And then there were crickets...

I just finished my July Camp Nanowrimo novel. Just now, at 0133 on July 30th, one full day ahead of schedule. Now I have all of tomorrow and Sunday to plan my August Camp Nanowrimo novel. If you're sitting there thinking that I've gone completely insane, you're right. I think I have. If you'd like an ARC of the drivel that just about crippled my fingers for the past 30 days, shoot me an email. The only rule is that you can't laugh...at least not where I can hear you.

Man. How appropriate that I'm doing a camp-themed Wrimo here on Allen Mountain, with the crickets loud just outside the window? I may have to build a campfire to get through August's challenge...but for now, if you need me, I'll be basking for a bit. Night, y'all!

This time it wasn't insomnia...

Last night I was up reading. Reading. For four hours straight.

I haven't had a book touch me enough or inspire me in that way since I finished the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind, and even the last two books of that series didn't hold me rapt like what I was reading last night.

I'm sure those in the know (and I KNOW that Julie over at Seven Impossible Things has) have already read this series when it first came out. I avoided it because it was Young Adult Literature...I never could get into the Harry Potter books and thought that was the cause.

I now think it's because HP wasn't dark enough for me...but I digress. Last night I was up reading New Moon...almost 500 pages in one sitting. I can't say enough good things about it...and I'm going to get the next one in the series, Eclipse, today. (If you're interested in the first book, Twilight, click on this post title for the link.)

Nancy 1, Insomnia 0

YAY! Steeton!
Originally uploaded by Nancy Allen

With a little help from a LONG day in the car and my friend tylenol...seven hours of sleep! I know, not really front page news...but for those two or three people still reading the Lettuce...I'm excited!

Progress

Zyrtec? Check.

Proper dinner? Kinda check, if you count curry noodles as a proper dinner. Do the onions in the sauce count as veg?

In bed on time? Another Kinda Check. I fell asleep on the sofa around 9:30, woke up at 11:30 and got in my bed so kinda.

Woke up at normal time? Nope. I was up at 4am with Jeany wanting to go out, and then dozed off and on (more off than on really) from 4:30 to 7:30 when I finally gave up and got out of bed.

Still, 4:30 is better than 3. I'm moving in the right direction at least.

Nancy 1, Jet Lag 3.

What do you get when you add...

enroute to MAN
Originally uploaded by Nancy Allen

Jet lag, no zyrtec for a week, and a cat that would clearly rather stay at the vet's than be held by his long suffering Mommy whose allergy ridden head has just come back to Georgia in full bloom and humidity?

Me. Sick as a dog yesterday and aching for allergy/cold meds. Two benadryl later and I couldn't think straight, let alone keep my eyes open. I was asleep on the couch when the guy from Papa John's brought my comfort food...err...pizza. I ate some and then went promptly back to sleep. That was at seven thirty EST, otherwise known as midnight BST (British Summer Time). My body thought it was bedtime and when the meds agreed we all took a nice long nap...till 3am when I was wide awake and mostly productive!

So...now I've been up for fourteen hours and I'm sleepy and barely able to string a sentence together. Seriously. What I've typed so far has taken me much longer than it should have, considering the quality. Here's hoping I will be back to normal soon...changing my work hours to the middle of the night MIGHT raise a few eyebrows.

...just another brick in the Wall...?

Now, apologies to the Almighty Pink Floyd...

Just a short observation I wanted to share since I ONCE AGAIN CAN'T SLEEP...I was interpreting in a group setting today and made an interesting discovery at the end of the session. While I can tell you in minute detail who the the deaf clients were (well, I could, but I won't, confidentiality and ethics and all...), I have no real memory of any of the other faces in the room. I have a sort of photographic memory, but when I call up my memory of that room I can't make out any of the faces. I can tell you who was African American, who was male, who was female...but if I were to pass any of those people on the street I can guarantee that they would recognize me far before I recognized them. And I suppose that's as it should be. I just wonder why. Their faces, in my memory, look like the melted/distorted faces of the school children in the "Another Brick in the Wall/We Don't Need No Education" part of Pink Floyd's "The Wall." No definition, nothing, just blank. For you Doctor Who fans, it was like the moment in the episode "The Idiot's Lantern" when the Doctor finds the caged up people with no faces...the room, in my memory, is filled with people with no faces.

On the one hand, that's good because it preserves confidentiality for the group members. But in a way, it almost trivializes them, at least in my memory, because there is nothing individual about any of them. But that's good as well, I suppose, because I'm remembering them as a group of people focused on a common healing goal rather than as this man or that young woman or the like. I have to admit that even though I certainly do not wish to share the illness that brought those people to that group, I always leave those situations feeling a bit like an outsider. I know that's what I am, really, but when you've spent an hour being someone else, speaking their words, signing their thoughts...when it's over and everyone separates into groups and you're left standing there it's just an odd feeling, like breaking through the surface of the water to find that everyone has already headed for the beach.

Profundity. A CLEAR sign that I need sleep. Cross your fingers it comes soon...

What to do when you can't sleep...

Make lists.

1. Sleep.

2. If number one doesn't work, play Everquest.

3. Still awake? Cruise iTunes and discover that your new favorite band, Bitter:Sweet has a new album out. If you caught the first season of Lipstick Jungle, then you heard Bitter:Sweet in the theme song, The Bomb. I've been waiting for the album to come out and just happened to log into iTunes on the very day. Fate, I tell ya.

4. Weird Electronica not your cuppa? Try Christine Kane. Folksy, uplifting, just pretty darned awesome is how I'd describe her. One hundred thousand thank you's, by the way, to Katy for introducing me to this wonderful singer/songwriter. My recommendation is one that seems to be mirroring my life at the moment, a song called Right Outta Nowhere from the album of the same name.

Some choices hold you down
Some chances set you free

Right outta nowhere
You open your heart
And let go of everything
You're going somewhere
And all you need to know
Is that you're free to go

Dream and the way will be clear
Pray and the angels will hear
Leap and the net will appear

5. Still no good? Well, it's probably again not your cup of tea, but I'm loving Say by John Mayer. I love John Mayer, there, I said it...and this song is just one more in a long line of songs that tend to get set on repeat when they come on the iPod.

Hmmm...I think I may have bored myself sleepy posting...

6. Post to the Lettuce...zzzzzz...

For those about to blog, I salute you.

I don't really know where that title came from, as I just typed it, thought it funny, and moved on to the body of this post. It has nothing to do with this post other than a memory (mentioned in the last Lettuce installment) of Cathie thinking that the look on my face meant someone was gonna get blogged...and I'm sure I had that look on all day for the past two days.

Starting this past Monday morning I was attending a "retreat" for where I work. I use the quotation marks because when you have to drive up and back because you are a single pet parent and the place doesn't allow animals it becomes less of a retreat and more of a departure...from sanity and rest, which are two of the goals of such an activity. Now, place said "retreat" in a facility on the tippy top of a mountain (complete with hairpin turns and no mobile service) and throw some moldy logs on the fire (I am TERRIBLY allergic to mold/mildew)and you've got a recipe for me to be laid up for the next few days reacting to histamines...in other words, sneezing, coughing, and unable to breathe through either side of my nose. Don't forget the runny eyes and the brand new tone that has joined the tinnitus choir in my ears...but that might be due to the elevation.

See, when I said it was on a mountain, I wasn't kidding. At the signpost directing you up the even more windy road toward the facility where we stayed is another sign stating "Eastern Continental Divide" and the elevation...which was TWO THOUSAND AND SOMETHING. There are single engine PLANES that don't go much higher than that.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the state of South Carolina for not marring our view of the mountains from those roads by adding guardrails. I hate having to look at an OHMYLORDTHATISALONGWAYDOWN kind of a drop off through the safety of guard rail metal.

I got home today around five and I've been sneezing and stopped up and just generally feeling bad every since. I felt that way last night but thought that I was just tired..until a co-worker told me that last night it was revealed that the wood was moldy. Good thing I didn't just go stick my head in the fire like I wanted to a few times to get warm. If so it would have been an ambulance carefully driving around those hairpin curves (see there, Simon? I've said it twice!) rather than me.

The retreat was a nice chance to not have to be doing actual work, but I'm just not wired for that sort of team building activity anymore. I used to be, when I was a camp counselor, but now I just sort of want to get on with it so that I can get my work done and head home. Shift in priorities I guess.

And now, my two benadryls and I are going to go slip into a nice sleep, I hope. I just have to wrap cotton wool around the clappers inside the giant bells going off in my ears and I'm golden. Night, y'all!

Sleep schedule, interrupted.

Time to make the doughnuts?
Originally uploaded by Nancy Allen

It all started Saturday night, after I got home from the Renaissance Festival.

Granted, I was a bit emotional on the drive home because it was my last time there for the season and it might possibly be Hunky and Jeany's last time getting to go. I took Hunky down to see the joust and had the first of several teary moments watching him watch the horses. That dog has gone with me, without complaint or attitude, to that festival almost every time we were there for the past seven years, and he still looks at the horses like he's never seen them before. I konw I compare my dogs to children a bit more than those of you with children might care for, but to see that joy on his face just made me cry with happiness.

I got home and could barely breathe. I thought, as you do, that it was due to the aforementioned waterworks, and fell asleep on the sofa (AFTER Torchwood, mind you!). Sunday was worse, I sounded like a little old man who had smoked for 70 years when I tried to talk and breathing through my nose was a joke. Monday I decided that I needed to try and knock this thing OUT rather than go to work, so I called in and then got some sleep.

Too much of it, I'm afraid...those of you that are long time Lettuce readers know about my love affair with insomnia, right? Back with a vengance on Monday night...which actually worked out well, because I knocked out an overnight interpreting assignment in my WIDE-AWAKENESS. As is typical of my best laid plans, the short job ran long and at 3am I got home, emailed everyone I knew at work to say it was 3am and I was going to SLEEP, and then did so.

This morning I was awakened by my furry alarm clocks who regrettably have no snooze buttons. Seriously. Picking up the blackberry that is buzzing like a hornet and accidentally dropping it on the dog does not make him whine any less. Not that I'd know, mind you...

Worked out schedule, agreed to cover 1pm assignment, went back to sleep. Hard sleep. The kind that when it is interrupted by a co-worker on the blackberry it jolts you to a near upright sitting position. Woke up at 11:30am, rolled out of bed and into the shower, threw on a suit, ran a comb through my hair, slapped glasses on my head and began the mad drive south to the assignment.


PS- the cute chunky heeled Mary Janes are only a good idea if you're awake enough to navigate while simultaneously keeping the back of your trouser leg from sticking under the heel of your foot and causing you to stumble. Otherwise they should be strictly avoided in favor of something that is flat soled and laces.

Back home from the assignment, speak to Simon for a bit, and then fall into another one of those HARD sleeps on the chair. Finally get up and feed the dogs, note that benadryl has worn off and you can still breathe (sorta), and decide that you need to sleep but CAN'T!!!

So what's causing all my respiratory trauma? One simple word: Mildew. I heard from one of the folks in my group that one of the dog beds used at the festival had mildewed and she had to throw it out. I am SO allergic to mold and mildew.

I suppose that would be why the cold meds didn't even touch this and the benadryl worked so well there was nothing to make me sleepy?

Ugh. Speaking of...perhaps two will do the trick...

Lessons in cooking, part four hundred

Yeah, I know it's past midnight. This really isn't insomnia, though. It's Wednesday night which means multiple episodes of Ghost Hunters. It's also laundry night, and my bed linens are in the dryer. And no, it doesn't matter that I didn't put them in the WASH until 11pm...

Anyway, any clues as to what happens if you put frozen green beans and almonds into a pot on the stove with a lid and the unit is set to medium heat?

Smoke, that's what. Apparently you CAN burn veg in a pot on the stove. Hooray me. At least the baked haddock was good, along with the peppercorn ranch potato chips...with Twizzlers for dessert.

The Perks of Insomnia

Before I start, no, I'm not in an insomnia cycle again, for those of you that worry. Actually quite the opposite, I can't seem to get enough sleep. I think I totally wore myself out throughout the month of September and I'm still trying to catch up.

I need to preface this by telling you what happened in my little neighborhood yesterday. I'm starting to think maybe it was just a big hallucination because I can't seem to find anything about it in the local news! However, while cruising my NBC affiliate site I did come up with a jewel of an eyewitness account that I need to share...

Last week a family was robbed at gunpoint at home.

Paul Kelley who lives in the home said he and his family thought what was happening was a joke at first.

"This guy just run in here with a gun. He bounced around like a darn ninja or something," Kelley told WYFF News 4's Ron Reynolds.

Too many of those darned ninjas in the Upstate of South Carolina apparently. Yesterday I got home and was going to head right back out to get the dogs some food before playdate at 6pm. As I went about my routine letting the dogs out, I noticed that there was a helicopter overhead...not a strange occurance at all, since I live in between two large hospitals that both have helicopters AND in the flight path of the Greenville Municipal Airport.

But the helicopters didn't seem to be leaving my neighborhood. In fact, I saw it make a complete circle twice at least. Probably the news helicopter, I thought, and went back inside. As I was getting ready to go to the store, I noticed a police car with its lights on going down my street very slowly. Not something that happens every day. I stepped outside and saw the helicopter again, closer this time, and noticed that it was a police helicopter. Then I noticed the police cars parked at either end of my block, lights on...definitely not something that happens every day.

A neighbor and I spoke briefly (found out he's originally from Atlanta, small world!) and he then found out from the cop that there had been an armed robbery closeby. The suspect(s) had fled up Bleckley Avenue, one street over from me AND where I used to live! We were asked to go back inside and lock our doors.

Okay, that situation I think led to the dream I had last night.

I dreamed that I lived in a two story house and that I knew somehow that there were criminals on the loose in my neighborhood. I saw one man run through my yard, carefully evading the police cars by hiding behind my trees. I yelled out my window to the cops that he was there and they got him. Interestingly enough, he was wearing a black and white striped prison uniform like the chain gangs in Alabama wear...but I digress.

Remember I said criminalS, as in more than one? Well, after that first one was caught, I apparently went to check my doors and found that my kitchen door wasn't locked. As I tried to lock it, the knob turned and the other fugitive pushed his way into my house. In my dream I could feel his hands on my neck and the coldness of the gun against my face! Ugh. I remember crying and pleading with him not to hurt my dogs, who of course were standing in the kitchen doorway wagging their tails. He looked at me and then turned toward them. Right before I woke up I heard him say "Come'ere, Daisy..."

Man alive. I could have done without that dream. Guess how many times I've checked the locks on my house since I woke up!!!

Insomnia has its perks, for sure.

Things that don't help insomnia.

1. Mosquitos that appear in your house and disappear into thin air just before you swat them.

2. Spiders that saunter down your couch cushions while your cat watches, doing nothing.

3. Finding evidence of rodents in the bowl you popped into the sink while finishing an online class.

I swear, it's like the universe picked one of my most hormonal days to spring everything that creeps me out on me and land it all in my house. There isn't a bit of me that isn't itching with crawly skin right now, and I while I know it's just fatigue and stress and the fact that it's 1:00 in the morning but keep seeing things out of the corner of my eye on the walls, floor, and my legs. Oh, and don't forget checking the cabinets, counters, and behind the stove (where I found more evidence where the baseboard is removed from the wall of said rodents).

I think it may just be time for some Tylenol PM.

Over one million insomniac minutes served...

When you purchase your allergy medicine and you decide on the store brand because it is a bit cheaper than the real thing, please make sure that it's not the kind that dissolve in your mouth NOR the 24 hour non-drowsy kind. I mean come on, 24 hours of non-drowsiness?

I've had insomnia something AWFUL off and on for about two weeks now. Not so much while I was in San Francisco but I think that I was just exhausted then. But just before I left and now that I'm back I don't even get TIRED (with or without a nap, doesn't seem to matter) before 11:30pm and lately haven't been falling asleep before 1am. That doesn't work so well when one has to be up at 6:45am the next morning.

So as I'm about to pop my allergy pill in my mouth I notice that the box says something about dissolving...pop pill, drink water, turn over box. Oh, look at that. Fast dissolving, non-drowsy, something about 24 hour relief. Hmmm. Here's hoping it will do what all the other "non-drowsy" antihistamines do and zonk me out...but so far no good.

Ugh. I guess I could do my dishes.

Poetic...License?

Twas the night before conference and all through the manse
Not a human was stirring, they all seemed in a trance.
While Davey snoozing on the four poster bed,
Our Susan had visions of Days in her head.
My case was all opened, it covered the floor!
My laptop a humming, plugged in near the door,
I sat on the bed, wishing dearly for sleep
But it came not, not even after I'd counted sheep.

Why was I nervous? What could be the matter?
I'd spring from my bed, but that would cause a clatter.
So I'll sit here and surf, the internet awaits
Till my alarm sounds in five hours, the sound that I hates!


Yeah, why am I still awake, and further, writing bad poetry? 8 hours from now I'll be on a plane, headed for San Francisco to the RID, Inc conference where I'll be with people like me...people that get me...people that live the double life I lead as an interpreter...and I'll have to stand up in front of them and give a presentation when my mind is still in Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina...with my aunt, my dogs, and my new job, rather than focused on Interpreting for Deaf Professionals in Clinical Settings. As Liz says from time to time, Oh, the GLAMOUR!

Maybe if I had this curling iron masquerading as a laptop off my legs I could actually get some sleep...Next post from San Fran!

(or at least from the airport...)

I packed my bags last night...pre-flight...

Zero hour, 8pm...Yeah, I'm no Elton John and certainly no Stewie and/or Bill Shatner...

Before I go further, I want to acknowledge that this is my 401st post here in the Lettuce. Who would have thought?

It's 2am and I'm awake. At just after 8pm tonight I will be on a plane headed for Manchester where Simon and his sister will be waiting to pick me up tomorrow morning. I should be asleep, but then I also should have packed my bags, cleaned the house, and had the dogs semi-ready to go stay with Krista several days ago.

Load songs on iPod. Finish packing "non-clothing" checked luggage. Snuggle with Daisy. Dash by grocery in the morning for last minute doggie food. Dash back by grocery on the way to the airport for last minute things I could very well be packing right now.

It's all so surreal...

It's 1am, do you know where your ability to sleep is?

If it's with mine, would you kindly send it back to Montgomery? I am still awake at 1am, staring down another day of work and so much left to do to be ready to go on my trip Wednesday.

Hmmm, why the insomnia?

In 3 days I will meet someone in person that has become a very dear friend over the past five months.

In 4 days I will meet my new babygirl for the second time, only this time she'll be coming home with me!

In 6 days I will be back again with all my FTH friends, people who know me better than most and whom I love dearly.

Yeah, I'd say that's plenty. I still have to change the oil in the car, pack my suitcase, make sure I have all that the dogs need, and get the car packed and ready to roll Wednesday morning.

I may not sleep till Wednesday night.

The 11th thing out of the Top 10

...things that suck about insomnia...

Being wide awake and realizing that you've run out of your nightime/sleep meds...

I do have a new vacuum cleaner, however, so maybe some light housework is in order. I'm not giving up yet though, it's not even midnight. The night is still young.

What Dreams I Can Do Without

Slight insomnia again last night. I stayed up WAY too late on the computer, and when I got into bed I read a little bit to ease me out of the world of fighting computer monsters and into sleep. I was rewarded for my late bedtime with an awful anxiety dream.

I was back in college and apparently had learned to sing as I had taken the lead role in The Fantasticks. My former theatre professor was still the director at the theatre, but I believe the building we were in was the Classic Center in Athens, GA. I'm sure that it was in Athens. Anyway...in typical anxiety dream fashion I had not learned any of my lines and had been away at home for a week, presumably for spring break. My mother was with me coming back to school, and I remember saying to her that she needed to go into the theatre with me when I told the director I was back because if my mother was there the director couldn't possibly get THAT mad at me.

Somehow Mom agreed and we walked toward the theatre. I saw others that I knew were in the cast going in dressed in costumes that, in my waking mind, were wrong for that play...not to mention the fact that there were too many of them...and I chatted with one guy as we were headed in the door. He wanted to know why I was there, because since I'd been skipping rehearsals I'd been demoted to understudy. I was shocked and said I'd been gone all week, had they had rehearsals? He just shook his head and went inside.

After that the dream was just flashes of being onstage, being REAMED for not knowing my lines, running about backstage, etc. The interesting and not-so-horrifying thing about the backstage part is that I could SEE the backstage area of the Maryville College theatre...I could smell it...that was, fortunately, the most realistic part of my dream. But at the same time, it would change to a backstage I didn't recognize, and that would suddenly horrify me that not only was I unprepared for my role...I didn't know where I was.

Wonder if I'm worried about Alabama?

Just checking in...

Hope everyone had a safe Memorial Day...

I wanted to let those of you that have expressed concern know that last night I got approximately eight hours of only slightly uninterrupted sleep. I konked out on the sofa at my sister and brother-in-law's watching a movie at about 2am, woke up at 5am and went to the guest room, where I fell back into bed and slept till 10am. No drugs. No sleep aids of any kind unless you count Julia Roberts in a movie I'd never heard of a sleep aid. Maybe I should keep that in mind.

Top 10 Reasons Why Insomnia Sucks

10. I have to work tomorrow...at 8:30am...and it's 4am right now.

9. My eating schedule is thrown off when it's been seven hours since the half a container of sherbert that I ate for dessert (after some cucumber dill hummus and whole wheat pita bread accompanied by some wonderful Amish smoked cheddar).

8. Everything is worse at 4am.

7. Everything is never-ending, in addition to being worse, at 4am.

6. My alarm clock will be going off in 2.5 hours.

5. The alarm on the television in my bedroom will be going off in 2.25 hours.

4. The fuzzy alarm clocks with feet will be whining, mewling, and generally being fussy in about 3 hours.

3. I am more alone than anyone on the earth...at 4am. By six I'll be back with all the other slobs that have to work for a living.

2. It seems like my divorce will never happen and I will never be free...at 4am.

And the number one reason why insomnia sucks:

1. There are only so many times I can call in sick based on only getting a few hours of sleep before they recommend therapy...yay working for DMH!

If anyone knows where the "off" switch is for my brain, could you let me know? I lost the manual years ago and it's been a whirlygig up there ever since. I'm amazed that I can sleep at all.