Monday Musing, Sleepless in Upstate New York Edition

Here it is, Monday morning, Memorial Day in the USA, a holiday, a day that, in theory, I can sleep in on, and here it is, 5:45 in the morning and I am up. Just like yesterday. Just like the day before.

For the better part of a week, my sleep schedule has gotten totally borked. For most of my adult life, I have been someone who wakes up before my alarm, usually by 10 or 15 minutes. On Wednesday or Thursday last week I woke up ahead of my alarm, convinced it was time to get up, my brain firing at a fairly high level. I was halfway out of bed when I looked at the clock and saw it was only 4. On that day I managed to go back to sleep for another hour or so.

I don't necessarily mind all that much on some levels, except on some of thee days I'm tired when I wake up, and could use the extra sleep. Yawning uncontrollably from mid-morning on at work is not what I want to be doing, but it seems to be where I'm at right now.

For a year early in our marriage, we lived with my in-laws. They were in their 70s at the time and had the craziest sleep cycles of anyone I have ever known. More often than not one of them would be on their way to bed just as I was getting up to get ready for work--around 4:30 in the morning (I had a long train ride in those days). It seems fairly normal for older people to have wonky sleep schedules; I am hardly a senior citizen at the point, so I'm not sure why it's happening.

It's not entirely bad, however. I've written the first four paragraphs of this piece, half asleep, without the benefit of coffee (yeah, I know, it shows) and I'm much more awake than I was before. On Saturday, in the period when I was in bed trying to get back to sleep, I came up with a solution to a minor manuscript problem. Both Saturday and Sunday I got in two to three hours of what I felt like were quality writing time between 6 and 8 in the morning.

I guess all there is to do is to ride it out and try to get something useful out of this while it's going on. My sleep schedule periodically gets out of whack like this, and it always gets reset. Might as well use this 'extra time' well.

Musical Monday: Brandi Carlile

Making a return trip to this blog is Brandi Carlile, with this excellent, relatively new song:



Very nice, that song.

What news of me? We're heading into the real lasts of the Catbird's high school 'career'. This week, she's got her final conference champion track meet (though not her last track meet; she qualified for sectionals in the 800 and 1500). She now has less than 20 days of school left. Wow.

The Magpie continues to thrive in Japan, though the end is also in sight. She booked her return flight, which caused quite a bit of sticker shock. Last fall, she flew out, non-stop, on a Dreamliner for under a thousand bucks. A non-stop return flight would have cost her almost 5 grand. Five thousand freakin' dollars. Instead, she booked a flight for roughly what she paid to get there, but this one stops in Hong Kong and will keep her traveling for something like 22 hours. Ugh.

Making steady progress now through the WiP. I had printed it out and spent a couple of weeks going through it, making notes and scribbles and sticking post its all over it (what fun!). Usually I start with the last version of the document, do a 'Save As' and make changes following my notes on the printed copy. This time, I started with a brand new, blank document and have been typing the whole thing back in. As a result, I'm making even more changes than are noted on my pages, which I think is making for a better revision--at least I hope so!

Not sure if this marks my return from sabbatical or not; we'll see. How's everything with all of you?

We Interrupt this Short Break...

...for a chestnut update! As you can see, the little tree is starting to join the rest of the vegetative world in these parts. Daffodils are up, violets are blooming, even some wild strawberries. And now, the chestnut is starting to leaf out.

I'm glad to see that the brutal winter we had didn't kill it and I'm hoping it really takes off this year.

I'm enjoying my blogging break and expect to return, maybe by June. Hope you're all well. Have a great weekend!

This About Sums It Up

Have a nice weekend, all.