Still adrift

Sleep an hour, up two hours. Sleep three hours, up five hours. Sleep two hours, up three hours. Repeat.

Early Sunday morning. It is Sunday, isn't it?

Not that I care.

I'm sitting in the Classen Blvd IHOP at 2:05 AM. The place is packed. I wonder if it's like this every night or if this is a weekend phenomenon. Either way, the place is a lot busier than Beverly's usually is.

Needless to say, my sleep cycle is still upside down. But over the past few days, I've started to not care. My daily life is about the same if I'm awake during the day or awake during the night.

I've ordered a breakfast T-bone and scrambled eggs. That's about a million calories, but it's probably the only thing I'll eat today. I'm down to eating once a day.

I realized I'm tired of food. Tired of looking at it, tired of smelling it, tired of eating it. I've eaten every kind of food I care to try; I seek no new culinary experience. Now it's just some biomass to shove in my maw to keep my meatbag producing shit, piss, sweat, pus, puke, dandruff, etc.

Damn, this is a big steak.

Man, there are a lot of posts here about sleeping

...and this is another one. I'm not sleeping as much as I was before I quit taking the allergy medicine, and when I'm awake, I'm more like my normal self. But I'm still sleeping strange hours. I went to bed at 9:30ish Sunday night after a fairly normal day. I felt sleepy, and I thought I'd fall asleep right away. But as soon as I got settled into bed, I was wide awake. I had brought Bailey in, and she was restless, too.

I finally got up about 3 AM and went to Beverly's and ate. Then I came home, and finally got to sleep about 5 Monday mornng. I slept soundly until 11:30 AM. I got up and went to lunch with a friend. Sleepy again, I came home and dozed lightly until about 2 in the afternoon.

I went to bed at 10 PM, slept about ninety minutes, then woke up again.

And here I am. I guess Tuesday will be more of the same.

Guess it was the allergy medicine

I skipped my evening dose of Zyrtec last night and felt like a new person today.

Zyrtec is the best thing I've ever taken for allergies. Typically in September, I'm sneezing and coughing all day, every day. Some days, my eyes are swollen almost shut. Zyrtec gave me more relief from the symptoms than anything I've ever used. I've gone through my allergy season this September with almost no symptoms at all.

The down side is that I've been sleeping sometimes 20 hours a day, and when I've been awake, it's been like looking at the world through two inches of glass. I suppose that could be just coincidence, but today was the first 'normal' day I've had in weeks – months, maybe.

The question now is whether I'll have a return of allergy symptoms. If I do, I guess I'll go back to taking Zyrtec on a limited basis. But I'm pretty sure I won't be taking it every day again.

It feels good to be back in what passes for reality.

Yawn

Went back to sleep about 4:30 am. Woke up about 9:30, looked around the Very Dark Room, and decided to go back to sleep. Slept soundly until noon. Woke up, looked around the Very Dark Room, and decided to go back to sleep. Woke up about 4, got out of bed about 6, went to dinner with DianeC, and now I'm back in bed, trying to stay awake long enough to finish this.

I'm wondering now if my allergy medicine is contributing to this.

More on sleeping

Staying awake is still the biggest struggle of my day. I'm getting up at a fairly normal hour now, but I'm often groggy and a bit disoriented. I stay up through lunch, then go home and go back to sleep. I usually sleep very soundly until 2 pm to 3 pm, then get up again. Thursday, I went back to bed at about 10 pm, and woke up again right at midnight. It's early Friday morning as I write this.

I wrote a few months ago about my One Productive Task goal, in which I would simply try to do one prductive task each day. I haven't kept that up for weeks now. On the other hand, since I'm asleep all the time, I don't have much opportunity to mess the place up.

Awake

Well, on Sunday I got up at 3 pm and ate something, then went back to bed and didn't get up again until 7 pm. That's when I was actually 'up'.

Today, though, I was up at 10:30 am — pretty good for me — and actually spent most of the day awake and doing stuff. That's a step forward.

About That Quote

dzaster asks why I posted that quote about priorities and options. I think it sums up a lesson which I learned too late in life to do me much good, but which might be beneficial to others.

It's easy to overcommit. Well, for some of us, anyway. Easy to overcommit in a new romantic relationship, easy to overcommit to a job or an employer. Easy to overcommit in a variety of ways.

When an employer talks about welcoming you to the "Fahrquahr Humate Corporation family," that's usually bullshit. It's not a family, it's a business. They would like for you to think it's a family, and make your job a priority. But unless you can make humate fly out of your ass, you are probably just an option to them. There's an imbalance in the relationship, which will become more clear if there's a sudden glut in the humate market.

I don't think I need to go into the issues of a romantic relationship. Let's just say it happens, sometimes because one partner encourages the other to overcommit, and sometimes because one partner is just prone to overcommitting.

The bottom line is, make sure your relationships are balanced.

A Pleasant Walk

I'm feeling a lot better tonight than I have for most of the summer.

I ate a late lunch with a friend at an Italian restaurant downtown. This restaurant is only about five minutes from my house, but I tend to think of it as outside my 'bubble.' I haven't eaten there in four years or more.

After we ate, I took my friend on a walking tour of downtown. She was planning to see an event in the Kerr Auditorium later in the evening, but she didn't know where it was, so I walked her over there. I suspect most people don't even know we have a Kerr Auditorium; it's part of the old Kerr-McGee complex now owned by Sandridge Energy. I don't think I've been in it since the eighties.

We spent about thirty minutes walking around downtown, and afterward, I felt as close to normal as I've felt in weeks. I guess I really needed to spend some time outdoors.

Somebody's words of wisdom

"Never allow someone to be your priority while you're just their option."

— origin unknown

Another day

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

— Yeats, or Gerry Rafferty, or somebody

Sleep/no sleep

I went to bed about 11 last night, which I thought was a reasonable hour. I was awake again by about 2:30 this morning. I don't know what time I got back to sleep — sometime after 3:29 am, obviously.

I woke up again about 6:45 am. I thought it was too early to get up, so I went back to sleep, thinking I'd be awake again in an hour. Instead, I woke up about noon, too groggy to even think. I went back to sleep, and awakened again at 3:45 pm, feeling rested for the first time.

Now, it's 8:45 pm, and I feel like I could go back to sleep right now.

Needless to say, I'm failing in my effort to get back on a regular sleep cycle. I wonder if this could be caused by something other than depression.

Ring of Fire

Here's a story I meant to post a few days ago. It's from the web site io9.com:

Ring of fire forms around a new supernova

"A 6-trillion-mile-wide ring of gas encircles a supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud, Supernova 1987A, and the explosions from the supernova are lighting it up like a candle, creating what will become a glowing ring."

Six trillion miles. Another example of how the scale of cosmic events is simply beyond comprehension. And relatively speaking, this is just a tiny thing.

Sleep

The most pressing issue for me right now is getting my internal clock back on a normal schedule — getting up at 7 am, maybe, and going to bed at 10:30 pm. I think my depression is being made worse by my bad sleep habits.

I made myself go to bed at 10:30 last night, and actually fell asleep rather quickly. But I woke up around 2, and didn't get to sleep again until about 5. I woke up again at 7:30, and made myself get up. Drove to the Red Cup, but it was closed for Labor Day, so I went on to Jimmy's Egg and had breakfast.

I felt sleepy by the time I got home, so I decided to lie down for an hour or so. Instead, I slept soundly until almost 1 pm.

And now it's about 11 pm, and I'm about to try again to force myself to go to sleep. I don't know what it's going to take to get my sleeping back to normal.

Calmer today than yesterday

I've been reading dzaster's advice in response to yesterday's early morning most, "Another Cheery Saturday". I don't think I'm giving away too much personal information by saying that dzaster moved from Oklahoma to another sunbelt state a few months ago, and has found the change significantly improved her sense of well-being.

I've considered the same thing, but I won't do it. I have too strong a financial incentive to remain here. And, while I have some sense of the kind of place where I'd like to live, I don't know if such a place actually exists.

Back in the early seventies, when I was a fundamentalist Christian, we were urged to separate ourselves, at least emotionally and philosophically, from the world. Of course, it was mostly bullshit; the church fathers doing the urging were no more separated from the world than any average consumer. It was salutary for everyone else, they insisted, but they were all so spiritually mature they no longer needed to deny themselves. Now we have this so-called 'prosperity gospel', and its New Age equivalent The Secret, and it's actually considered spiritual to wallow in material wealth and consumerism.

Meanwhile, I've drifted closer and closer to being detached from the world. I didn't do it on purpose. I wasn't pulled in this direction by the need for spiritual growth so much as I was pushed in this direction by boredom and frustration. When I was a Bible thumper, I struggled with this — unlike my pastors and Sunday school teachers, I took it seriously. But now it seems to have happened on its own, gradually over the years, with no prodding from the outside. I just looked at one thing after another, and said to myself, "Well, this is crap," and eliminated it from my life. This is my take on planet earth in general. Where would I move that would change this? I'd still be on this same speck of dust surrounded by people stirring up shit for no good reason.

I still have more material possessions than any human being needs. I get pleasure from music I've accumulated, but I think I could do without the rest of it now.

But being where I am doesn't make me feel more spiritual. I don't feel closer to God. I just feel farther away from crazy.

Sunday

What I need is a nanny.

Another Cheery Saturday

I have at least three friends who are suffering depression severe enough to disrupt their lives. One has moments of sadness, and sees herself becoming less organized and motivated. Two others are afflicted with panic and anxiety attacks that disrupt sleep. One of them talks of occasionally being suicidal.

I wonder what the hell is the matter with all of us.

I have had the panic and anxiety attacks, but it's been 25 years ago, and the direct result of working for an absolutely insane company. I've had the suicidal tendencies, but that's been about 12 years ago. At the moment, I don't feel sad, I don't feel anxious or panicked, and I don't feel suicidal. But I feel zero enthusiasm for anything. I just absolutely do not give a shit.

Human beings are, for the most part, greedy, self-serving idiots. And it's the greediest, the most self-serving, and the most idiotic who end up running things. Did you watch that clip of Arizona's Governor Brewer trying to make an opening statement in a debate? Just tell us what you think, Governor. Blank stare for ten seconds. And then something like, "We're proud of what we've did." The Sarah Palin School of Communications. And she's leading by 19 points.

We are doomed, doomed, fucking doomed. We're cretins. But we're also just a bunch of microbes screwing things up on one little speck of dirt in one little galaxy. About the only pleasure I get out of life these days is knowing that the universe is so immense that we'll never be able to pave the whole thing and put strip malls on it. We won't be able to pollute all of it or spill oil all over it. We'll never get to kill the people on other planets who are different colors than us or who don't believe in the same all-powerful invisible beings we do.

And then there's this: Mass Extinction Threat: Earth on Verge of Huge Reset Button?

But if we're publishing news stories with sentences like...

"Looking back in time, the diversity of large taxonomic groups (which include lots of species), such as snails or corals, mostly hovered around a certain equilibrium point that represented a diversity limit of species' numbers."

...then we deserve to die.

Shit.

I wish I felt better.

Autopilot

Went to bed at 8:30 last night. Woke up at 11:30. Met up with Blogblah! at Beverly's from midnight to 2 am, drinking decaf and talking about life. Then, back home and back to bed. Up at ten-ish. Breakfast at the Egg on May. Then back in bed. Slept until three-ish. Got up, joined a couple of friends at Will's, then we went to Diego's for dinner. Came home, rolled trash cans out to the curb. Now back in bed.

My life has been on some sort of autopilot for about three months now.