I Hate It When I Don't Sleep Well

And I'm achy this morning too.  Bah.  I'm usually a champion sleeper, sleeping deep and long, and not easily disturbed.  Not last night.  I feel like I woke up every time I turned over, and I was hot most of the night.  I'll try and do better.  Maybe I'll ask Durwood to sleep in the other room so I've got fewer distractions...  Can you please tell me how to stop listening to everything and everybody?  I'm like a professional eavesdropper; I hear what's on the TV even though I'm rooms away, I listen for what Durwood's doing, not because he's doing anything suspicious, just because he makes a sound. I have a whale of a problem watching something on the living room TV when he's watching something on the kitchen TV.  True, he's got it turned a little louder than he used to but I also used to be able to focus my hearing better.  I think I have late-onset ADD/HD; I can't pay attention and can't sit still.  Somebody put me in time-out, please.  It looks like it's ready to pucker up and rain.  There's not a breath of wind and I'll bet the humidity is about 400% which it has been for the last few days.  What's up with that?!?  It's September now and it's supposed to start cooling off.  I'm still going to be taking my swimming suit and walk-in-the-water shoes (and a beach towel, don't forget a beach towel) to The Clearing next weekend so if it is hot during the week I'll be able to amble down to the beach and cool off.  I'll say I'm going to write on the beach and then stash my notebook and pencil in a niche in the bluff and sneak into the cool water.  (Good plan, huh?)  I've been visiting quilt shops looking for a template that's recommended for the September BOM blocks.  No one has it, so I looked it up online only to discover why.  It consists of 4 little pieces of Plexiglas cut in a rounded off square in 4 different sizes, and it costs $17 + shipping.  Eek.  I think I'll make do with tracing the templates from the pattern sheet.  They're not shy, are they?  I had a great time visiting with Lala last night.  We shared a pizza in her hotel room, I showed her some of our vacation photos, and she showed me the cool bookmarks she's making with dried flowers, etc. and fancy papers.  And we talked and talked and talked.  It's what women do, talk.  Men don't, you know, talk I mean.  I wonder what's in their heads... is it all quiet in there?  I think I might like that since inside my head's a bit like an angry beehive these days.  Today's Photo a Day theme is "bright."  I went out back in the early light and these impatiens looked so vivid and bright behind the honeysuckle in that uncertain light that they get to be the stars today.  Durwood ordered another half-bushel of tomatoes so he can fire up the tomato soup base/sauce factory again.  The lady who answers the phone thinks he sounds like someone she knows.  The last time he called she thought it was the other guy playing a joke on her, she even gave the phone to another woman to see if she didn't think he sounded like whoever.  I don't know if she did or not, but he had the devil of a time convincing her that he wasn't that guy.  The first lady answered again when he called yesterday and by the chuckle in his voice I could tell she identified him as "that guy who sounds like so-and-so."  I just called and I still don't know if I get to go to The Clearing on Saturday or if I have to wait until Sunday.  It's not a huge difference but I do like going up a day early.  Saturday has many fewer people there and it's like being in a little vacuum for a day between daily life and workshop/retreat life.  Plus I'm spoiled and it's a cheap treat.  It only costs $30 extra to stay, I take a yogurt, a banana, and granola bar for Sunday breakfast, and then maybe some hummus and pita with fresh tomatoes for lunch.  Sunday supper's the first meal and by then everyone's there and the place is abuzz.  Monday morning class starts, the pencil hits the paper (or the fingers hit the keyboard) and there's no turning back.  I've got my manuscript ready to go, a raft of post-its, and my Alphasmart (I have the original model) so I can type away from a plug.  I like writing on the Alphasmart because it only has a 4-line screen so I can't keep going back and rereading what I've written which slows down the work.

September 5--Leon Bonnat, Roman Girl at a Fountain.  Just a little more... Juliana stretched to reach the trickle of cool water.  She had gotten her shoulder wet and her forehead, but so far not her mouth.  She let herself down and took another try, flexing her knees and pushing extra hard on the algae-slick basin rim of the fountain as she jumped up.  As her lips touched the water her hands slipped and she fell forward with a splash.  Her shriek of surprise was cut off when her head went under the water.  She kicked her legs trying to straighten up, to catch a breath and stand up, but she only succeeded in wedging herself there.  Her hand clawed at the wide stone rim but her fingers were too short to curl around the edge, they flailed the air and slapped the unforgiving stone.  Her feet kicked as if she were running.  In a very short time her hand lay still looking like a fallen flower in the clear water and her feet and legs hung limp in the warm noonday sun.  She never felt the large brown hand with the stubby fingers pressed between her shoulder blades as she struggled and died.

Hmm, didn't expect that.  It's time for me to shower and eat before zooming off to work.  Work, ugh, but it's a necessary evil if I expect a paycheck.  Cause and effect, supply and demand, that's the real circle of life.  Money and what you need to do to get some.  Toodle-oo.
--Barbara Sue