SUNDAY!
Finally, last night I got a great night’s sleep. I was falling asleep in my easy chair before I went up to bed, and within moments, was in a deep, wonderfully restful sleep. I don’t even think I woke up during the night once–if I did, I fell back asleep immediately–and I woke completely up this morning, without any fog or haziness or anything. This is a very good thing, frankly. I’ve been tired now for going on two weeks, and it’s so nice to feel rested again.
We’re having a cold spell down here in New Orleans; I am wearing a T-shirt beneath my sweatshirt and have on tights; I also have my space heater going (my hands are cold, though) and I have a stocking cap on. It’s gray outside the windows this morning, the sky hidden behind white cotton. Today I have get things done, so I am very happy to feel so rested. At some point I have to walk to the gym; I need to work on my short story some more, and of course, there’s organizing and so forth to do this morning. My goal is to work on getting organized this morning and do whatever superficial spot cleaning needs to be done–what would be called a “lick-and-a-promise” in one of the Trixie Belden books referencing her house cleaning chores–, a=go the gym, and then come home and work on my story and get started on the reread of the manuscript of #shedeservedit. I also want to get some reading done, which I will probably get done during the Saints game. I also have a blog entry to write, which I might try to get knocked out of the way this morning–I just haven’t been able to write anything at all since the sack of the Capitol.
I’ve also discovered this week the allure and temptations of Twitter. Being able to @ someone–whether a newscaster, a politician, etc.–directly is a potent and heady brew, even though you know, as you send the tweet, they probably have their account limited to only seeing things that people they follow tweet, or something like that. I may have succumbed to the temptation to rage-tweet at human feces on two legs Betsy DeVos the other day, and may have called her a “suppurating syphilis sore on the face of democracy.” My usual rule with Twitter is to stop myself from tweeting if I’ve written an angry response to someone and delete the tweet before sending it…but I’ve not been deleting the tweets since the terrorist attack on Washington. But I need to scale that back dramatically and go back to using Twitter as I have always used it–to communicate and joke around with friends and colleagues. I find myself on Twitter a lot more these days than I do on Facebook–primarily because the new Facebook is useless, hard to navigate, and over all, the design is not pleasing to mine eyes; it looks like a shittier Twitter, frankly, and so I don’t spend nearly as much time there as I used to–and I’ve also discovered, other than a few things, I also don’t miss it nearly as much as I would have thought I would.
Which is interesting in and of itself.
I should, though, have known that I wouldn’t be able to dive into writing or editing something new immediately upon completion of the latest book; while my creativity continues to burn for new ideas and new interests, the actual wiring part that enables me to write burns at a very low ebb for a week or so after I finish something major; like I have to wait for that flame to replenish and reignite for a bit before I can go. Not being able to sleep well since New Year’s has been a part of that problem; it’s hard to replenish and restore and reload when you’re tired all the time, but I feel surprisingly able to get to it today. All it took was the restfulness of a good night’s sleep–something I need to remember going forward (like I ever do; like I never remember how much I enjoy working out until I’m doing it or how much I actually enjoy writing until I force myself to do it).
One of the greatest ironies of my life has always been that I have to force myself to do things I actually enjoy.
But there’s also a three day weekend looming on the horizon; next weekend is the holiday commemorating Dr. King’s life and legacy, so that will be lovely and hopefully, restful. I am hoping for a rather low-key week, to be completely honest–although I know the national news will be a tempting distraction, all the way through January 20th, and I don’t know that I will completely relax until we officially have a new president and the cancer that has been metabolizing in our country for the last four years is neatly and finally excised (I know, it’s longer than that, but we allowed the cancer to take control, and rage out of control, for the last four years). I also am not sure the political class knows how angry most Americans are right now–and how unified those of us on the left are with the moderates and the small percentage of the right that put country first; I saw a poll yesterday showing that 88% of people polled disapprove strongly of what happened last Wednesday (as the participants are slowly but surely finding out, as the arrests grow, they lose their jobs and businesses they own are being boycotted, and they are being shamed off social media). The only people who aren’t uniting against this disgrace are the treasonous traitorous trash who were a party to it–and they need to be made a lesson of as a deterrent; don’t think for a minute they won’t try again, and they may try again very soon.
Living through a Constitutional crisis is really not a lot of fun.
And on that note, I am putting on my helmet and heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and stay warm.
Queer and Loathing in America 