Skip a day here, three days there . . . at this point, I’m in it for the participation ribbon. Way to make it to the starting line, champ.

What with all the wedding planning, taiko, mediating, writing a seminar paper, and getting ready for the holidays, I hardly have time to nap for three hours a day. But I MAKE time, goddammit, because I apparently have some kind of sleep disorder. It’s called “being lazy.”

The wedding planning, by the way, is getting serious. When are you supposed to send out invitations, again? Eight weeks out? Ten? Six? Because we’re coming up on nine weeks tomorrow, so I should probably look into ordering some. Same with a photographer—gotta get us one of those. We’ve tried two so far and been disappointed both times.

We have a big meeting coming up on Tuesday with our wedding coordinator (where by “our” I mean “the venue’s”) to talk about flowers, food, cake, ceremony, decorations, and twenty other things I haven’t even thought of yet. I’m excited to nail down so many big details in one fell swoop, but I also have a lot to prepare before the meeting. Most of my inspiration photos and other vague hints of ideas are in a folder in my computer. I should probably print out the good ones and put them in a binder or something.

Nine weeks!

I often dream about tornadoes, where by often I mean a couple of times a month. I’ve never seen a tornado in person, nor do I think about them often in my waking life, but I am scared of them, so maybe when my brain reaches for “scary thing” to insert in a dream, the dice tend to come up tornado. (Also, airplanes. But not death or cockroaches.)

Usually I see them from afar, but last night’s dream-nado got really, frighteningly close, to the point that I got myself, my dad, and my dog (the main characters up to this point) into the bathtub and covered us up with a mattress. That’s still the protocol, right? I don’t know how people are supposed to have time to haul mattresses into their bathrooms – real time doesn’t stretch like dream time does.

Anyway, the story ended happily with the house still standing and my discovery that the tornado was nothing more than a fabric and wire contraption being hauled around on the back of a truck. Then the bad guys (who had made the tornado to scare me) went to jail, and I learned how to climb trees using three glowing rings invented by a friend of a friend. But I digress.

Dream-nado: totally fake. Dream-airplanes-falling-out-of-the-sky: still real. This is an improvement.

I’ve managed to avoid thinking about my upcoming airplane flights (three weeks!) most days, but I do sometimes dream about planes. The experience, fortunately, is usually pleasant.

Last night, for instance, I dreamt that I got on my plane to Nashville and found, to my relief, that it was much larger than I’d expected. So large, in fact, that it had a jumbotron-equipped lounge and a full-size Starbucks in the back. I would have liked to head back there during the flight and enjoy something decaffeinated (caffeine exacerbates the anxiety thing), but the plane only got airborne for a minute or two before it landed again and began driving the rest of the way to Tennessee.

This has been a common pattern in my airplane dreams lately: huge luxury planes that don’t fly much. I’ve dreamt about a plane with hotel rooms, a plane with a buffet, and a plane with office space. And whatever the type of plane, if it gets into the air at all, it scoots along about ten feet off the ground, dodging bridges and trees. Now THAT’S what flying should be, eh?

Man, is this week dragging, or what? I don’t think I’ve spent a minute less in front of my computer than I would have otherwise, and if I did, it was because I was either playing taiko or sleeping. I probably did pay a little more attention in class, though, so that’s a plus. Still, I’m ready to be done with this exercise.

Some unconnected bits:

Last night I dreamt that John was being chased by an angry kangaroo. He escaped by running to his dad’s house and tricking the kangaroo into jumping into a frozen lake. Then I stole an airplane and turned it into a robot. I tried to sign my brother up for a locker at his new law school, but the roller skating rink was on lockdown. I did find my own locker, though, and it was full of old swimsuits.

Samson is sleeping with his eyes half-open. All I can see are the whites, and every now and then they’ll roll around a little. It’s creepy as all get-out.

Three showers later, I’m still wearing the same eyeliner I put on for the Galveston show Saturday evening. I’ll probably have to take it off tomorrow because it’s finally starting to get patchy, but it’s had a good run.

Yesterday I was in a crummy situation that was all my own fault, and the idea popped into my head that it would be an ideal time to give blood, since I was already crying. The worst part of crying, after all, is trying not to cry. Once you start, all the tension releases, and there’s relief in knowing that however much your situation sucks, you no longer have to put on a brave face.

John and I haven’t gotten to see each other much lately, and it makes me sad. This weekend we’ll miss each other again because I’ll be in Hidalgo the whole time. Then three weekends later I’ll be in Nashville. I want to spend more time with him before he leaves the country for six weeks at the start of his new job in June, but spring taiko season has other ideas.

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…)

If you’re already prone to extended naps on your days off, and then you get sick, don’t even bother making plans. Sixteen hours, bitches.

It’s that time of year again. Bet you thought I’d forget this time, didn’t you. Oh no, I remembered. Thirty days, thirty posts of dubitable quality. Starting now.

The ending of Daylight Savings Time, it is nice, yes? I’m pretty sure DST was invented by morning people. Morning persons? In law school there is no “people.” There is only “persons.” This kind of precision in the use of language is probably my favorite thing about law school. That and the Fridays off.

Anyway, the morning folks. I don’t dislike them, exactly, but I think they and I must be members of different species. I’m jealous of their ability to bounce out of bed at 6 AM, shower, eat, and skip out the door to begin their productive days. There is no bouncing when I wake up, no matter how long I’ve slept. I do my best work in the late afternoon. During the late morning and early afternoon I feel an overwhelming urge to nap. I wish more schools and workplaces made napping easy, or even possible. We non-morning folks would be healthier and better workers, I think.

See, you can’t set the bar for NaBlo post-quality too high on the first day. Low expectations, my friends, low expectations.

Last night I dreamt (in part) that I went to the Olympics, but there was only one event. It was called “track.” Each competitor had to do a front flip, swim in a circle, and then do a triple jump out of the pool. The scoring was subjective, and the athletes were all middle-aged English gentlemen in sweater vests. Quite a civilized sport.

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…)

Hey, why not make this a regular feature?

Some of these come from the same dream sequences, but describing the whole bizarre chain of events would be confusing and boring (as John has confirmed many times over). Just the highlights for you, internets.

1. I was eating at a restaurant in Austin with various members of my extended family, admiring the Matterhorn just outside the window. It was a brilliant purple, as mountains are.

2. I hopped on a chairlift only to find that instead of metal, the chair was made of a dozen geese tied together. I got nervous when one goose snapped in half, leaving the chair swinging wildly, and tried to call the chairlift operators on my cell phone, but the line was busy.

3. John, Samson, and I descended three stories into the basement of an old house in search of a public bathroom. I was worried we’d lose Sam because he didn’t have a leash and was the size of a mouse.

(more…)