Lately I’ve been having long, involved dreams every night. I’ve read that extremely vivid dreams are a potential side effect of quitting Lexapro (which I am currently attempting to do, so far successfully), but these aren’t any more vivid than my usual dreams, they’re just longer. Previously I’d wake up most mornings remembering bits and pieces of several dreams, each feeling like it lasted at most fifteen minutes, but now I’ll have one giant dream that seems to have gone on for an hour or more.

Each bit of storyline morphs into the next in that way that dreams do, where all of a sudden a new idea appears, and your brain invents some way to insert it into the action that’s sort of continuous, but in the light of day makes no sense.* And this goes on and on and on.

(more…)

Jonathan Coulton, anyone? I’d have that song playing right now if I weren’t in class, because I feel wonderful this morning. Not sure why, though.

It could be the four taiko sets we performed this weekend at the Houston Japan Festival. I spent two whole days outdoors hanging out in the lovely Japanese gardens, playing drums, moving drums on and off and on and off and on and off the stage, eating yummy food, drinking tapioca tea, and perfecting my sunburn.

It could also be that I’ve switched from taking my Lexapro in the evening to taking it in the morning. The doctor said it might make me sleepy and recommended that I take it before bed, which I’ve always done, but lately I’ve been having trouble sleeping through the night. Every night I wake up at least two or three times, and sometimes it takes me up to an hour to go back to sleep. If I lie down in the morning after I get back from walking Sam, I will fall asleep within five minutes and sleep through noon. I’ve missed many a morning class this way, and even a few in the afternoon.

(more…)

I need to write about this because it’s been on my mind a lot lately. It’s about my wisdom teeth and their continued presence in my head.

I first found out that my two bottom wisdom teeth were growing in sideways and would have to be removed when I was seventeen, and for the seven years since then I’ve been (1) putting off having it done and (2) worrying about it.

I actually made and kept a preliminary appointment with an oral surgeon last year, but that was around the same time that Larry I was causing trouble, so I dealt with him first. But that surgeon’s office was done all in matchy browns and oranges with fancy chairs, like someone’s living room. Even the exam rooms were painted a soothing, sumptuous brown. The staff all wore identical burnt-orange scrubs. Would YOU want to undergo minor surgery in someone’s living room? I thought not. Garish hospital white, practical furniture, and bears-and-hippos scrubs for me, please.

Plus the surgeon was too jokey, and his hands were cold and stumpy. Needless to say, I didn’t call those interior decorators medical professionals back, even after I’d recovered from my surgery.

(more…)

The crumminess I was feeling the night before last eventually got much worse. John came over, which kept me calmer than I would’ve been, but I (we) still had a pretty shitty night.

Yesterday I went back to my doctor, and she checked me out and told me that the cause of my misery was almost certainly stress. So I’m doing it to myself, in a sense, which is good because it’s fixable, but bad because it’s up to me to fix it. The good FAR outweighs the bad.

(more…)

Today, writing about Polybius, I have seized an opportunity to casually refer to a certain stage in a government’s evolution as a metastable state.

This is easily the high point of my day. I have written about 2300 words of this assignment so far, and it has taken me five days. I have about 5000 words more to write in the next 25-ish hours. I have a final this afternoon, so even if I don’t sleep, that’s still only 20 hours or so. I wish I would write faster—I can do the math on this one, and it makes me want to punch things.

———
P.S. Wouldn’t it be nice if metaphory (second-syllable stress) were a word?

I thought I could get some work done between classes. It’s such a gorgeous day that I’m sitting outside, taking advantage of the not-too-bad wireless network at school, but I’ve accomplished almost nothing in the hour I’ve been here because I’m about to explode with frustration at all the noise around me.

Must everything be so goddamn loud? Every bus that goes by, every flop of sandals or click of heels, every laugh or shout from a passerby three floors below, every rustling of paper by the girl at the next table makes me want to tear out all my hair and throw things. Dear world: SHUT. UP.

It has taken me almost twenty minutes to write these paragraphs. I have to stop every few words to clench my fists.

I should’ve gone to the library, I know. I’d be on my way there now if my next class didn’t start in fifteen minutes. If I stay here any longer, though, I might just claw my face off.

If you’re looking for a present to get me (not that you would be, since Christmas is still 4 months away and my next birthday more than 10), I would appreciate a pair of those nifty noise-cancelling headphones pleasethanks.

I am easily distracted, especially by noise. If people are talking around me, or cars are driving by, or there’s music playing somewhere, I can. not. think. Most of the time I don’t need to think very hard, so it doesn’t bother me all that much, but some of the work I have this semester* is complex enough to require more than half of my attention. Even in the “quiet study areas” of the library there is enough noise and movement to annoy the crap out of me when I’m trying to concentrate.

*** Several days pass ***

Now that I’ve thought about it a while, I’m not sure I can blame it on the noise. I think I’m just distractable in general, and I’m still trying to figure out what sorts of things affect my focus level, especially after Sunday, when I could suddenly concentrate much better than usual for no apparent reason. Is it food? Caffeine? Sleep (or deficiency thereof)? Temperature? Other environmental factors?

I feel like every day is an experiment and I should be recording and analyzing this data. The sticking point is that “focus level” isn’t exactly quantifiable, but I could keep a journal of my qualitative assessment of how I’m doing. Hmmm.

Gawd. I can’t decide whether I should be disgusted with myself for being so self-involved or whether I should have started this earlier, as it’s clearly no one’s job but mine. I also can’t decide whether the second ‘whether’ in the previous sentence is appropriate and/or necessary.

———
* viz, Physics lab reports, some Analysis proofs, and Greek anything

Despite my low expectations [see: yesterday's whine-o-rama], today was a wonderful day, the best I’ve had in weeks. I proctored two tests, during which I got an amazing amount of work done, and taught one fabulous lesson*.

I felt strangely clear-headed and awake the whole day. I could focus for more than ten minutes at a time, and what’s more, I actually *wanted* to work on my lab report. I haven’t wanted to do schoolwork in a long, long time. I mean, theoretically, somewhere in my head, the subjects I’m learning seem fun, but every time I’ve sat down to actually complete an assignment, especially something open-ended like a paper, I’ve gotten this overwhelming feeling of distaste and frustration and omg-what-can-I-possibly-do-to-get-out-of-this.

I had to completely rewrite about two-thirds of the report. Composed in my usual “foggy” state of mind, it was full of mistakes and disorganized half-thoughts. Before, it had looked easy enough from a distance, but every time I tried to make progress I got all confused and turned around and couldn’t get hold of the big picture.

But today! What had earlier seemed like a daunting, complex task suddenly broke down into obvious steps. Some of the steps required careful thought, yes, but the problem wasn’t insoluble. I knew this stuff couldn’t possibly be as hard as the time and confusion I’d spent on it would’ve suggested. Sweet Jesus, I have half a brain left in me. Hallelujah.

Sorry, I know I’m over-dramatizing, as is my wont, but do you know how this feels? To feel yourself getting dumber every day, unable to will your lazy brain to complete even the simplest tasks? To stare at an assignment for a class you should love and find yourself wishing you were anywhere else? To realize that the reason you’re not doing your schoolwork is that you “just don’t like doing things that are hard”**? And then, all of a sudden, to have bestowed upon you a great clarity of mind, descending from out of the blue? Motivation. Energy***. FOCUS. Wow. Wowdy-wow-wow.

I don’t know what this is, but I like it. I credit the Nutella*^.

———
* Woo trig! Woo anything-but-the-SAT, really. Consistency is nice, but getting a chance to teach actual *concepts* (not just tips and tricks) and make up my own “lesson plan” and practice problems every once in a while is a breath of fresh air.

** I realized this a couple days ago. It’s a stupid, stupid, feeling, and not one that anyone would ever sympathize with. “Oh, you don’t like doing hard things? Awww, poor baby, let me rub your feet.” Right. Ugh, gross. I’m hoping I was mistaken, or that this can change.

*** I was also surprised at how strong I felt today, and how much energy I had. This evening, at the end of a long day, I walked all the way across campus and back carrying my purse, backpack, and laptop…with a spring in my step. I even swapped my purse (worn across my body, under my backpack) and my laptop bag (outside my backpack) without dropping anything, *without taking off my backpack*, without even breaking stride. This is usually impossible for me.

*^ Two footnotes here. First, this morning Wendy made me an English muffin with Nutella and bananas for breakfast. It was scrumptious and, apparently, magical. Second, I’m not sure whether to capitalize ‘Nutella.’ It’s a proper name (not in the dictionary), but the logo is written with a lowercase ‘n.’ As you’ve seen by now, I’ve decided that the logo is just a picture and have chosen to stick with big ‘N.’ This is all relevant to your life somehow, I’m sure.

———

EDIT (3:56) — A minute ago, as I was about to drift off to sleep, I reflected on today’s strange state of mind and thought, “Gosh, wouldn’t it suck if I had a brain tumor?” There you have it, folks: proof that I can twist ANYTHING into something about which to worry irrationally. Dammit, now I’ll never get to sleep.

DISCLAIMER: If you don’t want to read another gripey post, you should leave now. Go look at pictures of people stacking stuff on their cats or something.

I swear I’m not always this grouchy. I write more when I’m in a bad mood, is all.

It’s three weeks into the semester, and I feel drained. I don’t have time for anything but school and work. Whenever I do take a break to browse blogs or play piano or whatever, I’m crushed by guilt, because of course there are always twenty other things I should be doing at that moment. But the guilt doesn’t encourage me to get back to work, oh no. That would be too useful. Instead I retreat farther into whatever procrastinatory thing I’m doing, so that maybe for a little while I can forget about all those things waiting to be done and just occupy my brain with some sudoku or an interesting science article. Instant gratification? Absolutely. But in the meantime nothing happens except that every deadline creeps that much closer.

I’ve just realized that tomorrow, which I thought would be a semi-free day, will actually be fairly long—10+ hours of tutoring, proctoring, grading, and of course driving. I leave the house at 10:30 and won’t get back until at least 9:00. And then on Monday school starts again, and I’m teaching Monday night, yada yada.

I feel even yuckier about it because I have the specter of this lab report hanging over my head. Whenever I have a big writing project due, it absolutely consumes my life for days or weeks at a time. I spend nearly all of my time “working on the paper,” though I actually make little progress day-to-day. If this report isn’t finished tomorrow (though I don’t know where I’ll find the time)…I don’t know. Bad things will happen. But then, bad things would happen (are happening) if I didn’t have it finished today. And before that it HAD to be done yesterday. And before that it HAD to be done on Thursday. And before that it HAD to be done before Labor Day. You get the idea. Not only does the report not get done, everything else doesn’t get done along with it. I have a lab report due every two weeks for the rest of the semester. No plan yet on how to deal with this, besides the standard “try harder.”

So what, then? What is it that I want?

A day off? I just *had* two whole days off over the long weekend, and I managed to fritter those away without accomplishing much of anything.

A lighter homework load? I don’t even have a bachelor’s degree, so school is not optional. The work required of me right now is probably the least rigorous I can get without “transferring” to the University of Phoenix.

To work less? I love my job; I’m not quitting. True, I could take on fewer students. I need to learn how to say no—I do tend to bite off more than I can chew, but who doesn’t want to feel needed? This is the busiest season of the year, and we have lots of students who need tutors. I guess they don’t all *need* tutoring, but they’re paying for it, and “getting into a good college” is vitally important to many high schoolers(‘ parents).

More hours in the day? Actually, yes. That would be lovely, thanks.

So I don’t know what I want, except that I want not to feel like this all the damn time. Not to feel like my life is rushing by, opportunity after moment after simple pleasure, and I’m missing out on even the scraps of free time I *could* have because I’m always buried in some escapist retreat, trying to forget that my life even exists, even as chance after chance slips away from me through my own inaction.

Does that make sense? I feel this very acutely, though I’m having trouble putting it into words. Basically, I’m frustrated that I’m too busy to do the things I want to do, but instead of gritting my teeth, doing my work, and enjoying whatever time is left over, I waste so much time trying to escape reality that I (1) ensure that I will *never* have any “real” free time and (2) continue to irreparably muck up every opportunity I’m given. Time is flying. Flying flying flying. I want it not to fly; I want it to drag. My life is short enough as it is.

It’s silly, wanting so badly for time to move more slowly that I fail to actually *live* in the time that I have. But that’s me, that’s how I roll. I…I don’t know what to say to that. I realize that I should make the best of what I have, but…if I think about it too much I get to thinking about death again, and that only leads to despair.

Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you. —Carl Sandburg

The part about other people isn’t incredibly relevant to my situation, but “time is the coin of your life”? That…that’s it. That’s what I feel. That’s what hits me in the gut and leaves me curled up on the floor. Time time time. Life is short. I rail against this (when I have time to think about it, which is less often these days), and I cannot deal with it. It is slowly driving me insane. Dramatic? Yes, yes it is. Judge me; I don’t care.

Lately I’ve been having trouble controlling my moods. Not that I’ve ever truly “controlled” the way I feel, but for the last few months I’ve maintained a decent level of stability in my day-to-day emotions. Again, “maintained” is probably not the right word here—it’s not something I’ve consciously created, as far as I can tell…just luck, or fortunate circumstances, or chemistry.

Anyway, the last couple weeks have been unstable with a vengeance, unlike anything I’ve felt since maybe last summer. Some days I’m up, happy, bright, confident, and other days I’m down, gloomy, discouraged, frustrated.

Take this past week: I don’t remember much about Tuesday morning, but Tuesday afternoon at work I felt SAD. I wanted nothing more than to take a nap and not have to deal with anything.

Then Wednesday I was HAPPY! Life was wonderful! Work was fun! Things were still busy, crazy parents were still calling, but I enjoyed it all immensely.

I don’t remember what happened Thursday. I know Friday was a pretty good day, but then again, it’s Friday—hard to screw that up. But Saturday. Saturday I was GRUMPY. Nothing bad happened on Saturday to make me feel that way, but I was nonetheless pissy all day long. I had to proctor in the afternoon, so I figured I’d have a nice, relaxing morning, maybe get some housework done. HA. I woke up grumpy, took Sammy out, and then grumbled around on the couch for a while before crawling back into bed for a 10:30 nap. I don’t usually take naps, especially not at 10:30 in the freaking morning, but I didn’t much feel like facing the world right then, so back to bed I went.

I know that feeling. I hate that feeling. The feeling that staring at the ceiling, while not fun, is the only thing I care to do right now. That even if I did want to get up and focus on the real world, my body would quickly sabotage any attempt at useful work by collapsing again on the nearest horizontal surface. That my inner world of thoughts and obsessions is more relevant than anything the outside world could possibly offer. Mental inertia.

Saturday night I went over to Wendy and Michael’s house for dinner and to bask in the glows of their fireplace and television. Being around real people (i.e., not just Sam) distracted me from hating the world, but I was still generally a grumpmuffin.

Sunday, on the other hand, was wonderful. I bounced out of bed, full of energy, and marvelled at the gorgeous weather (almost exactly the same weather as the day before). I couldn’t bear to waste such a lovely day on the computer, so I drove up to my parents’ house and played a couple sets of tennis with my mom, something I hadn’t done in months.

I was happy to be outside, happy to be playing tennis, happy to be wearing tennis clothes*, happy to be alive—everything I did was SO WONDERFUL I could hardly stand it.

But why? Why why why? That’s what bothers me—I can’t figure out what made Saturday sad and Sunday happy. You might be tempted to talk about endorphins and serotonin, to say that sleeping too much begets grogginess and exercise begets feel-good-ness, which is all well and good, but I felt overwhelmingly happy or sad first thing in the morning, before I’d had a chance to do any of those things. It’s not like I overslept and then felt grumpy, or played tennis and then felt perky. While I’m sure those activities enhanced the feelings, the feelings came first.

I suppose the obvious experiment here would be to switch it up: to wait until I feel happy, then lay on the couch all morning, or to wait until I feel grumpy, then get up and run around. The first seems wasteful of a perfectly good mood. The second seems the healthier and more productive way to go, but realistically I don’t see it happening. I’m not giving up on the idea entirely, though—I’ll give it a shot if the opportunity arises.

I’ve also considered sleep as a possible factor. The ’sad’ mood makes me feel as though I haven’t slept in days and could drift off at any moment, while the ‘happy’ mood has me bouncing off the walls, alert and bursting with energy. The problem with this hypothesis is that there’s nothing in my sleep patterns (that I’m aware of) that matches my mood swings. I usually make it into bed between midnight and 1:00, and most days I get up between 8:00 and 9:00. Since I spend my last waking hours on the computer, I usually push myself beyond the point where I start to get sleepy, so that when I do finally crawl under the covers I’m asleep within five minutes, if not sooner. Today I’m starting a sleep log, in case all those things I just said are a pack of lies and I really get much less (or much more irregular) sleep than I think I do.

And then there’s the whole death thing. I won’t pretend that my current obsession with my own mortality hasn’t had a hand in the moodiness—nothing brings me down faster than remembering that I’m going to die. I think about death maybe three or four times a day, on average. When I’m in a good mood and and my mind is well-occupied, I can usually shake it off quickly and go back to whatever I was doing. But when I dwell on it too long, I inevitably spend the next several hours feeling anxious, overwhelmed, and alone—just clobbered, really.

What are all these wacky moods, then? And why are they resurfacing now, when I’ve been more or less okay for the last few months? *Is* it some kind of sleep dep? Does it have to do with what I eat? (More on food and eating in a later post.) Do I have a destructive habit I’m not paying attention to? Some unresolved crisis in my subconscious?

There are so many things I don’t know about my own body, which is a real shame, as it’s all I’ve got. The only fix for this that I know of is better record-keeping. Maybe if I get it all written down and tracked (when I sleep, what I eat, how I feel, how much work I do) patterns will emerge that are invisible from my current one-day-at-a-time vantage point (forest for the trees, yada yada). I will try to be diligent about this. The last time I felt the way I do now, things got bad bad bad, so I’d like to nip this one in the bud (if I have any control over my moods at all, which I like to think I do). The up and the down and the up and the down is a stressful way to live.

But what about today, you ask? How was Monday? Meh. It was so-so.

———
* This is actually something that can make me happy any day of the year. I rarely wear tennis shoes day-to-day, but when I do, I feel strong and confident. Athletic clothes in general make me feel so, so sexy. It’s like magic: I put on my tennis shoes and a pair of cotton shorts and—POOF!—I love the way my legs look. (In case it’s not obvious, i.e., for the guys out there, I do NOT love the way my legs look the other 99 days out of 100.)