An Insomnia Journal, March 30, 2011

An Insomnia Journal, March 30, 2011

It’s 1:30 Am and I am awake. I went to bed at 10:30 but was itchy and agitated. I could tell by the way I felt that it was probably going to be an insomniac night, but I tried to sleep anyway.

First I just lay there to see if maybe I would sleep. Then I counted breaths. I’ve never found that particularly useful, but it was recommended in a book I read, so I gave it a try. Then I did some more breath counting exercises--more difficult ones. That didn’t help either. It rarely does.

Meanwhile, I got itchier and itchier. My skin itched.

I lay awake thinking of all the things I could be doing if I were up. Then I worried about how being up would ruin the day for me tomorrow and I lay there some more. Wishing I could just go to sleep. But I didn’t. I got itchier and more agitated.

I felt hungry. I wanted to get up and eat. But I was not hungry. I was having cravings. I had two bad days over the weekend, bad food that is. I ate a lot of soy at the party, and chocolate. The day before, I ate biscottis. And other junk.

I started thinking about food, wondering if it was the food from the weekend, from the salon and Sophia’s birthday party that was giving me insomnia, or something I ate today, or something else entirely. I still feel hungry. I still want to get something to eat. :-( Today, I ate carrots and peppers and extra ww bread. (more than normal). Otherwise, everything I ate was normal. (I think).

I got up and read a little in the book that I want to send to Rachel while the computer was booting up. I wanted to read the note from Ruth the Shaman poet. But it wasn’t that interesting. I am interested in thinking about Shamanism again. When I was in bed, not sleeping, I tried to go on a journey, but the hole in the earth that came to me was a rat-hole--the one last summer’s rats made under the terrace, That may have come from Milo’s rat. Down in the rat hole, there were “good” rats and bad rats, by which I mean friendly and unfriendly rats. I thought about how my judgement of them as good and bad depended on how they reacted to ME. Rats are social animals. Once they get to know you, they are fine (unless rabid). But I didn’t get anywhere beyond this sort of intellectualizing.

I read the rest of chapter 1 of The Hunted, by Gloria Skurzybski and Alane Ferguson. It’s a national park mystery we must have picked up for Graham in Colorado, but I don’t remember reading it and the book is perfect and tight as if it’s never even been opened. I figured I’d read it and send it to Rachel, since I told her I had some books for her and I already sent Judy Moody. I had this one in mind when I said that, as I had been rooting around in Graham’s discards looking for books for the kids and I’d seen it there.

When I was laying in bed, I imagined playing with fractals, doing art, working on my stories, reading, eating, doing some chores, getting the mole ready to mail, etc. But each things takes a while and it turns out that my inbox was full so I wasted some time deleting messages (and more need to be deleted.).

I try to start XAOS fractals multiple times, but I will not start. Maybe it’s expired. WAHN! It’s a great activity for insomniac nights. Oh well.

In order to accomplish something useful, I print 2 copies of the Mike Kline Address labels for mailing the mole. I feel tired, which is common for insomniac night--it’s time to be in bed, not up farting around.

I read chapter 2 of The Hunted. It’s pretty good so far. And, now I read chapter 3. I recorded the books I read yesterday, children’s books for Frankie, in my book list.

I went downstairs and ate almonds and baby carrots. I wanted something healthy, or relatively healthy, that would not exacerbate my cravings. I read through chapter 6 in The Hunted. The plot thickens and gets more interesting. Upstaris again, I read through chapter 8. It’s almost 3 Am and I am really tired. I think I will try going back to bed. Wish me luck.