Category Archives: Insomnia

Another Spring Break is Gone

Posted on 14 March 2010 | 3 comments

One of these years, I am going to actually take a Spring Break, one where I go somewhere and do something different than what I have been doing for the other 51 weeks of the year. If BSU’s spring break came a little later, I’d go on a motorcycle trip, but I am afraid I will leave and then it will snow. Then I wouldn’t be able to come home, because I am not riding in the snow. As it is, I never accomplish everything I wish to accomplish in the week anyway, so why don’t I learn to take a break. This year, for example, I had a list a mile long, but I did not complete the most important thing on that list. Because I had been putting off grading and my teaching related concerns to put out other little forest fires, I spent the entire break grading and planning for the rest of the school year and not working on my dissertation proposal.

I had every good intention of sitting down for a long spell with the thing and really hashing through it. That will have to happen in the evenings of this week. I have to get this thing finished and turned in as soon as possible. I am tired of looking at it. The part that sucks about having to do it this week is that Bec is leaving for Minnesota on Saturday, so I won’t be able to spend any quality time with her before she goes. I hate that. At least she’ll be back on Wednesday (?), and I should have everything finished by then.

However, I will have my lifeguarding class all weekend next weekend, so I won’t get to spend any time with her then either. When I say all weekend, I am not exaggerating. It meets on Friday from 6pm to 10pm and Saturday and Sunday from 8am to 2pm. I guess I will be running in the evenings for the next two weekends. And, they are long runs, too. Eight and nine miles for the next two Saturdays.

Yesterday I ran seven miles at a 12:30 to 12:45 minute per mile pace, but I still had difficulty sleeping last night. I think it was a combination of all the life-stress I am experiencing right now, the stupid daylight savings time change, and the fact that I drank a tall regular bold coffee. I haven’t had that much caffeine in a long while. At least I didn’t get heart palpitations this time. I did it because Starbucks is doing a bold coffee promotion in which you get a little card that has all their bold coffees listed. If you drink a tall of all eight of them, you get your choice of a free pound of bold coffee. In the end, you pay as much for the eight tall coffees as you would for the pound of coffee, but since you end up with both in your belly, it sounds like a deal to me.

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I am thankful for time well-spent and weird Lily Tomlin movies.

Food:
Breakfast: banana, juice, pop tart, chocolate milk
Running: shortbread
Lunch: almonds, Pure bar, coffee with honey and soy milk
Dinner: onion rings, Scotty’s French Quarter Quesadilla, 23 oz. Guinness
Snack: small bag of Cadbury eggs

Exercise: walked the dogs two miles, ran 7 miles

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Posted in Beer, Coffee, Dissertation, Food, Insomnia, Running, School, Teaching

A Mixed Bag

Posted on 6 February 2010 | 2 comments

1) It’s no secret that I greatly dislike snow. This morning my hatred for it was slightly alleviated because while I was outside, Bec made me some tea and I drank it with a nice bowl of oatmeal after I shoveled for about an hour in order to get the car out to go grocery shopping. I needed things like juice and milk that couldn’t wait until next week when the snow thaws. I am not stupid enough to think that my shoveling for an hour, possibly moving a half-ton of snow, is anything nearly as traumatic as other people all over Appalachia losing power. I have been in a situation with no power before. It wasn’t pretty. We cooked and heated with our fireplace which we were lucky enough to have. In the house we live in now, we would just starve and freeze. Or walk, if the car was snowed in, over to Ed and Abbie’s and starve and freeze with them. Snow is so pretty when you don’t have to be out in it, and it’s a great blessing when your power isn’t out because of it. This is our street.2) For this second point, I am going to do something tricky. I am going to combine my failure at running my four-mile endurance run with my success at going to the nasty gym. I am sure some of you remember from last winter how much I despise the gym. I don’t like to sweat in the middle of winter like it’s summer. I sweat enough when I run outside in the cold air; I don’t want to be chained to a conglomeration of metal and plastic sweating like a whore in church. Besides all that, those machines make you repeat unnatural motions. I tried an arc trainer today, thinking that it would be more like running. Wrong! It was more like going up steps while falling backward off a ledge on a tall building like bad guys do when they’re being chased by cops in the movies. I kept thinking I might seriously fall off the damn machine, so I switched to an exercise bike. Just one time I would like for someone to invent an exercise bike that positions the rider in the same position as a regular bike positions the rider. Instead, you get to sit like someone has shoved a pole up from your tuchas through the top of your head, and better yet, you are sitting on a padded stool instead of a bicycle seat. My hips/legs are sorer from this worthless gym workout (1 mile on the arc and 6 miles on the bike) than they would have been from running the four miles I was supposed to run. And, I would have felt like I had accomplished something. As it is, I ache and feel like I should have just walked to and from school to do my work. Walking in eight to ten inches of snow would have been a good workout. This is the horrible machine I had to ride for 15 minutes before I just couldn’t take it anymore.

3) I am giving up most of my vow. I am breaking down and having a couple of beers, and since I already cut my hair, there isn’t much left to hold onto except the vegetarian thing, which is still in full force. I don’t take this decision lightly, but I think I need the stabilizing force of beer in my life. I am not saying this to be trite or funny, but beer is a depressant and it seems to help me sleep (which I haven’t been doing well lately). It has also been proven in several studies to fend off the symptoms of dementia and Alzheimer’s, and it seems to make me be able to focus more on a specific task. I haven’t been doing so well with focus. Two different people from two totally different walks of life, in two different conversations at two different locations and times, have suggested to me that I am much more spastic and not nearly as jovial or easy to get along with when I don’t have my beer. One of them told me that in the past six months, I have not appeared to be myself and that I always seem distracted. I have read that beer helps people who have problems focusing to focus. So, I think I am returning to the land of the beer-drinkers. At least I have six beers sitting in the fridge at home waiting to be consumed. This is the beer I am going to drink when I get home.4) I was just thinking about our trip to the liquor store today. I got carded and since I didn’t have my ID, Bec had to buy the beer while I waited in the car. Magic. I’m 35 and still can’t buy. This is me at 35.

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I am thankful for flexibility in life. I am also thankful that I was able to free my bicycle from her snowy abode in the bike rack.

Food: juice, chocolate milk, oatmeal, tea, burrito, chips and salsa, ginger ale, peanut butter granola bar, porter, veggie burger, broccoli

Exercise: shoveling snow, dog walking, arc trainer, stationary bike

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Posted in Beer, Biking, Food, Gym, Insomnia, Running, Winter Weather

Sleep Schedules Can Mess You Up

Posted on 23 January 2010 | Leave a comment

Today was supposed to be a day of getting lots of work finished. In fact, I was supposed to finish my dissertation proposal revision today. Instead, I worked on my stuff for teaching because I was incredibly groggy all day and didn’t think I needed to concentrate as intently on reading a bad textbook about children’s literature as I would need to concentrate on my dissertation proposal.

I think I should write a review of this book and submit to some education journal. Because it is so poorly organized and schizophrenic, it is difficult for me to follow what the authors are saying sometimes. I wish they would have simply put all the information about each genre together in separate sections, maybe include a section about fantasy, one about contemporary realistic fiction, and so on, and then break it down into grade levels. But, no, the authors decide it is way better to break it down by age level and then by genre, so the reader of the textbook never gets a complete definition of, or feel for, what the author means by science fiction, or informational text. Their focus is on developmental stages and literature, which I dig, but it’s like wading through the poo-canal at McCullough Park in flip-flops searching for your disc golf disc in the middle of winter.

Sometimes my sleep schedules get all messed up, and for the past week I haven’t slept well. I even had a few nightmares, which always sucks. When I wasn’t wasn’t having horrible dreams, I would wake up at 2 or so and be awake until 4ish when I would finally fall back to sleep. I haven’t gone to bed before 11 any night this week and have been up by 730 in the morning at the latest. If you know me, you know I need at least 8 hours of decent sleep to function.

Since I have only been getting about 6 hours, which haven’t been of the best quality, I have fallen asleep twice in the middle of the day. I already wrote about playing Rip Van Winkle in the library, but I had the amazing opportunity (note the sarcasm) to play him again today. I really didn’t have time for a nap, but as I already said was a bit groggy, so foolishly I thought I would take a Jack-nap—a short rejuvenating nap—to get myself going for the afternoon study session. Well, when 6:09 rolled around and I woke up in time to make dinner, I realized that I need to figure out how to get this sleeping thing under control. Any suggestions?

Both of my grandmothers now have Alzheimer’s. My Grams will soon have to be placed in a nursing home that has a special Alzheimer’s unit, and my mom and Aunt Zoe are looking for a decent one that still takes Medicaid/Medicare. My grandma has been in Warren Home in a locked-down Alzheimer’s unit for so long, I don’t really even remember what she looks like. I don’t want to discuss this matter for two reasons: (1) It makes me incredibly sad that two such amazing god-fearing women have to suffer in this manner, and (2) I am already starting to forget things. I am 35, too young to forget as much as I do, and Alzheimer’s is hereditary. It scares me.. This is the extent to which I wish to discuss this matter.

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I am thankful for being able to make conscientious decisions.

Exercise: walked the dogs, ran 3 miles

Food: banana, juice, pure bar, chocolate milk, salad, left over pizza, Lorna Doones, Ginger Ale, Spicy Basil pasta with tofu, mushrooms, and pinenuts, bread

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Posted in Dissertation, Food, Insomnia, Reading, School, Teaching, Vegetarian or Vegan

Up Again So Soon … Still Recovering in Twelve Steps

Posted on 27 March 2009 | 3 comments

I am awake. It is 2:23 AM. I am watching King of the Hill. I love my life. I think I will stay up for another hour and a half so I can watch Roseanne. Then I will go to bed and sleep until noon … which never happened. I didn’t sleep until noon. I slept until 6 then slept again from 8 to 11. And, I am still recuperating from that little overnight shenanigan in twelve steps. These twelve steps would not be followed if Izzy lived with me. 🙂

  1. I admitted that I am powerless over sleep deprivation—my life had become unmanageable. I couldn’t remember anything about what I was doing or saying.
  2. I came to believe that beer could restore me to sanity. Beer can always restore.
  3. I decided to turn my will and my life over to multiple helpings of that specific elixir, choosing hops, yeast, and malt over the newly discovered bliss of Aquavit.
  4. I made a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself. I was weary and worn. I decided to drink.
  5. I admitted to the bottom of the first pint the exact nature of my wrongs: I stayed up for far too long. I admitted my desire for sleep to the bottom of another pint and another and another and another and another and another, and then I admitted these wrongs to all those around me. Loudly and slurred. I am shleeeppyyy, I said before I slipped into unconsciousness.
  6. I was ready to have my sleep restored to me. I wanted my sleep to be restored to me.
  7. I humbly asked the bartender to facilitate my eventual sleep—I put my insomnia in his hands.
  8. I made a list of all the beers which had harmed me, and became willing to make amends to them all.
  9. I made quick amends to the beers I loved and was kept from injury by two angels—one flaxen, one titian, both Southern—who escorted me home.
  10. Once I was safe, I continued to take personal inventory of my level of alertness, to reassess my evening consumption, and to hope for the veil of sleep.
  11. I sought through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with God as I understand [Them], praying only for knowledge of [Their] will for me and the power to carry that out.
  12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, I tried to carry this message to insomniacs, and to practice these principles in all my affairs. I especially thanked my caretakers and nursed my bumpy head.

Seriously, I have been so busy, I haven’t even been able to write here. I continue to feel guilty but simultaneously fulfilled with my level activity. I feel guilty because I cannot make last minute plans with people. I am simply to busy to squeeze people into the schedule.

A friend of mine and I were supposed to get together today, but she had to go to South Bend. She asked me earlier in the week if we could get together another time in the week, and after I checked my calendar, I had to write to her to say that there simply were no other days we could meet. I literally had a school function, studying, or some other thing going on every single day.

Several days in the past three weks I have had twelve or thirteen hour long days, and the day that sparked the twelve-step list was a 20 hour day: I got up at 6AM and worked until 2AM the next morning. Really.

I am fulfilled because I have never been happier with the work I am doing. My assistantship with all of its oddities is the best one I have had. My courses are plodding along well, and I am continually challenged by my directed reading and the Morrison class. Ideas for my dissertation are ruminating nicely inside my too full head, and I am sated by the information with which I am gorging my hungry mind. Jasbir Puar, I will understand your writing one day.

In my spare time, I learned that my neighborhood grocery store should be receiving six-packs of glass bottles of Faygo, but that if I want to order a 24-pack of cans of Faygo, it will cost $15 to get it delivered to my house. This would, of course, be a moot point if my neighborhood grocery would just carry Rock-n-Rye Cream Cola. Not diet. I despise Diet Cola. If I wanted zero calories, I would just drink water.

My brother and I are going to Nashville this weekend for a little break, so I hope to be able to access this site to report on our activities. I am sure we will haev fun. I know for sure we are going to Jungle Jim’s in Cincinnati on the way home, and we are going to the Apple store to get his new computer. I am excited to be away for a bit.

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Posted in Beer, Insomnia, Literature, Reading, Relationships, School, Writing