Insomnia Log 6

Readers,

I owe you some more blog posts about my spring road trip but you aren't going to get them right away. Soon enough. I've at least been thinking about writing them recently as opposed to not thinking about them recently. Patience.

I wish I had patience. I think at my core is rage that I try to prevent from feeling. I nod and say, "Mm," when I really want to say, "No, that's not correct," or, "That's terrible." My good friend P and I talked on the phone last night and agreed we need to stop more pointless conversation in its tracks. Simply halt the speaker and say, "OK. We can talk more about that after you change your shirt. Why are you wearing that shirt? Why did you think that was a good idea?" Flip something pointless on its head with something equally irrelevant. If they actually change their shirt they care enough to deserve your attention.

I haven't felt so angry in probably months, which might be what is causing this sleeplessness and stream of unedited words. Dawna Markova says, "Rage is passion without choice." It feels like a spit of gasoline into the engine. If Color Theory (more on this another time) is to be trusted, and I think it is, rage is composed of the colors black and red, where black represents one's own ambition and power and red represents one's emotions. We use words like "ardent" to describe someone's passion, and the feel is fiery, which is also very red. Red is about creativity and emotion; I just worry about its pairing with my own ego and power, manifesting in anger. It's a potent fuel, no doubt.

I've continued with my mostly daily haiku on my Twitter. I missed up to five days at a time, but I keep coming back to it. I like the challenge. For my grandpa, for whom we just this weekend held a memorial service, I dedicate every day of the remaining half of the year that I will write a haiku, a poetic (thus red, but controlled, with choice) expression to help channel the anger I have that he's gone. I felt that this weekend. I clutched my magic egg (a lucky charm, more on this another time) as "Taps" played, my throat tight with strained tracheal cartilage and my face a frown canyon. I looked at some of the treasure maps my grandpa and I made year after year for a forest that no longer stands where now rest pole barns and snowmobiles. I miss him so much. I want to live a life as great as his and often worry I won't. I want to walk in the woods again with him, him pointing out the morning dew beading on old spider webs below ferns, white light and long shadows abundant. It can't happen. I remember collapsing in front of an angel statue the last time I saw him, fingernails piercing palms, so angry that anything could take someone so great away. I want to keep channeling this rage in a creative way.

There's another reason I started writing these haiku. One that I'm now ashamed to admit but think I must admit at this point. Most longer term projects of mine kick off because I'm upset that someone doesn't reciprocate my feelings for them. I created Behold The Cheese as a way to cope with longing for someone. I learned Graph Theory and developed Color Theory from it as a way to take my mind off someone else. And I took on the poetic challenge as a way to deal with rage about my grandpa and rage about someone who left me with feelings of withdrawal. I directed so much of the latter anger toward myself for months after I stopped seeing her, after conversation previously held everyday abruptly stopped. I believed that there were things wrong with me that were keeping me all alone, that I wasn't funny enough or strong enough or that I was too obsessive. I compulsively ate and drank without realizing I was over my limit. I sighed, so much. I created such a narrative about this person in my head that thoughts continued on far longer than I expected them to. I felt haunted. I kept thinking of reasons why this person was justified and I needed fixing.

I don't need fixing. I'm not broken. (I sense my own power in writing that.) I don't want to diminish myself anymore. I don't want one person's rejection of me to bring down my esteem and affect relationships that matter far more. I deserve love.

P asked me if this person liked me for the reasons he likes me (that is, for my real self). I didn't have a good answer back then. The answer is probably no. The people who really like me say, "Never change." They tell me they miss me and wish I were there.

I am also angry about some comments I've received on my appearance and beliefs. I received both from a teenager who probably doesn't know any better, but that doesn't defuse my immediate emotional response. I don't like being called "Jesus" mockingly, especially because Jesus probably didn't look anything like my mostly Nordic self. I don't like being called "Sasquatch" while I'm staring at my grandfather's urn about to be buried, the last time I would ever see his physical form, though dust. He said, "Whoa, it's Saquatch! Let me get your picture!" pulling out his phone while I was sobbing and sullen about my fallen hero. I'm sorry, that's disgusting. That's asocial. I don't ever like hearing gay jokes, but especially not from a punk teenager as I'm celebrating marriage equality with my Facebook profile picture. I hope this person reads this when he grows up and realizes what a shit he was.

I have a tendency to get carried away. I can be vocal and loud about things. Some people like it, some people cover their ears. I think it's one of my greatest strengths and a simultaneous weakness (but I believe strengths and weaknesses are intricately tied). It sometimes leads me to think more about another person than can be reasonably reciprocated, which leads to me being alone. But it sometimes also leads to one hundred something haiku produced so far this year, or over 5,000 miles traveled across these United States in two weeks. Sometimes it leads to twenty mile walks which result in deep insights to my brain and brewing of lavish life philosophies. Sometimes it leads me to inexplicable sobbing, or at least looking out windows for hours wistfully. Sometimes it leads to lengthy rants like this one.

The more I use up this anger rocket fuel in creative projects, the better.

Black and red all over,

Art

Insomnia Log 5

I've got the opening theme to Portlandia playing on endless loop in my head. I'm not referring to it by its song name or artist because I learned it first from Portlandia. I'm not current on music, or I might have known about the song back in 2011. Heck, I'm not current on TV either, never having watched the first season of Mad Men and only seeing the first season of Portlandia a week ago because the library carried it.

"Current" is definitely the right word for the state of understanding recent developments, i.e. knowing current events, or knowing what song is currently playing. If all our information is a river (I think it is), those who are current with it swim at pace in the most turbulent and forceful parts (the current) of that body of water. Those who are behind and don't even think about swimming in that stream (like the author) are just looking at the river and all its swirls and ripples. I happen to look at it all rather wistfully, poetically if my brain is working. I have a list called "Music to listen to" that contains music recommendations from friends (whom I trust more than Amazon or Pandora). I'd say that list has six items added to it for each item checked off, on average. I find staying current pretty stressful. I rent multiple CDs from the library and listen to them while driving. Sometimes my car's CD player thinks I put in a coaster and beeps at me with the CD halfway out. If it does actually play, it feels like homework if I'm working to stay current. "Have you listened to the new Vampire Weekend?" I did pick it up from the library and I didn't know what to do with it. Nothing stuck. I don't even remember how any songs went. I reply to that question with, "Yes, it'd be a fine weekend for a campfire."

I like unasking questions. "Mu," said Jōshū.

And yet the album The Campfire Headphase sticks with me, especially the song Dayvan Cowboy, even though the songs are just loops of guitar sounds. Why? I don't know.

I don't listen to lyrics. My good friend P will repeat sections of songs we're listening to when he thinks the lyrics are important. I miss the words until the fifth repeat. I usually just nod on the first repeat and politely say, "Mm. Yeah, that's a good line." If I want to be moved by words I prefer reading them on paper. Maybe that's why I like a lot of music that's just sounds and no words.

Coming full circle, I only like the part of the Portlandia theme that plays during the show's opening, i.e. the part without words. Once the robotic vocals come in, I lose interest. Then the song becomes something I "have to" interpret. Beats never need to be interpreted, only felt. Jazz never needs to be interpreted, only felt. I don't think I can feel spoken or sung word.

Missing: adenosine; reward: $$$
Art

Insomnia Log 4

Hey, just because it's fun to lie down and look at trees outside my window doesn't mean I should keep doing it. In fact, last night the sun hadn't even fully set when I looked out my window and then stopped remembering things, and then I woke up when it rose again. Now I can't fall asleep. I wish my circadian rhythm knew what a day was.

Do you know that feeling of enjoying communication with someone, and all of a sudden it stops? Where for seemingly no reason you can't get a hold of a person anymore? Where you even start to doubt yourself for something you said or did? It's a rotten feeling, like a feeling that something may actually be rotting in you, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. If you ever get like this, here's my advice: drop it, forget you ever knew that person, and be around your friends. Breathe. Drink some water. You'll be OK. Not everyone likes peaches.

I'm in my car. Sometimes I hang out in here while it's parked. It's really quiet in here. It's even quieter than in my place, because my fridge is loud and always running (so don't call me for pranks, OK? (The end of land lines has brought the end of prank calling, alas. I used to prank call, and I miss it. There were so many Buttses in my phone book.)), and there's that loud dripping outside my bedroom window. There is no noise in here. It's dark. I still can't fall asleep. I have been able to sleep in my car before. Rest areas are very cheap motels.

Someone expressed surprise to me tonight when I said I still didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. "At your age?!" I want to be interesting enough that even at age 40 I still don't know what I want to do. I was starting to express what I would ideally be, but then I got cut off, so I dropped it.

I think this song counts as a love song. What do you think? I could picture it played by a chamber orchestra for a wedding. I was really sad to hear about a friend who became separated recently, when the wedding had a cool nature and blue/green (my favorite colors) scheme, and there was a chamber orchestra. What a nice wedding. Damn shame when the wedding's so nice and the marriage just isn't. Then I saw a person in my friend B's family get wedded by the state (straightforward), but apparently their marriage will be great. Can asexual people get married to themselves for tax benefits? I'm not asexual, but it would be so much easier to be that way. It would also be cool to reproduce by budding.

Hey, did anyone else celebrate Beltane? I gave a quiet "woohoo" at 2014-05-05T13:56-0:00. Between Beltane and Lughnasadh is going to be really nice. I'll explain more after Lughnasadh.

Sleepless, soon in Seattle,
Art

Insomnia Log 3

Polaris wrote the soundtrack to the '90s Nickelodeon TV show The Adventures of Pete & Pete. Right now the song "She Is Staggering" from that soundtrack is playing in my head on repeat, especially the lines, "I couldn't get to sleep/ And then I couldn't eat/"

My shoulder keeps popping, and I'm not even a street performer.

I want to cook something awesome again, but I've been eating leftovers from restaurants and family meals for weeks now.

I wish there were a book titled How to Fall Asleep. I've got a few other How to books, and most of them are about drawing, which won't help right now.

The place I really work (I actually have to work for "The Man" and show up somewhere every weekday morning) has new faces around me all the time. (There are also new bodies attached to these new faces, but a masquerade would be fun every once in a while.) A considerable fraction of faces I only see for a few months. It feels a bit like a claw machine that keeps filling up with new plush toys and leaving some old ones at the bottom, you know, like the bears that have one eye upside down that no one wants. I had a friend in college who could win at the claw machine maybe 50% of the time, which is really good, and he gave away his bounty of plush animals. I took away a few of the crooked-eyed rejects. They needed a good home.

I keep hearing a big drip around my bedroom window. It's been like that since November. I don't see water damage anywhere, so I think it's OK. That drip sound is not regular, so it makes it even harder to sleep on a night like this.

I want some milk, but I think my tummy would get mad at me.

I want a guitar effects pedal that makes airy distortion like the kind I hear in songs by Polaris, The Pretenders, and Throwing Muses, but that's the only way I can describe it. That's my favorite guitar sound. I don't hear it anywhere anymore.

I don't know if I told you, but I tutor children younger than thirteen in math and other subjects. It's a "drop-in" tutoring program, so any number of students and subjects could appear. Yesterday the program coordinator and I were the only tutors for about eight students, all needing one-on-one attention. I was disappointed I didn't figure out how to clone myself in my experiments when I was nine. At one point the coordinator left for the library, asking if I could hold down the fort. I said, "Sure," but thought, Oh no, I know one of them is going to faint or cry or maybe they'll get in a fight while he's gone and I have no training in resolving conflicts between children, oh man what am I going to do?

I love the movie MirrorMask. The main character Helena finds a book called A Really Useful Book in her adventure in the movie. I want such a book right now to give some advice about sleeping, or maybe just help me think about life in general. None of my current books have "useful" in the title. What was I thinking in buying them?!

Yours awake,
Art

A Sonnet About Writing Poetry

I wrote a Petrarchan Sonnet in Iambic pentameter about writing poetry as part of an application for volunteer work at a writing center. It is below. I am now a volunteer there.

They say it's difficult to write a rhyme
That meter's ticking like a metronome
And one's organic voice is now a drone
How can a writer feel in marking time?
In freeform I respect a blob of nouns
But I don't know which ones I should display
I might just throw a dart at what to say
But no, it lands on one I can't pronounce
I know! I'll pick up my guitar and sing!
Then words will have to come out to the beats
And I'll pretend I had them all along
Well, shoot, guitar's one thing I didn't bring
But in my heart there's one line that repeats:
"Write from myself, and then those words belong."

Wreturning to Writing,
Art

Insomnia Log 2

It's 4 AM where I am, and the ghostly blue light of my phone is keeping my face lit and my eyes strained. I just woke up on the couch. Funny how waking up on the couch is never as rewarding as falling asleep on the couch. I'm subletting a bedroom from my friend, but I'm still falling asleep on the couch. Apparently I did this once and then crawled back to my bed unconsciously, waking up in my bed to think I was never on the couch. It scares me to think about what I do when I sleepwalk.

I'm thinking about just staying up at this point. If I go back to bed, I'll wake up at noon, and coworkers might not like that. I suppose I could eat, groom, and go to work now, but then I'd arrive two hours earlier than "early". 4 AM is the rendezvous point for night owls and early birds.

Wilco talks about Bible-black predawn. It exists only at 4 AM. Don't miss it!

—Art

Insomnia Log 1

I am awake enough at odd hours (odd being 01:00, 03:00, 05:00) that I'm going to start chronicling my thoughts at these times. You may or may not like it.

I used to eat Kashi Heart to Heart cereal every morning with vanilla yogurt. In those days, I sometimes ate that breakfast with the strongest (muscularly) woman I've ever met and heard Beyoncé's Single Ladies over the speakers. I'm eating it right now without any yogurt because yogurt gives me milk tummy these days. We all know milk tummy is a nice placeholder for what really happens.

I remember watching Beast Wars when I was a kid, but I don't remember liking it very much. It just happened to be on in the mornings. These days, I'd rather sit in silence than watch TV I don't like, but as a kid, silence was scary. I'm bringing this up because my roommate put on the old Transformers TV show. Transformers' animation was not fluid, to put it nicely.

I think my old roommates like me more now that I don't live with them. That's strange, but acceptable. I saw them at a bar tonight, and they were friendly, even laughing at what I had to say. Maybe it's easier to get along with people when you know you don't have to wake up to them.

The dryer is running. It sounds like an ineffective Coinstar machine, or like pennies and golf balls going down a drainpipe, plinking and ticking and tumbling. Clothes are going to come out damp.

I'm going to take a shower soon and put on new clothes as if I had just woken up, but I will have just painted over a tired day with the smell of fresh deodorant. In times like these, I always think, "Eh, I can sleep on the plane."

I took apart a laptop computer for work. That's the easy part. Now how do I put it back together?

Aw, man, my coffee is going to get cold. Cold coffee is just dirty water.

Au revoir.

—Art