Last night I did a good thing. I went to bed at 10:30. This is about an hour or ninety minutes earlier than my usual bedtime. I treated myself to a nice hot shower at 9 when the house was quiet, dressed in comfy sweats, read a chapter-and-a-half each of The Two Towers and The Philadelphia Experiment. 10:30 pm rolled around, I yawned, I stretched, I pulled the comforter up and switched off the light.
I woke up, however, at 1:30. Used the facilities. Went back to sleep. Whew. Dodged a bullet.
Then, I woke again, this time at 3 am. And could not get back to sleep if my life depended on it.
This is fairly common for me, going back for at least a decade. My current and dire financial and occupational straits play a role, but they are not the cause of my chronic insomnia. But the bottom line is, once I’m up, I’m up.
I laid in bed for ten, maybe fifteen minutes before I felt the need to end the charade. I was not getting back to sleep. I lay on my side, my thoughts stream out randomly but magnetically tend to the negative. I flip over to the other side, and the mental process is repeated. I fluff the pillows. I try laying on my back. I try reciting a list of accomplishments from the day before, then some prayers, then some stuff I recently studied, then the plot developments of the Tolkien I’m reading. Nothing sticks. The quiet urge to get up grows exponentially, but it’s nothing but inky blackness – save for the glowing time on the cable box – and coldness. In response the radiators start banging.
So I get up and fight the urge to surf the web. If I do that, before I know it the Little One’s alarm clock will be going off and it’ll be time to get her dressed and walk her to school. Maybe if I read a bit I’ll get tired again. Hasn’t happened yet, but there’s always a first time for everything. I read a dozen more pages of Tolkien. I turn off the light and flip and flop. Though the house is chilly, under the comforter is uncomfortably warm, and I start to sweat. I glance at the cable box. It’s almost 4.
There’s a bad taste in my mouth and my stomach gurgles awake, too. I go into the kitchen and make myself a bowl of Kashi Cinnamon Harvest shredded wheat. Then I pad on down the basement stairs and switch on the PC. I gulp down the cereal as my Dell eventually powers up.
Then I spend the next two hours surfing the web, though I can swear only a half-hour goes by. I hit the my news sites to see if any tragedies have happened in the past six hours or if anyone famous has died. I know it’s morbid, but it’s habit. Then I check National Review, The Corner, Newsbusters. Next comes my movie sites, Big Hollywood, Kindertrauma, and the Jabootu blog. After that I switch gears to a more spiritual frame of mind: Mark Shea’s blog, then Patrick Madrid’s, then the Catholic Answers forums (which I’m a member but don’t post in). Then I start from the beginning and cycle through the sites again. Maybe some news has broken. Shampoo, wash, rinse, repeat. At least four or five times.
While I’m doing this I’m suppressing a nagging feeling. That feeling is, “You’re not using this time wisely!” Although, in my mind, it’s more like, “You’re not using this time wisely, you f&c!%#g jack*ss!”
What would be a good use of the time? Well, how ’bout doing a blog. Or fleshing out a novel outline. I have three fairly flushed out novel ideas. They just need to be outlined before I start writing them. It’s been four years since I wrote my second novel. It’s been seven months since I wrote anything over 5,000 words. So, parts of my brain are itching to do this.
But it’s not easy, because I only have about four hours of sleep tucked under my hat. That’s not a lot. Especially since, over the past week, I’ve gotten 3, 7, 9, 6, 6, 5, and 4 hours of sleep. That’s 40 hours even, or 5.7 hours daily, resulting in a negative-two-hour sleep debt every day. I’m in my early forties, so the body doesn’t bounce back like it did two decades back. I’m feeling it, and judging by my eye bags, I’m looking it.
Writer’s Block loves to flourish, I’ve found, during these periods. I just can’t write. Nor can I exercise, or even read for any length of time, which is just about my favorite way to spend time. So I surf the web, the hands on the clock spiral round, the earth spins and the sun rises. And the rest of the house wakes up and wonder who this zombie is stumbling around to greet them.
I’m taking the phone off the hook this afternoon and napping when Patch goes down. If I’m lucky I’ll be granted a 90 minute layover in Oblivion.
I woke up, however, at 1:30. Used the facilities. Went back to sleep. Whew. Dodged a bullet.
Then, I woke again, this time at 3 am. And could not get back to sleep if my life depended on it.
This is fairly common for me, going back for at least a decade. My current and dire financial and occupational straits play a role, but they are not the cause of my chronic insomnia. But the bottom line is, once I’m up, I’m up.
I laid in bed for ten, maybe fifteen minutes before I felt the need to end the charade. I was not getting back to sleep. I lay on my side, my thoughts stream out randomly but magnetically tend to the negative. I flip over to the other side, and the mental process is repeated. I fluff the pillows. I try laying on my back. I try reciting a list of accomplishments from the day before, then some prayers, then some stuff I recently studied, then the plot developments of the Tolkien I’m reading. Nothing sticks. The quiet urge to get up grows exponentially, but it’s nothing but inky blackness – save for the glowing time on the cable box – and coldness. In response the radiators start banging.
So I get up and fight the urge to surf the web. If I do that, before I know it the Little One’s alarm clock will be going off and it’ll be time to get her dressed and walk her to school. Maybe if I read a bit I’ll get tired again. Hasn’t happened yet, but there’s always a first time for everything. I read a dozen more pages of Tolkien. I turn off the light and flip and flop. Though the house is chilly, under the comforter is uncomfortably warm, and I start to sweat. I glance at the cable box. It’s almost 4.
There’s a bad taste in my mouth and my stomach gurgles awake, too. I go into the kitchen and make myself a bowl of Kashi Cinnamon Harvest shredded wheat. Then I pad on down the basement stairs and switch on the PC. I gulp down the cereal as my Dell eventually powers up.
Then I spend the next two hours surfing the web, though I can swear only a half-hour goes by. I hit the my news sites to see if any tragedies have happened in the past six hours or if anyone famous has died. I know it’s morbid, but it’s habit. Then I check National Review, The Corner, Newsbusters. Next comes my movie sites, Big Hollywood, Kindertrauma, and the Jabootu blog. After that I switch gears to a more spiritual frame of mind: Mark Shea’s blog, then Patrick Madrid’s, then the Catholic Answers forums (which I’m a member but don’t post in). Then I start from the beginning and cycle through the sites again. Maybe some news has broken. Shampoo, wash, rinse, repeat. At least four or five times.
While I’m doing this I’m suppressing a nagging feeling. That feeling is, “You’re not using this time wisely!” Although, in my mind, it’s more like, “You’re not using this time wisely, you f&c!%#g jack*ss!”
What would be a good use of the time? Well, how ’bout doing a blog. Or fleshing out a novel outline. I have three fairly flushed out novel ideas. They just need to be outlined before I start writing them. It’s been four years since I wrote my second novel. It’s been seven months since I wrote anything over 5,000 words. So, parts of my brain are itching to do this.
But it’s not easy, because I only have about four hours of sleep tucked under my hat. That’s not a lot. Especially since, over the past week, I’ve gotten 3, 7, 9, 6, 6, 5, and 4 hours of sleep. That’s 40 hours even, or 5.7 hours daily, resulting in a negative-two-hour sleep debt every day. I’m in my early forties, so the body doesn’t bounce back like it did two decades back. I’m feeling it, and judging by my eye bags, I’m looking it.
Writer’s Block loves to flourish, I’ve found, during these periods. I just can’t write. Nor can I exercise, or even read for any length of time, which is just about my favorite way to spend time. So I surf the web, the hands on the clock spiral round, the earth spins and the sun rises. And the rest of the house wakes up and wonder who this zombie is stumbling around to greet them.
I’m taking the phone off the hook this afternoon and napping when Patch goes down. If I’m lucky I’ll be granted a 90 minute layover in Oblivion.
2 comments:
Here's my little trick akin to counting sheep. I try to name every Ranger player that wore a given uniform number starting with the Number 1 (Eddie Giacomin, by the way). I have never gotten past the number 10 because I am out cold. Try to find a similar exercise that doesn't overly tax the brain and is in the realm of something you enjoy. Works wonders.
Uncle
Hmmmmm. Not a bad idea at all. Maybe tonight I'll try to count the primes up to a hundred. Haven't tried that one yet ...
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