Tag: sleep

Ready?

Well, I am packed up, at least, and going to bed now.

Why is it that I always end up doing laundry the night before I leave town, and end up waiting around on it so I can finish packing?

I think I actually always do that.

Except for the times when I just pack the dirty clothes, and wash them when I arrive to wherever I am going.

Anyway… I am exhausted and nervous to see how things work out with my bags at the airport.

I used to be able to judge perfectly if a bag was fifty pounds or fewer.

The downside of getting so much stronger recently is that I have no idea how a fifty-pound bag feels now… :/

Oh, well…

When I wake up in three and a half hours to go to the gym, we will see how I am feeling, and we will hope for the best at the airport.

Fingers are crossed.

I repeat: Fingers are crossed.

Dear Lord, help me to make this wonderful full trip beautifully and successfully in one easy go.

Thank you for this opportunity.

Help me to share myself with the world around me in the best possible way to serve the world via this body in which I live.

Thank you for this life.

Amen.

Post-a-day 2019

Tick-Tock

Well, the omiyage are almost all gathered – just missing two magazines (and maybe another box of graham crackers… I need to count those) – and the rough list of packing and pre-departure to-do’s is made.

Accountability partner for tomorrow has been obtained.

Now, just to get to sleep, so I can get up early tomorrow and get to bosse-ing*!

I am beginning to grow nervous, and not exactly from excitement.

I think I am at that point of ‘when the pressure is on you, start, and the pressure will be off,’… so it is just pressure of being unprepared so late in the game for something so big.

So, I suspect I will feel much better by tomorrow noontime, when I have handled already a good hunk of the tasks on my list.

To be fair, I had a whole lot more packing and organizing that needed to happen the last time I was preparing for a trip to Japan, so it is only normal that this feels like Way too late to be only just packing clothes tomorrow.

Also, if all the organizing and cleaning up I want to do before I leave doesn’t happen, everything still will be okay… it just would be great to get it all done, and to come home to a lovely, organized, and clean home in just over a month from now…, so I want to make it all happen. 🙂

Fingers crossed!

*From the French word bosser, meaning “to work”.

Post-a-day 2019

Head bangs

It feels like something is banging against the insides of my head.

I wonder if it is my brain… so swollen, that the pumping of my blood through it is causing it to thump outward against the insides of my skull…

Ouch.

Maybe it is all my sore muscles causing it to ache from their swelling and pain, pulling oddly on thins in my neck…

Maybe it is my teeth, adjusting to this final pair of aligners, hurting on their own, and spreading the pain upward into my skull…

Perhaps it is all of them… :/

Whatever the case, I must sleep, I believe, though I know I will drink loads of water, too, which will wake me constantly throughout the night… :/

Oh, well.,,

Sweet dreams, all.

Post-a-day 2019

Making clothes work

Well, I asked my mom to make me an outfit this year for RenFest.

She is a seamstress as one of her many roles, and so is very capable in the world of sewing and creating clothes.

She has made many outfits for me over the years, and they have all been great, if not always finished exactly…

I definitely have worn various outfits with safety pins all over their insides, holding together the parts that just didn’t get completed on the sewing machine or by the hand sewing.

And, usually, they keep the safety pins forever more, even after the initial use of the outfit.

Though, she always says that she’ll finish it for real afterward…

Tonight, I am going to bed well after midnight due to yet another of her ‘running out of time’ scenarios.

This outfit she agreed to make for me, when I asked her months ago, and for which we finally bought the fabric (read leather or skins) about a month or so ago, and for which I have asked her constantly about what she needs from me regarding measurements and/or fittings, has now been made by yours truly.

I am not a seamstress.

I can do basic hand sewing, and I know very little about what the best stitch for what is, or how to hide anything other than a straight seam.

Making outfits is not in my skill book at present.

But, she ended up not having the time (read my making the time or not arranging her schedule to be able) to make it, and instead told me “how” to do it.

Suffice it to say that I am not very pleased with the results at the present moment.

I was supposed to have an awesome, somewhat sexy but appropriate outfit that makes people go, “Wow…”

Instead, I have something that looks like I am a young girl practicing my hand for the first time at clothes making in the cave-people era… someone with a small hearth let me have his/her small extra skins, so I could begin to learn.

Hopefully, the cloak part that I told her I needed her to do will turn out well, and will make the piece come together beautifully.

I know the cloak can be great, but she pulled some nonsense about using wire threading to make loops to attach binder rings…. instead of finding a clasp…., so I’m not too sure… it could be another case of safety-pin-style nonsense that is utterly impractical…

I’m hoping dearly that it is beautiful and functional.

I will find out in the morning, and I, hopefully, will look awesome in my full outfit and even my partial outfit, without the cloak.

Well, we’ll see.

For now, let us pray I be blessed with beautifully fulfilling sleep tonight, so that I might be physically and mentally prepared for the long day that tomorrow will be.

If nothing else, my knees need the rest tonight to manage all the waking tomorrow.

Anyway…. bottoms up!

Or, as Aunt Sadie always said, Tally-Ho!

Post-a-day 2019

Venmo

I know I’m “behind the times” here, but there’s just something that feels off for me around my using a Venmo account..

I don’t know what it is exactly, but it is there.

And it makes me not want to use Venmo.

So, I don’t.

I’ve created an account, because it said I could use my credit card instead of my bank account…, but then it has a 3% fee… so, I’m not doing that.

Anyway…., after the past two weeks, I think it is best that I trust myself, my feelings on this matter.

If felt right to make an account…, but not to add any method of payment to it… so, I am leaving it at that… it’ll be a big backup plan for me, if ever someone needs to give me money only via Venmo, I can accept the funds and then have a credit in the account… which is meh, but totally acceptable…

Anyway, I am exhausted… and it is only just after ten pm… but my eyes hurt, and my brain and body are struggling to function… that four am wake-up, after going to bed after midnight, is hitting hard.

Sweet dreams, World. 🙂 ❤

Post-a-day 2019

Sleeping in the shower

Do you ever get into a warm shower at the end of the day, absolutely exhausted and ready to be in bed, asleep, and find yourself, quite a while later, still standing in that shower, having accomplished almost nothing involved with actually showering, for you have been going back and forth between states of mostly asleep and zombie-esque nonsensical function?

Yeah, I do, too…

And tonight was another one of those occasions.

Fortunately, though, it doesn’t happen near so often as it happened when I was growing up (especially while I was in high school).

It’s no fun wasting the water, but, sometimes, we’re just that tired that we can’t seem to do anything about it – we want to be done with the shower, and so jump forward in the shower routine, not to recall at the perceived end that we haven’t even washed our hair or face yet, and then we end up washing our body again after the hair and face, because we’ve forgotten that we’d already done that part, since we went out of order in this zombied state of functioning…

::sigh……

And this all – and the idea of sleeping in the shower – suddenly brings to mind that episode of Seinfeld where Kramer decides to live in his shower full-time… he gets a phone and radio and garbage disposal (for food scraps) for his shower, and probably some other things, all so that he can spend all of his time in the shower….

However, one thing I’m not sure if I ever considered until now: How does he sleep???….

I’m not sure they addressed it in the show… sure, he could sleep in the shower, as it is cozy, but it wouldn’t be very comfortable – it’s too small to lie down comfortably to sleep, and sleeping standing doesn’t actually work for humans too well…

Cows on the other hand…..

Post-a-day 2019

Sleep

Well, it is past midnight, and I awoke at about 6am, after having slept only an hour and a half last night.

I slept hard for a brief power nap on the (tiled) floor of the classroom, underneath the teacher’s desk at one point today, when I had no classes for a while…

It was a fabulous thirty-ish minutes.

Now, I am at a somewhat questionable fancy bay house for a wonderful weekend of art & yoga.

I just took a terribly miserable cold shower, since the gas isn’t turned on for the house (so no stove or hot water), and am still suffering the after-effects of hay (aka I am still really cold, but dry).

I am looking forward with anticipation to taking more photos for the weekend, as well as to making some art myself… it has been a while, to say the least, and I am delighted.

For both parts, really.

Anyway… goodnight.

Post-a-day 2019

Food belly

I tested out eating ‘normal’ food last night at dinner with friends.

We went and had Korean food – the irony of the situation being that a friend of mine came with us, and she was visiting Houston from Korea – and agreed, as is typical for Asian eating situations, to have everything be shared (a style I rather prefer, as I have said often).

They asked for dietary restrictions, and I mentioned that I had mine, but that I was going to use the night as a tester for whether I’m okay eating ‘normal’ foods from time to time (because this diet is a lot to keep up, and it seems a bit nuts to keep up every day for the rest of forever, especially considering holidays and cultural events that have foods that just don’t fit the bill…).

I ate food with them.

It was delicious.

While eating, I noticed quite quickly some physical responses to certain foods (e.g. having to clear my throat from excess mucus somewhat constantly after eating the dish with dairy and the high gluten one).

Afterward, I noticed slight discomfort, but nothing too bad – it was only somewhat noticeable.

I was pleased.

Good thing, I thought.

I went home, delighted with the evening with friends, as well as with the food situation with my body – no, I had no intentions of eating that way anywhere near often, but yes, I would be able to take part in special occasions like tonight.

I go to bed, ready to pass the *** out, because it is so late by then.

At 5am, to a searing pain in my lower stomach, I awaken, almost in a bit of a fit.

I rush to the bathroom, unsure as to whether something needs to come out by gravity, or whether I need to hurl…

… it feels like both.

……..

Almost an hour later, I have managed not to throw up, despite the rising panic that it was wanting to happen, I have cleared out a good amount of what was hurting my bowels so badly, and I go back to bed, exhausted, only to feel another wave of nausea hit me when I lie down flat.

I curl over to one side, and strategically place body parts to help ease the once-again increasing pain in my belly, and somehow fall back asleep.

Today, I felt okay all day, but still exhausted from not enough sleep – had to get up too early today – and somewhat low on energy due to the bit of food debacle early this morning.

I told my friend about what happened, and she said that we are sticking to my dietary restrictions from now on at dinners. 😛

Well, I survived it, which is great, and I now know not to do it unless I want a lot of pain and discomfort – which, I don’t.

The point is that I have lived and learned on the matter, and I can move forward content with my dietary restrictions, and people who get weird about it can go eat a can of glass… just saying… 😛

(Haha – for some reason, that last bit really makes me chuckle, it is so absurd and came out of nowhere.)

Post-a-day 2019

Yikes

Twenty.

It sounds like an entirely reasonable number, right?

Even twenty to thirty of something sounds reasonable, low in number, even.

However, this idea seems to disappear, whenever we consider things that aren’t meant to be in groups more than just a few.

For example, toes… on one person.

Kind of weird to consider, right?

Even worse than that, however, is blood flies… in one’s bedroom…., to be discovered when one arrives home late at night after a long week, and just wants to go shower quickly and get to bed within the next half hour, before 11pm, even…

Two and a half hours later, I sit on my knees on the floor of my room, hunched on the ground, typing this.

I have myself killed approximately thirty flies at this point, and the hanging flypaper has handled around four.

I spent about ten minutes downstairs a little while ago, hoping things were finally handled, but giving some time for any loners to move to the overhead light.

Unfortunately, two more had appeared by the time I came back up here.

Now, I am almost paranoid about getting ready for bed – if I go shower, and then have to deal with more, that’s eew, but, also, if I go to bed, but they aren’t finished, will I be the warmest thing in the room, once the lights are off?

They are attracted to the light and heat…

I have lit a candle underneath clove, peppermint, and eucalyptus oils, and so am considering leaving my downstairs door open, so that any others would leave my room due to the smell, and head to the light and the warmer temperature of the room at the bottom of my stairs.

But I’m just not entirely convinced yet that it is safe to proceed.

In case you’ve forgotten, flies are one of my greatest fears in life – totally absurd a fear here, but that in no way changes the fact that the fear is there.

No, I did not cry tonight… however, I think a big part of that was the slowness of the things, so the situation was much less panicky than last time.

I certainly cursed a lot.

But that is to be expected – extreme stress brings it out of somewhere within me.

I was debating whether to go to the gym in the morning, and so perhaps this event was a means of forcing me not to go – I will not have had a reasonable amount of sleep by 7:45am, when I would need to awaken (given that it is currently just after 1:30am).

Dear God, please let me learn whatever lesson I need from this now, and give up having this happen, please – I would like very much to be finished with these things, and for them to leave my life permanently.

Amen.

Post-a-day 2019

Insane in the membrane

Tonight, I had a bit of a breakdown: a sort of explosion of tears, accompanied by a few choice curse words – which meant I was really upset, as anyone who knows me well can attest – and a total overflow of frustration.

All because someone used my brand new blender, the blender which I hadn’t even yet used.

Someone used my glass and my fork (and didn’t even wash the fork), and I just went ahead and cleaned them, and moved on with my night.

But, when I opened one of my labeled private cabinets, I felt almost violated, definitely invaded – I could tell someone had moved things around in there, and I quickly discovered just what had been used… and, when I did, it was just too much for the end of this day.

It was time to cry.

I even said a few rounds of meditation before driving home today, because of the day up to that point.

I was settling down emotionally and mentally and physically by the time I arrived home and was riding my dinner.

And this sudden discovery, combined with that bit of everything else that hadn’t yet finished clearing, was just too much in the tank.

Tears and verbal expression of my stress were necessary.

I am still not st all happy about it, but I can tell that I mostly will be over it by morning… I might even forget about it, but the blender is a specifically sensitive subject (because it was specifically researched and selected, and costs hundreds of dollars, and, due to an error that occurred, was just this week replaced by the company… I do not let people use this blender, because I take extra special care of it, and I’m the one who pays for it, so I get to use it.), so that forgetting might not happen, after all.

I sent an e-mail to the community about it, and, knowing that I was so upset, I called my mom and asked for her help in composing an e-mail that expressed the necessary information, communicated clearly, and wasn’t pissed off like I was at the time.

(All my stuff is clearly labeled with my name – how could I not be annoyed at someone’s using my stuff, even if it were just stupidity on his/her part?… I kind of hate stupid people in the first place, remember?…)

Nonetheless, there was a lot of emotion at play today, on many accounts and on many levels of emotion.

Add to that the layer of sleepiness I reach by 8pm after waking at 4:10am, and we have a no-surprise cry situation when presented with high stress.

I can’t experience the feeling fully right now, but I do look forward to cracking up at the fact that I cried my eyes out – snot everywhere and everything – over a blender. 😛

P.S. One of the hardest parts for me about being a schoolteacher is the part where I cannot, for the sake of what most schools consider to be propriety, share openly with students about certain things, even if it is something that could and likely would make a huge difference in their lives, and something that would promote an amazing culture in the school and in the world at large…. ::sigh……

Post-a-day 2019