I am writing for myself and strangers. This is the only way that I can do it... Gertrude Stein

10/19/2004

Insomnia

Poor Dereck, he has terrible insomnia lately, and I don't expect it will be abated until/unless John Kerry is elected our next President.

Seriously, we had a half-kidding conversation last night about moving to Canada.

I do not have insomnia. But I feel like I am sleepwalking today. I am so tired. I had a little melodramatic self-indulgence last night that did not last long, but boy, it wiped me out. I don't think Dereck was even aware of it, blissfully grading on the couch while I was having a little meltdown in front of the computer in the kitchen.

But there you go. I realized at the time that it was self-indulgent, but sometimes you get to the point where you just need to cry.

I am wondering what is in the water or the air lately. A lot of people in blogging land are in flux. I don't know what is up with Yvonne's blog, but it does not work anymore (phew!). Some other people are in flux, and I send out good vibes to you. Karl is taking his new flux with the gleeful prolification of someone who is no longer keeping secrets. He is a blogging fool, and I wonder where he will end up next.

But the atmosphere seems particularly charged. I feel as though I am waiting for something-- and I am. I am waiting for the elections. I am waiting for Christmas. I am waiting for grant guidelines to come out so grants can be written, submitted, and hoped for. I am waiting for this weekend, because we are going to Omaha to stay at the Sheraton (yes, Pie, sorry-- but it's Omaha, for crying out loud, so you know the weather won't be anything to phone home about). Dereck has a conference, but I have my own reasons for looking forward to Omaha, and they have nothing to do with the conference or with the Sheraton (though, admittedly, a day in a hotel without having to go to any meetings is a feast in and of itself-- a hotel that someone else is paying for-- the grandest kind of all).

Underlying all of this electricity and the coiled kinetic energy that comes with patience, with waiting, is another sense of excitement, excitement bred solely of my inner life, the inner life that I suddenly feel guarded about. I am not a private person, or a secretive person. But right now, I am savoring, I am considering, I am reflecting, I am thinking, and I feel like I am sitting in a tree and watching everything happen, grinning like a cheshire cat.