ahead...and that just stinks at our age. I really feel that the key to this lies squarely on my shoulders. Tonight I am feeling very bad that I'm not doing more to remedy this. I haven't gotten comfortable with the idea of asking people to pay me to take pictures yet. Hell, I can't even get to a point where I feel finished with my portfolio website. I have to either throw those hangups in the trashcan or saddle up and look for another job very soon, because I don't want it to just be his responsibility.
  
  One thing (which kind of affects above hangup) that The Husband and I talked about recently was how I sometimes literally can not make my mind cooperate with me. I wish I could explain it better, but right now it's hard to come up with the words. Let's just say that there are times when it feels like my brain is fighting against me when I'm trying to do certain types of things. It wanders, locks up, or feels overloaded and I physically feel angry and frustrated because of it. It's as if I can't turn the dial to the right frequency sometimes.
  
  I've been reading a little bit about childhood brain injuries and am wondering if it's possible that the skull fracture I had as a baby caused part of my brain to try to compensate for the part that may have been affected. Some think that while it was previously thought that younger children recover and repair better than people who sustain injury at an older age, that in fact possibly the younger children with moderate brain injury or head trauma may seem to recover normally but because of the young mind's ability to adapt, part of the brain may try to take over for a part that has been injured. This means that later on in life, as they encounter more complex issues around college/adult age, the full impact of how the brain has been affected may become more apparent. (Google "brain injury", childhood, plasticity, etc. and you'll see some of the info come up.)
  
  I don't want to grasp at straws, but I can't lie and say it wouldn't be a relief to me if this may be a contributing factor to my very long struggle with small but specific aspects of coping. I don't know. When I read it, it sounds a lot like what I'm feeling and going through. But all I know is, whether it's simple brain chemistry (ADD/depression) or this, my brain isn't always doing what I want it to do. So after this is over I might consider what methods are out there to help me to finally feel a little bit more normal in addition to the lifestyle choices I want to maintain that may help.

Oh My Good Lord. That was so long. Are you still even here?!?