Skippage

I managed to not write anything in this blog yesterday. Instead of declaring the experiment (and by proxy, myself) a failure, I'm gonna let that little blip happen and move on.

Lots of aspects of the human condition work on a scale, not the binary systems that are easier to wrap a head around. Sexuality is one, self-perception another, and I'm ready to add sleep cycles to the list.

I'm a weird kind of insomniac. I'm not a morning person, but I'm not much of a night person either. Usually I'll hit a wall sometime around midnight where I just know I'm not going to do anything until I get some sleep, but then I'll sit in bed for hours not sleeping.

If I get up and try to do something with my sleeplessness, about all I can manage is watching the wall paint age. It's not nearly as rewarding as watching wine or cheese age, in fact it's pretty thankless, but it's got to be done and dammit I am stepping up! I am the fucking master of watching paint age, and all y'all better recognize!

But as skills go, yeah, this is kind of a lame one.

And I'm not the sort of person that can get by with just a few hours sleep, either. Too many nights like the one above and the fatigue I feel (spending my days generally fighting off the relentless onslaught of the universe's forces) makes it a lot harder to get my head together.

So a few years back a doctor prescribed ambien. I don't take it every night because it doesn't work if you try to use it every night, and I don't want to be the kind of person that needs something every night to sleep. And even if I space it out, there's the occasional night where it takes a few hours to kick in versus the less-than-an-hour it's supposed to. But when it works? Glorious.

In order to achieve a similar night's sleep without it, I'd have to push myself through two workouts involving heavy cardio, spend two hours in deep creative work, and have something with alcohol in it. And not have slept for a few days beforehand.

Well played, universe.

Days Off

I often feel like I should be doing something "constructive", If I'm not, something inside my head chides me for sloth, it doesn't matter what I've already done on a given day. That makes trying to sleep fun.

So on days when I don't already have something scheduled and I know I need to rest, actually resting feels... icky.

So today I'm binge-watching The Walking Dead and awaiting a delivered pizza. Let's see how that goes.

Reprieves

I don't have a medical regimen per second to aide me in my struggle with the universe. Maybe I should, but for now I manage without.

I am developing a series of habits that give me intermissions, chunks of my waking day that don't feel like I'm fighting through the day. They include:
-Meditation. Regulated breathing in a position between relaxed and controlled, not interacting with reality but vaguely aware of it.
    This is like a diplomatic summit where we negotiate,a cease-fire. It doesn't last, but it is refreshing.
-Yoga. A semi-aggresive program that forces me to use most of my body in a taxing way all at once. I like this a lot better than weights because it feels like I'm working out whole muscle systems instead of one group at a time.
    This serves two purposes. 1) I train for the next volley the universe throws at me, and 2) this helps my body feel as worn-out as my brain by the end of the day, which makes me feel a bit more balanced at least.

Now I've got this blog. This blog reminds me that I am fighting. Sometimes it feels like I'm just getting beaten, so it's nice to have something that proves it's not a one-way fight.

Parties

"Social anxiety" as a term bugs me,only because I don't understand how some people seem to not have it.

Any time I'm with a group of people, part of me takes the scene in and checks a few things out.
1) There are more people here than me, and the consensus is probably that I should keep my pants on.
2) I probably don't know these people as well as I think I do, and most wouldn't want to hear talk of pants.
3) They are human, just like me, and each have their own unique relationship with the universe.

At this point, I figure everyone is on the same page, but there's still plenty of room for variation. Trying to figure out who in a given room is willing to talk about how much pants is a universal source of anxiety. If a person isn't anxious about it before striking up a conversation, they usually are after.

But with people that deal with "social anxiety", there's at least one more criterion. Some variation of
4) The universe probably likes these people more than me.

And when one considers how many entities are in the room or the world or the universe, that's a real concern. Or it seems that way to me.

So if it's real, why should anyone be anxious about it? And if it isn't real, how do so many notice it in the first place?

New Year's Entry

I came up with the idea to restart this blog yesterday, though I've wanted to bring it back for much longer.

It might've been keeping with tradition to wait until tomorrow, the first day of the new year, to start something new. But if I hinge the changes I want to make on a chart designed by people dead for centuries set on an arbitrary position in relation to the sun, I feel like I'm surrendering my motivation to the cause.

No surrender.

Repurposing

A blog writer stopped updating his blog. Then he dusted it off. Now onto something more closely resembling a topic...

It has become unavoidably apparent to me that I have some kind of grudge with the cosmos (despite the natural charm and refined wit of Neil DeGrasse Tyson). Details such as which party offended first, who drew battle lines where, these are unknown, and for the time-being immaterial.

I have allowed this grudge to become the status quo. I dressed it up pretty, made excuses, convinced myself and others that our attitudes toward each other were acceptable.

This is no longer the case.

So with this post I announce a new stance. I seek not the destruction of my enemy, in part because it has cleverly insinuated itself into my stuff. What I'm going to fight for is a new relationship with this adversary. It seems at this moment unlikely that we will be friends, but maybe we can work something out to the point that we both get more out of being neighbors.

This blog will chronicle said struggle. I could just start a new blog, but that doesn't seem necessary. This fight relates in some ways to my efforts to develop as a writer, which was the original purpose for this blog way back in the day.

If this entry seems cryptic and nonsensical, please deal with it. Releasing too many details all at once about my resources and strategies would only serve the cause of the enemy, as Sun Tzu would explain. that and I need to keep these entries short or else I'll never keep updating this thing.

Days 29-31: End of an Era!

My body held out until I arrived at Rapid City's Grand Gateway hotel, where I immediately went to bed hoping for some recovery. It worked, because the next day I was up to visit Mt. Rushmore!

I crushed it.

Thing about Mt. Rushmore is that aside from the big guys, there's not a whole lot to do. It wasn't a long visit, even if it took a while to find the place. Right before the park itself, there's an active town that would seem to get all its revenue from visitors to the park. Since I was there before the heavy tourist season, I saw a lot of places closed, lock, and being rebuilt in anticipation. 

I left the next day heading for Omaha, NE, with a stop at Badlands National Park on the way. There are a few more things for a person to do there, and I opted for the Notch Trail, which is about a mile hike over rough terrain: just about perfect for my purposes.

Climbing up this ladder was intimidating. Climbing down it was... worse.

Sometimes, signs tell you useful things.

The end of the trail was pretty easy to figure out. A sheer cliff and a killer view make for decent clues.

Having survived the hike, I drove to Omaha to visit Darcy and the other residents of the "Cunt Castle". I took no pictures to respect privacy but here's the closest thing I found to a town center.

I spent a couple of days just chilling there, taking in the local music scene, and watching the premiere of Game of Thrones. It was a marvelous time! From there I went to Des Moines, IA, where I met up with a fellow Ryan and together we conquered Zombie Burger!

Des Moines is mostly generic fare, but when they decide to be interesting, they kill at it.

And that concludes the picture portion of my travel blog! Entries from this point on aren't going to have the visual attractions, but they'll follow my journey through life as always. I had a great time and owe everyone involved for making it happen. 

See you soon!