Snow Daze

Last night I didn't sleep.

I took a wide variety of pills to induce sleep but she eluded me completely. Around 3 AM I went upstairs to see if lying in the dark would help. I was not in the least bit sleepy. In fact, I was rather jittery. And I can't blame it on Starbucks night because I went de-caf. (BTW - whoever said you can't taste the difference doesn't have my set of tastebuds. Nasty!!) So I lay there in the dark and I tried all the things I could think of to put me to sleep. I rocked. I counted. I visualized. I relaxed. I thought "sleepy thoughts". I didn't listen to any music because all I have portable right now is AWAKE music. I had the ceiling fan tell me a story. I finally gave up and just lay there, listening to night noises. Craig's breathing, steady and loud, often erratic as he tosses and turns. A branch tapping against the roof outside. The kids turning in their sleep. The cat moving about the house. After about 5 minutes of listening, I got bored. So I asked the ceiling fan to tell me another story. It obliged by launching into a great detailed adventure about a little girl trying to find her way home from lost in the woods. But once it started talking, it wouldn't shut up. I kept telling it to keep its voice down - I was horribly afraid it would wake Craig up - but on it went. I tried ignoring it, hoping it would lose interest without an audience. It kept on. So I got up and left the room but when I returned, it started up again - after a scolding about not lying down. I began to ignore it again and started counting the number of times my implant fired. The fan kept going. When I had been in bed a little over 2 hours and realized there was less than 45 minutes until the alarm was due to go off, I gave up and got up. This angered the ceiling fan which then began to yell at me and recite a long ist of things I consistently do wrong. I left the room and took a shower. At least the shower wasn't shouting criticisms. Or maybe they just didn't seem as loud because the running water dampened the sound. I don't know. When I went back to my room, the ceiling fan resumed giving me a piece of its mind. This got very old very fast so I went downstairs.

It was now almost 6 in the morning and I had not slept at all, not even dozed. And I was wired. Jittery and buzzy and shakey hands and head going 50 ways at once. And I was afraid to take the Xanax for fear of the sleepies catching up with me. They assured me they would not put me to sleep but I do not believe them. So I took my morning meds and thought maybe I would do some more writing but there is a ceiling fan in the living room and every time I entered the room, it started listing the other things I should be doing. So I unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher.

It was at this point that I realized I was in a full blown manic episode. Earlier that evening - I guess that would make it last night? - I cleaned out the shoe cubbies, sorted and organized it. Then I cleaned out the coat closet, sorted the too small coats and snow gear and got it ready for a coat drive happening this weekend. Then I swept out the closet and while I was at it, I swept up the hallway. At this point, Craig got home and I tried to tell him how I want a light in that hallway and how it could be done and he kept saying "Slow down - what are you talking about?" Eventually I went off to my folks' house to drop off the coats and Mom asked me three times if I was okay. I blew her off. I was GREAT! Off I went to Starbucks where I wrote for 3 solid hours (and drank de-caf coffee). When I got home, I started talking to my writing buddy. Together we polished a story for me to send to an e-zine editor friend of mine. Then the whole not sleeping stuff happened. And looking back I realize that I didn't eat anything at all yesterday (or today) and really had no desire to do so. I had one can of Mountain Dew and one cup of de-caf coffee and that was it on that front too. It occurred to me that I should NOT tell Craig this as it would upset him greatly. I was contemplating using my free time today to go get the tattoo I've been talking about forever. And I said myself, "Self," I said. "This is not good. Look what you are doing! You are writing a textbook on manic behavior!" To which Self replied, "Really? Can I take the class too?" and Self wanted to slap Self around for a while.

Somewhere around this time, I thought many things at once.

I thought of the school delay and how I was not going to get to my therapy appointment and how incredibly disappointed I was. That led me thinking about why I was so anxious to go and after about 5 minutes of speed thinking I came to the conclusion that I have placed my shrink on a pedestal and labeled him as an "Ideal Male Person" and I wondered if I was being unfaithful in my marriage by thinking of him thusly and I wondered if my treatment would suffer or benefit from my desire to make him happy and accomplish what he wants me to accomplish.

I also thought about the school delay and how it would affect the rest of my day. I was thinking about who needed to be where and when and what time I needed to get them up and all that stuff.

And I was thinking about why the fans have gotten so rude lately. It just doesn't seem right for them to kick me when I'm down... or NOT down. And my meds whispering to me when I don't dare take the "stop being buzzy" ones. And the stupid cat arguing with the dog. GOD! Get a life you two! And just how loud everything seems to be these days and how I would get ear plugs but i don't think it would help a whole lot.

I was thinking other things too but I have to go now so I'll maybe edit this later and add them and a cool quote that I have to think up first.