Take it back.

I forgot about how insomnia catches up with you in the long run. Last night, it made a crushing return with feelings of self worthlessness, extreme loneliness that feels like it will be infinite, and defeatism. Tonight it's more of the same, with some head pain thrown in.

Oh, maybe I'll write more next time I'm feeling coherent. Rough couple days. . .professionally, romantically, et al.

Dinner was pleasant.

back to insomnia

Last night I went out with some old friends. Many of them were D.C. friends, some of whom were in town for a couple of days, and others who had given up there and relocated. After we got past the banalities of floor votes, burnt down bars, hawks, doves, Senatorial peccadilloes, and who's staffing who, we mellowed into a low key banter, a dark dive bar, silly jokes and invented dance moves. I went home late.

And woke up at 2:30 in the morning. I was not at all drowsy, feeling the onset of the insomnia I thought I had conquered a couple months ago. Instead of worrying, obsessing on all of the things I might not get down without at least a few hours of rest, I decided to just relax, and use this one productively. I did some low-key work, emailed old friends, drew up an outline for an article I will write someday. After a couple hours of this, my neighbor and friend, Hillary, came out on her porch. She was surprised to see me sitting on mine with my laptop. After a squint-eyed good morning, she said, "Are you up for the eclipse."
She pointed at the moon.
It was pretty nice looking, like someone had dripped caramel all over it. It felt warmer that way.
Hillary went back to bed. Eventually so did I. Today I've been irritable and easily distracted. I've wasted a fair amount of the work day. But that moon was pretty nice looking.

?

I stopped posting here a while ago. I felt like I was wallowing in it. I knew keeping a journal is supposed to be healthy, but I felt like I was using it as a tool for feeding my depressive side, for letting failed expectations run wild in my imagination to the point where they were feeling like the dominant part of my life. Now I'm not sure how to proceed. Part of Marcel Parcells likes scrutinizing these disappointing aspects, zooming in on them and getting closer to how they change my motivations, to why I feel this way or that way. Another part - and perhaps this is the part that believes he can he break horses and canter off into the night, prefers a more detached cynicism, an asshole, go-fuck-yourself, I may care but probably not really, arms length sort of attitude. So. . .where to go with this?

I recently drove across the country. I spent part of the trip mocking southerners, relaxing in the driver's seat, singing along to the worst possible music, and seeing how hot I could make the interior of my car. I spent another part, a large one, thinking a lot about the road trips I used to take with Janet, the most significant of ex-girlfriends, who is now taking trips with a man, who is to my impression, a monomaniacal gearhead athlete of the most boring kind. I called Janet from a lonely campspot in some west Oklahoma grassland, because I had been thinking so much about her I needed to try for contact. This was the first time we have talked in months. It was fun (comfortable), but disappointing, since she was doing that relationship thing where you take on some of the traits of your partner. She talked about scales that measured body fat, hiking twenty miles a day, weighing out your food to the gram, rationing, bear canisters, trekking poles, travel times. I wanted to interrupt the whole time and ask, "When did you play? Did you have any fun? Did you climb some trees, or skip rocks, or bet on which squirrel would lick your peanut butter covered finger?" Instead I just let it go, because for the most part, I ended the relationship, and I hurt her, so if she can be happy with someone I would hate. . .well, good for her.

It's just sad to see someone change for someone else.