Saturday, September 10, 2005
Insomnia Notes
I've been a light sleeper, subject to insomnia, since I was in high school. Usually it's a 4 a.m. thing: I'm fine until 4, but then I wake up suddenly and can't go back to sleep.
It's interesting how active my neighborhood really is at night, and most of us sleep through it. For example: twice already tonight I've heard sirens go by and fade out, and then police helicopters (a fairly common thing in my area of town, so that in itself isn't too alarming). A lot of the time when I'm up I hear people walking down the street talking or arguing; we used to get a lot of people pulling up outside and stuff like that, but it doesn't seem to happen anymore, so I have a feeling it was actually the young woman whose father used to rent the lower half of the double across the street (which is actually a historic property: it was a barn on the property of one of the first houses built in our neighborhood in the late 1800s). They moved out about six months ago, and even though I've been up a lot in the middle of the night during that time, I haven't noticed nearly as many young people pulling up and fighting in front of my house. None, actually. So maybe she just had a number of volatile friends.
***
My dear old cat Simon used to join me in the middle of the night. I'd come in to my office and sit down with the laptop, and before too long I'd hear him in the hall: pad, pad, pad, pad... hesitate... BONK (as he pushed the door open with his head)... and then his face would appear at the edge of the futon, and I'd sort of help him launch himself up onto the seat. He'd lean his head on the wireless card, and I'd arrange my hand in an uncomfortable scrunch, and we'd surf the Internet together. Since Simon died, I've sat here alone in the middle of the night, but tonight Alexander decided to join me. He's younger and a lot more restless than Simon, and not content to just sit there and rest his head; he keeps pushing up against me and shoving my hand off the keyboard. Cute, but annoying. And now he wants out. I might just let him go; at least it will shut him up.
***
When I went down to let him out, heard more sirens. Then another helicopter. I might actually read the news tomorrow to see what happened, anyway.
***
I've noticed recently with my Bloglines subscriptions that it's kind of jarring to go from reading about Katrina survivors and the latest political outrage to somebody's post about a neat childhood memory or something. I haven't posted much here about anything current, although I've been posting to my other blog frequently; it doesn't seem right to me to mix the topics of my blogs. I've been quite disappointed with a certain longtime web presence (who used to be in my blogroll) whose excellent, hilarious retro work has been overshadowed in the last couple of years by his insistence on trying to write about politics--which he just isn't good at. It's not the direction of his views that I object so much to (although they're mostly completely opposite of mine); it's that his political writing really sucks. I just realized when I went to look that he's actually still producing a lot of really good retro stuff, but I didn't know it, having abandoned him after one too many barely coherent, ill-informed political rants.
I don't want to do that here.
***
Now the smell of something burning; maybe those sirens were fire engines.
***
Well, I'm finally feeling kind of tired, and I have an early morning hair appointment, so I'm going to sign off now and go back to bed.
It's interesting how active my neighborhood really is at night, and most of us sleep through it. For example: twice already tonight I've heard sirens go by and fade out, and then police helicopters (a fairly common thing in my area of town, so that in itself isn't too alarming). A lot of the time when I'm up I hear people walking down the street talking or arguing; we used to get a lot of people pulling up outside and stuff like that, but it doesn't seem to happen anymore, so I have a feeling it was actually the young woman whose father used to rent the lower half of the double across the street (which is actually a historic property: it was a barn on the property of one of the first houses built in our neighborhood in the late 1800s). They moved out about six months ago, and even though I've been up a lot in the middle of the night during that time, I haven't noticed nearly as many young people pulling up and fighting in front of my house. None, actually. So maybe she just had a number of volatile friends.
***
My dear old cat Simon used to join me in the middle of the night. I'd come in to my office and sit down with the laptop, and before too long I'd hear him in the hall: pad, pad, pad, pad... hesitate... BONK (as he pushed the door open with his head)... and then his face would appear at the edge of the futon, and I'd sort of help him launch himself up onto the seat. He'd lean his head on the wireless card, and I'd arrange my hand in an uncomfortable scrunch, and we'd surf the Internet together. Since Simon died, I've sat here alone in the middle of the night, but tonight Alexander decided to join me. He's younger and a lot more restless than Simon, and not content to just sit there and rest his head; he keeps pushing up against me and shoving my hand off the keyboard. Cute, but annoying. And now he wants out. I might just let him go; at least it will shut him up.
***
When I went down to let him out, heard more sirens. Then another helicopter. I might actually read the news tomorrow to see what happened, anyway.
***
I've noticed recently with my Bloglines subscriptions that it's kind of jarring to go from reading about Katrina survivors and the latest political outrage to somebody's post about a neat childhood memory or something. I haven't posted much here about anything current, although I've been posting to my other blog frequently; it doesn't seem right to me to mix the topics of my blogs. I've been quite disappointed with a certain longtime web presence (who used to be in my blogroll) whose excellent, hilarious retro work has been overshadowed in the last couple of years by his insistence on trying to write about politics--which he just isn't good at. It's not the direction of his views that I object so much to (although they're mostly completely opposite of mine); it's that his political writing really sucks. I just realized when I went to look that he's actually still producing a lot of really good retro stuff, but I didn't know it, having abandoned him after one too many barely coherent, ill-informed political rants.
I don't want to do that here.
***
Now the smell of something burning; maybe those sirens were fire engines.
***
Well, I'm finally feeling kind of tired, and I have an early morning hair appointment, so I'm going to sign off now and go back to bed.
permalink posted by The Vintage Reader @ 1:45 AM 
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