Operation Pink Herring

Diary of an insomiac

I never emailed that lady about that project.  Crap crap crapcrapcrap.  I need to do that first thing in the morning.  FIRST THING.  Don't forget!  Maybe I should get out of bed and write it down.  No, I'll just make a mental note.  But what if I forget?  I really don't feel like getting out of bed.  But I don't feel like worrying about forgetting either.  Oh, fine.  I'll just write it down.

Maybe I should just go and email her right now.  Would it look psychotic if I email her at 12:30am?  Maybe I'll just set the email to time delay so it goes out at a reasonable morning hour.  But I don't feel like going downstairs and starting up the computer and dealing with our crappy internet and oh, whatever.  I'll just write it down.   I won't forget.

When am I going to go to yoga this week?  I'm going to New Jersey on Friday, so the weekend is out.  Maybe I'll go on Thursday after work.   Oh, I can't go on Thursday, because I have to drop Joel's car off after work for him to pick up when he gets back on Saturday.  I have to do that on Thursday, since I'll be leaving on Friday.  I cannot forget to drop his car off on Thursday!  God, that would be awful.  He'd be stranded up there and it would all be my fault.  Maybe I should write that down too.  No, I'll remember.  Thursday: drop off car.  Shit, I better write it down.

Great, now I'm all awake.  But I'm so tired.  Maybe I'll try to read for a little while.

I should go to the chiropractor while I'm up in Charles Village on Thursday dropping the car off.  I think I have an appointment scheduled for Monday night, but I can't make it since I have photography class.  I can't forget to call and reschedule that appointment.  I've spaced out on the past three and they totally hate me.  Whatever, I can't be the only one who occasionally forgets appointments and they should be happy to have my continued business.  But I should really go on Thursday, since I'm going to be up there on Thursday anyway to drop off Joel's car.  Thursday: Chiropractor and car.  Don't forget!

Reading sucks.  I'm just going to go to sleep.  I'm so tired.

How am I going to get home after I drop off Joel's car on Thursday?  Maybe I should ask someone to give me a ride.  Or I could just take the bus.  I need to look up the schedules and see when it runs at night.  Or maybe I could just run home.  How far would that be?  Maybe it's too far.  I should look it up on Google maps tomorrow morning.   Thursday: chiropractor, drop off car, possibly run home.  Got it.

I wonder what time it is.   1am.  Well, that's not so bad.  I'll just read a few pages and then hopefully I'll fall asleep. 

Maybe I can go to yoga on Wednesday.  I wonder if they have a class on Wednesday night.  Oh, shit.   I have to go to book club on Wednesday night.  I haven't read the book.  But I backed out of going the last three months and they totally hate me.   I should just up and quit instead of flaking out every month.  But I already RSVPed yes for this month, so I can't back out now.  OK, so Monday: photography class.  Wednesday: book club.  Thursday: drop off Joel's car and run home.  Wasn't there something else?  Oh, chiropractor.  I'd better write all of this down.

Henry, you cannot sleep on my head.   I can't breathe when you're sleeping on my head.  Go sleep on Joel's side of the bed.  I'm too tired for this.

So I guess I'll go to yoga on Tuesday.  Man, that's only like one day away.  That means I'm not going to get to the gym once this week.  What a waste of money.  Oh well.   I like yoga better anyway.  I wonder if I can make it home on Sunday night in time to go to another yoga class.  I think my card is about to expire soon and I already paid for ten classes.  I wonder how many I have left.  I should ask them.  Next time I go there, don't forget to ask how many classes I have left pre-paid and when that expires.  I never should have gotten the ten class card.  That screwed me last time, too.  Next time, just get the five class card.  And don't forget to ask how many classes are left on the current card.  On Tuesday.  Tuesday: yoga.

I wonder what time it is now.  1:45!  Shit.  I am going to be a mess tomorrow. 

When am I going to take Max to the vet for his follow up?   I should do that next week.  I need to call them for an appointment.  I guess I should go on Wednesday, that way I can work out on Tuesday after being totally sedentary at work and then the photography class on Monday night.   That reminds me, I have to charge the camera battery.  And call the vet.  Next week: Max vet.  Don't forget to call. 

Two am.  Sweet.  Now I'm not even tired anymore. 

Man, and the week after that, Henry has a vet appointment, plus I have my last photography class on Monday.  That means two days that week I won't be working out.  Which means I need to work out both days on the weekend to keep my five-day-a-week promise.  Dammit.  I hate working out on the weekend.  I guess I can go to yoga both days, at least that way I'll be using up my pre-paid card before it expires.

Screw this, I'm going downstairs to watch TV until I fall asleep.

I never cleaned the house today.  Man, it's such a mess.   This blanket is covered in cat hair.  I really need to wash it tomorrow.

Henry, you still can't sleep on my head.  Go sleep on my stomach.  At least that way I can breathe.

This Law and Order about dog fighting is so sad.  Good thing I'm not sleeping tonight, because it would definitely give me nightmares.   Come up here and snuggle me, Henry.  Sorry I said you couldn't sleep on my head.  You can do anything you want as long as you don't get used as bait for a dogfight, OK?

Did I just doze off?  What the hell is going on in this episode?  Let's just rewind and let's see... hmm, this is the last thing I remember.   Awesome, that means I just slept for half an hour!   I wonder what time it is now.  No, I shouldn't look.  It just makes everything worse.  But what if I set my cell phone alarm wrong?  Better check it.  Yup, it's on for 7:15.  Crap, it's 4am.  At this point I might as well just stay away and try to go to the gym before work, at least that way I'll be worn out tonight and...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

What the hell is that noise?   Oh, it's the alarm.  Ow, what was that?  Henry, get off my neck.  I need to move.  I have so much to do today.  I need to call the vet, when did I decide to take Max in?  And what do I need for photography class tonight?  Oh, shit.  I was going to take those jeans to be hemmed today.  I forgot to try them on.   I'll deal with it later.  I have to go to work.  I'm going to be late.  Do I have anything I can take for lunch?  Oh, forget about it.  I'll just figure out something when I get to work.  Maybe I'll splurge on pizza at the coffee shop.  I'm so late.  Maybe I should call in sick.  No, then everyone will think I'm hungover from St. Patrick's day.  Oh!  I have leftovers from Friday at the office, I can just have those for lunch.  Awesome.  Where's my coffee mug?  We're almost out of cat food.  I really need to vacuum down here.  Didn't I just vacuum a few days ago?   What time is it?  Crap, I'm so late!  Maybe if I walk really, fast I can still be on time to work. 

I'm going to need a lot of coffee today.   

The Hours

“A smashing literary tour de force and an utterly invigorating reading experience. If this book does not make you jump up from the sofa, looking at life and literature in new ways, check to see if you have a pulse.” —USA Today

Hang on a second... let me just... yup, I do have a pulse.  So someone explain to me why The Hours not only did NOT induce me to jump up and shout about my new perspective on life, but also just plain confused the hell out of me.

Maybe it's because I don't really know who Virginia Woolf is (well, I know NOW, I looked her up in Wikipedia)?  But when I started the book (and who are we kidding, while I was reading it), I wasn't sure if she was a real person or a character in a Jane Austen book or something.  What about that movie, "Who's Afraid of Virgina Woolf" (haha, just kidding, it's actually a play.  I knew that)?  I never saw it, and frankly I get it confused with "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus".  (If you're wondering right now how I was ever admitted to college, it's because I am really, really good at standardized testing).  Fictional or real, I definitely pictured her in the Wuthering Heights era... but The Hours took place in pretty close to modern times.  Right?

I am so confused.  What year is it?   

One thing I will say is that it was worth every penny I paid for it (twenty-five cents at a garage sale, in case you were wondering) as a frighteningly effective sleep aid.  For weeks, I'd get into bed, pick up the book, and BAM.  Asleep.  I hardly ever made it through more than a few pages.  Sometimes I didn't even finish a paragraph. 

Now that I think about it, that probably did not help with the whole making sense thing.

So my question to you, fair folks of the internet, is: should I put the movie version on my Netflix queue?  I have several long distance flights coming up, and you know what that means, right?  PRIME TIME to order up all the movies that would make Joel want to gouge his eyes out with a plastic spork from Wendy's. 

Thumbs up or thumbs down to The Hours: The Movie?  I am thinking that the dumbed-down, jazzed up film version might be just what I need to make sense of this thing.

And also, can anyone recommend a some new sleep-inducing bedtime reading?  I finished The Hours on Monday night, and I haven't slept more than three hours a night since then (hence the late night blogging).

(And hence the fact that I forgot to actually hit "publish" last night)

What to do, what to do?

Say you're traveling for.... not work. 

And say you have to be up, awake, and in your biznass pants at 5:30 tomorrow... IN THE MORNING.

Also, let's say that you're not a morning person.

What is the proper course of action?

A. Go to your dry, boring business dinner, make polite and witty conversation, then discreetly  excuse yourself to get to bed at a reasonable hour.

B. Go to your dry, boring business dinner,drink five glasses of wine, and ingest enough calories for a week.

C. Go to your dry, boring business dinner,, drink five glasses of wine, ingest enough calories for a week, and then stay at the restaurant until midnight.

D. Go to your dry, boring business dinner,, drink five glasses of wine, ingest enough calories for a week, stay at the restaurant until midnight, and then lock yourself out of your hotel room.

E. Go to your dry, boring business dinner,, drink five glasses of wine, ingest enough calories for a week,  stay at the restaurant until midnight, lock yourself out of your hotel room, and then blog about it.

If you answered  E, I'm afraid that tomorrow is going to be a very, very long day for you.   Also, you are an asshole.

Goodnight, friends.  Or should I say good morning?

PS: This post is not spell checked because I am drunk.

PPS: I love you guys.

Ratatouille: Go see it. And then tell me how it ends.

Last night I took a Benadryl for the first time since I started the little project I've been calling Operation Detox, even though I'm probably getting a million google hits for junkies with military aspirations.   After the first few horrid nights, things have actually gone fairly smoothly.  I've made several "lifestyle modifications", such as not drinking ANY caffeine, not even a sip of the delicious nectar of the Diet Coke gods, in the evenings and not allowing myself to sleep until noon on the weekends.  We've been going hiking every weekend to train for our trip to Lake Tahoe, and that's been helping greatly to wear me out.  I've been making myself go to the gym or to yoga or get some kind of exercise every day.

So, things are going well.  I've been falling asleep at a reasonable time.  Staying asleep all night?  Not so much.  It doesn't bother me because I have no trouble going back to sleep after these middle of the night wake-ups, but when I fell asleep in the movie theater this weekend, I started to suspect that I might be waking up more often than I realize.

Joel and I went to see Ratatouille this weekend, and the parts I saw were great.  About 30 minutes from the end, my eyes started to feel heavy and my head started to nod, and pretty soon I was sound asleep in my seat.   It was funny, because Joel had made a joke about going to the movies to take a nap earlier in the day, and the punch line was NAPPING IN THE MOVIES IS NOT ALLOWED.  Movies are too expensive to sleep through.   

Um, whoops.

At least Noah understands.

I'll take seconds, please

EEK.  I just requested time off for our vacation in August (our REAL vacation, not to be confused with the Fake Vacation I'm taking in two weeks to stay at home by myself).  Dates have been set.  Lake Tahoe, here we come.  Please go ahead and put out those wildfires before we get there.  K, thanks.

Why do I always feel guilty requesting time off?   It's not like I don't have twenty-six days of vacation time saved up.  Still, I feel like a giant slacker whenever I ask for time off.  This is the same slacker feeling that keeps me from calling in sick when I truly feel awful.  Because, you know, I'm better off sitting in my office like a zombie than using the twenty-two sick days I have accrued.  What, I might get the bird flu and need those days!  Plus, I hate calling in sick.   And I also hate requesting vacation time, as it turns out.

Actually taking that vacation time, however, I'm totally fine with.  I am not sure which vacation I'm looking forward to more -- Fake Vacation, where I'll have a week to myself to compulsively clean the house, work on The Wall, finish painting the bedroom, and possibly watch some Law and Order reruns (all of which will be done in sweats, sans bra) or the Real Vacation, where we'll be hiking in Lake Tahoe and seeing ghosts in Virgina City and winning big on the slots in Reno.  It's really a toss up.  I'll let you know which one wins when I get back from Tahoe.

I think I'll do this every summer.  Real Vacations and Fake Vacations are equally important.  From now on, I'm taking one of each, every year.  Yes.  That sounds nice.

In other news, Operation Detox is going extremely well -- let's hope I didn't just jinx it.  Last night I fell asleep before midnight, and I slept straight through until 4:30am.  This is big progress!  Then I went back to sleep until 7am.  Woohoo!

Also, when I went to sleep, Max was in the cat bed.  When I got up at 4:30, Madison was in it.  When I got up at 7am, Henry was in it.  That's right: ALL THREE CATS SLEPT IN THE CAT BED LAST NIGHT. Cat bed was NOT a waste of $17!  Edited to add:  Just to clarify, all three were not in the bed at the same time.  They do not like each other THAT much... yet.  Plus, it's physically impossible, because Max hardly fits in the bed by himself.  Must put Max on diet.

All is right with the universe.

Love and Hate, Copycat weekend edition

Operation Detox is going fairly well.  I have been Lunesta-free for one week, and totally off all sleep aids since Saturday.   I've decided that I need to give my body a break from all sleeping pills, even if it means a return of insomnia for awhile.  I have become completely dependent on the placebo effect of taking something to go to sleep every night, even though Benadryl/Tylenol PM stopped actually working for me ages ago.  I think I need to learn how to fall asleep on my own again, despite the fact that it may take awhile.   I also need to learn how to cope with insomnia when it arrives on my doorstep, since I will most probably be dealing with this affliction for as long as I'm a soldier in the 9-5 army.  I'm working on NOT going into a frustrated panic mode when I can't turn my brain off, and to instead look at it as extra time to read, write in my journal, do yoga, and watch Law and Order reruns.   Getting mad at the cats because they're asleep and I'm not and IT'S NOT FAIR BECAUSE THEY DON'T HAVE TO GO TO WORK TOMORROW really isn't doing anyone any good, sweetie.  Henry  has to get up early for his 6am chat with the pigeons, so he needs his sleep too.  Move over and let him have the pillow if you're not using it.

Anyway, since this little experiment in willpower (DO. NOT. TOUCH. TYLENOL PM. BOTTLE. DO. NOT. LOOK. AT. CLOCK.  DO. NOT. STRESS. OUT.) had me up until some point past 3am last night, I have given myself permission to abandon paragraphs for the rest of this entry, and also I have decided it's OK to plagarize Janet's trademarked Love/Hate entries.

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Love: Our day on Saturday.  We got up at an extremely respectable hour, drove to West Virgina, and went hiking on on the Appalachian Trail.

Hate: That we got lost, as usual, and didn't hike the trail we intended.

Love: It was still super fun.

Hate: That I screamed bloody murder when we saw a garter snake.  It's a visceral reaction, and I can't help but FREAK THE F OUT whenever I see a snake.   It's really pretty embarrassing, not that there was anyone around to see me shrieking like a fool and running off into the woods.

Love: The sign we saw when we crossed the state border, which read "Welcome to West Virginia: Open for Business".

Love: Getting up at a (slightly less) respectable hour AGAIN on Sunday and going to the movies for a matinee to see Ocean's 13. 

Hate: That I had to pee for the last hour of the movie, but was afraid I'd miss the big ending if I got up to go to the bathroom.

Hate: That it's Monday already.

Love: The coffee shop in my office building, which replaced my lost debit-coffee-card-thingy without my even having to ask.  I said "I lost my card, can I have a new one," gave them my name and handed over a $20 bill to put on the new card.  After I got my coffee, I saw that my balance was $26.65, meaning that the barista looked up my old card and transferred the remaining balance to my new one. 

Hate: That I didn't get any work done on The Wall or painting the remaining bathroom and bedroom this weekend.

Love: That Weds is a holiday next week, giving us a whole day to do house stuff that didn't get done on the weekend.

Hate: That the 4th of July is still over a week away.

Love: That Max was sleeping in his cat bed last night.  He likes to ignore the nice bed I bought him.

Hate: That I was up at 2:30am to see him sleeping in his cat bed.

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If you're lucky and behave like a good little internet, I might even bring the camera in tomorrow and post some pictures.  (Don't worry -- no pictures of Mr. Snake, I ran away too fast to even think of snapping his photo.)