oh my head

I woke up this morning with this feeling of gripping dread. Maybe it was because it was 5am, and it's become painfully clear that even on the weekends, after days of perpetual sleep deprivation, it's still impossible for me to get a full night of restful sleep (note: my definition of "restful" is something between 8-10 hours of deep, uninterrupted sleep - an apparently impossible feat). When my internal alarm clock doesn't go off on its own, there's always my fail-safe back-up - the nutjob upstairs who has remarkably succeeded in being both the smallest and loudest person on the planet. I think someone may need to explain to her that closing a door does not require thrusting your entire body weight against it. Also, do the front steps NEED to be sprayed with a hose every single morning at 6am? Really?

Maybe this sense of dread this morning came because as I blinked my eyes open, I initially thought it was Monday, which would mean my two days of pretending responsibility does not exist has officially ended and it's back to turbo mode, which feels a bit like falling through the air with a steel anvil strapped to your back.

Maybe it's also that I'm admittedly more than a little troubled by the direction my country is headed in, and if I really overthink it, my planet, for that matter. It's enough to make me - ME! - contemplate praying, just because I think we can use all the help we can get. (The prayer would start out something like this: "Hi, God? Remember me? It's Amanda. Can we just let bygones be bygones and say for a minute that I have a legitimate favor to ask...?") Honestly, I think if you aren't at least a little terrified, you're not paying attention. I'm holding my breath for the next 8 weeks or so, and just hoping for the best. I don't know what else to do but hope, really. My own father, classic conservative that he's always been, suggested the other day that I join the Obama campaign. That's gotta tell ya somethin.

Maybe it's just a combination of all this, along with the unmentionables, which fall into the category of "Stuff I Don't Write About in My Blog", i.e. specifics about messy topics like romantic relationships, exes, etc. If the fate of the world isn't scary enough, then all I have to do is dig into the unmentionables bag, and I'll find all sorts of goodies to set me well on my way to Crazyville.

These are the dark alleyways my brain takes me down when it's torturing me, which is often, and inevitable at wee small hours of the morning.

I think I'll work on making a mix for my darling Kirk, who is here visiting now and is still, after 8 years of knowing him, one of my favorite reminders that all is not lost and life is still good.

Vote Obama 08 for the love of God and the rest of you Non-Americans who can't vote, PRAY (you can use my sample intro to a prayer above as a template).