StandingWater Creations

Have you ever just had one of those experiences that, no matter how hard you try, you just can't get to sleep? Or, if you do get to sleep after an hour you wake up and can't get back to sleep and so you lay about, or read, or do something else until you are so tired that you sleep, again only to sleep for an hour and start all over again. Yeah, I don't sleep a lot at night. This is not something that is comfortable to me since I work, I go to school, I have my own projects I am working on and want to move forward with, and in the end I am frustratingly inactive during the vital parts of the day and asleep when I need to be awake - and forcing myself to be awake to try to get sleep regularly isn't working either.

Now comes the part where people offer advice. And I think that's great. A co-worker suggested yesterday that I take some pills to help me sleep, and barring that, I use some weird root that will help make my sleeping patterns more normal. That's great. If not drugs something that will alter my metabolism in such a way that it will allow me to sleep.

There have been other suggestions. People like to offer opinions and I like to listen and then think about and eventually ignore what is going on. What gets me is that before I moved east the advice I was offered was that I needed to concentrate on sleeping during the night and being awake during the day. That seemed like odd advice, at the time, and now seems rather sagacious as I look at how I am reacting to the changes that have taken place. Moreover, the days are different here. I realize that may seem weird of me to say, but they are. I am farther (to distance) north now than I have ever lived in my life and I think that is playing games with my circadian rhythm. I am off now and I don't know what to do to get it back on track.

I share all of that because I finally got frustrated at several things this evening. For instance, in a period of a week I have finally started beating my sinus infection (a plague of months) and have also gotten a cold. The sniffles, runny nose, that were signs of positive change in me - meaning that my sinuses are finally draining - have turned into a curse of coughs and sore throats and my lymph nodes are also a little swollen. In other words, I have a head cold and I am working backward on a sinus infection, I don't sleep at night because my circadian rhythm is totally off, and I work way to freaking much… oh and did I mention that I have about four writing projects and a letter (long one) to my mother all in the works on top of school assignments…. Maybe I should just shut-up now.

Anyway, things are good. Books are great. Hundreds of titles pass through my hands daily and I seem to ignore every single one of them. I could not tell you, from one customer to the next, what titles people are buying other than to say that a certain look of a certain book has passed by me multiple times. Beyond that, I don't see the books. Of course, that is going to change next week when I start to assist customers in finding books and magazines and music; but hopefully my resolve not to spend thousands of dollars on books will be enough to get me through the temptation (now if only I'd remember that on the employee appreciation weekend coming up as we get 40% off books and music for three days and I have a box).

School is also proving to be interesting. I signed up for a World Lit. course next term, financial aid should be progressing as of today, and I also take a philosophy class. All of this so that by January I can transfer to days and overload my schedule with as many credit hours as they will let me take. Oh, and I need to buy a car so when financial aid really does kick in I will be paying for a used car (maybe a Honda) very soon. Which reminds me that one of the girls at work had to replace a tire on her car because it was tracking wrong only to have the right front axle go out on her because the CV (constant velocity) joint had gone bad and then had warn all the way through the axle. I'd asked, when she was talking about the tire, whether or not she had other problems with that wheel and she'd forgotten to mention that one issue. And now I've offered to help her save money and change her oil for her (and she's not even my type).

Church should prove to be interesting. Andy accepted a new calling and now has gone to great pains not to speak to me about the what's and where-with-alls about it. He met with the High Councilor, Branch President, and possibly the past person with that calling last night (while I was at school) and is very mum about the outcome. I don't need to know details, but at the same time, I have told him that whatever he needs me to do I am there to do it. Period.

On top of all that I think I am doing pretty snazzy. Apparently in the couple of weeks I've been at work I have become the life of the registers. People are trying to keep up with me and to banter like me and I think that is about as funny as it gets. On the other side of that we have a girl (Angel) who was hired and trained about a month before me who is an exceptional employee (and a looker) and who just does what she is supposed to do as a part of her job breaking ground for me. Instead of be the wunderkind that I normally am (because I go to work to work) I am merely another good employee and I am grateful for that.

Finally, mostly because I am tired, I want to do a shout-out to Rebecca (little sis) and say, just because I don't answer a comment for a few days or weeks doesn't mean I cannot or do not know what to say. Some comments are best left for when it is appropriate, or more accurately, when the speaker (me) is prepared to deal with that. For instance, this evening we were talking about conundrums. Which came first the chicken or the egg. Catch-22's. And as a result of that one of the guys standing around said, "The chicken had to come first otherwise there was no egg." When I said, "I believe both have always existed simultaneously," the group became uneasy at the idea until I added, "a woman is born with eggs already within her, as is a chicken, the eggs already exist when the woman, or chicken, exists, though they are not fertile, therefore both the chicken and the egg have always existed together and not separately." There is no other answer to that conundrum.

I also came up with the dating conundrum. Or, I don't date because I can't date the girls I am meeting and I am only meeting girls I can't date, so I don't date. Which isn't entirely true. I am picky, selective, I won't always just go out with anyone, and the person, or persons, I am willing to go out with have reasons why I cannot ask them out at present.

Oh, the Catch-22 conundrum is Yosarian stating, (paraphrasing) "You have to be crazy to fly these bombing missions, but if you are crazy you cannot fly the missions, but if you know you are crazy then you aren't crazy; but to fly the missions is crazy and if you're crazy you cannot fly the bombing missions." To do one thing another has to already exist. But that one thing can't exist unless the previous item also already exists.

My next imponderable is: If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it does it make a noise?

I have a personal answer for this one, but I am curious to know what Rebecca thinks first.