Back to Graves

 Hey, I'm back, and it's not a cat post. 

Gratutitous Black cat photo...

Fall is always crazy busy for me. I don't mind. It's neither too hot nor too cold to get everything done. I'm not going to bore you with the list, but I will tell you that pear loaves are in the freezer, got my flu shot, got my winter tires on, and my house is clean from top to bottom. I don't even have kids, and I can barely keep up. 

I also have a novel coming out named ELAINA'S FATE. I'm on it, for real. Emma designed a wicked cool cover for me, David helped me write the story. Spoiler Alert: You can thank him for the longer and improved battle scene. Heather has worked her usual magic, polishing my words into grammatic prose so well that I can barely tell where she's been. It's still mine...only better. 

I have been slowly crawling toward graveyard shift, and I'm letting it happen. It's natural for me and someday, when I'm a retired crone, I will live like this permanently. I like the day, but my body prefers night time, like a vampire. 

Something happens to my body when Fall arrives. I was practically born an insomniac, but I thought I'd learned how to control it. Sometimes...not all the time. I no longer stay awake for days. Right now, I'm finding that I'm always tired. I wake up in the ungodly hours and can't get back to sleep. I need long daytime naps, and they are blissfully deep snorefests where I wake up refreshed at dinner time. I'm letting it happen. 

If you're wondering what I mean by 'Born an insomniac' , It's like this. I was born in winter and my beloved father worked eleven at night until seven in the morning for the railroad system. (This was when he still went to school at NAIT. Apparently, my father didn't rest much in the early years of his marriage.) I couldn't sleep or be comforted until my father came home from work. He would rock me to sleep, and my mother would serve him bacon with scrambled eggs and a beer after I finally went down for the day.

Also odd fact. I had no idea my father went to the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology to be an electrician until he passed. He became an Instrument Mechanic shortly after we moved to an obscure hamlet named Rainbow Lake and they needed other skills than an electrician. . He challenged the exam to be certified and spent the rest of his life as an Instrument Mechanic That trade was new and he never once spent a day in NAIT'S classroom to become one.  

But I digress, back to graves. Why fight it? I used to work graveyards when I was single and I decades later worked them well for a certain toy company that still exists in Canada. While I'm not working for them this year, the department store I spend 75 to 80 percent of my time working at agrees that coming in after they close is a great idea. The staff already knows me from other late night work I do. No collectors to deal with, I won't be in the way of customers while I do what I need to do. The staff like me, and I like them. I feel energetic just

 thinking about it. This is gonna be great! 

The other stores I do? I can always nap until they open at seven, eight, nine o 'clock, and be there extra early before they are busy. 

Or I can spend my off hours getting ELAINA'S FATE  ready to publish. I win. Or at least I hope so. My goal is to get ELAINA'S FATE out in time for Christmas. I hope so anyway. It's been too long, and I'm sorry. It just wasn't ready, I wasn't ready. Sorry for so much delay.

So please wish me luck.

A Cure for Insomnia

Image by: Exsodus@FreeDigitalPhotos.net

So tired. So wired. Need a Deep Sleep.

My husband is snoring. My bed is too hot and too hard. I steal my favorite pillow and slip to the basement.

I lay down in the guest futon, and bury myself in the fluffy comforter. Bliss. It's dark, cool, and quiet. The old futon, the one I've had since I was single and just moved to Edmonton envelops me in it's old familiar, squishy way, bowed in the middle to cradle me.

Deep Sleep, I tell myself. Deep. Sleep. 

I feel my face relax. My mask, the one of worry and consternation I wear so much these days falls away. It isn't until then I realize how tense I am. Feet are still buzzing from the day, but their burden is finished for the night. Aching shoulders unwind. I still feel the twinges, but remind myself to let them settle. I have worked my body hard, and it deserves rest. I deserve rest. I deserve Deep Sleep.  I shift, just a little uncomfortable for a moment, and something in my spine pops like a tiny, satisfying firework only I can hear, and I sigh.

I am now in carefully cultivated, floating relaxation.

Thoughts of work drift through my mind. Tomorrow's prep cooking. Coleslaw, mashed potatos...We will have to make Beef and Mushroom Pot Pie, an all day affair. But I let it all slip away. I'm not at work. I'm sleeping. It will be okay. We will get through the day fine. I am able to dismiss my anxieties, let them fade.

My stories dance, and I let them. They will be fuller and richer when I wake. I have learned to trust my vivid, dreaming brain.

Deep Sleep, I gently chide myself. I'm wearing the mask again, and as odd as it sounds, I concentrate on letting go again. One does not notice how much one crinkles her face until she must work to ease it away.

Spartacus Jones comes to press his nose to my head and purr. My mouth drops open, but I don't care. I have successfully dropped the mask, and my comfort is complete.

I'm laying perfectly still, thinking of my father, and the best advice he ever gave me. Just be quiet. Don't get up for a cigarette. Don't get up to watch TV, or clean the house because you can't sleep. Your body needs to be quiet. Even if your mind can't stop, your body has to, and you'll feel better in the morning if you didn't leave your bed. 

Eventually I learned to let go, to be at peace with the silence. To suggest to myself the Deep Sleep. To believe myself . To believe in the Deep Sleep.

Deep Sleep. Deep Sleep. Deep Sleep. Say it to yourself until it comes true. Best of luck.

Why Can't I be a Morning Person?

My new favorite. Takes a little longer, but easy and worth it!

Does anyone else have this problem? I am an insomniac--mostly. I was kinda born that way. My mother complained often of my absolute unwillingness to sleep from pretty much day one. I don't like sleep and I don't really know why. I still resist it like a bratty child. Sometimes I don't have to resist--It isn't coming. Did it have to do with the fact that my daddy worked night shift? Are my rhythms off? Did growing up in a haunted house effect me to the point where I simply CAN'T sleep at night? I don't know.

Want to know something weird? I didn't start sleeping properly until I moved to a city. Nothing erks me worse than complete silence. The only thing worse, is complete silence interrupted by say, a howling coyote, or creaking floors, and other noises that interrupt that eerie, complete quiet. Ugh...

I'd like to be a morning person. I'm so much more productive that way. The sun is shining, people are up and about their business, and everything operates as normal, including me.

On Tuesday, for the first time in months, I woke up at 5 a.m. Okay, SPARTACUS JONES woke me up at 5 a.m...I got up, and fed my cats and realized I probably wouldn't sleep. (I tried until 6:30 actually) So I got up, made coffee and breakfast, and tackled my day. I did a  rough draft on a synopsis, 1200 new words written, walls washed, desk cleaned, linens washed and I COOKED, as in three different meals! All while herding two cats and a troll, I might add.

Do you know what happens when I wake up at my usual time of Ten a.m.? Not a hell of a lot. I can't even figure out what kind of meal to wake up to. Breakfast? Lunch? Brunch? THEN  what do I do? I've wasted my morning, so do I write? Do chores? Run errands? Which one? There isn't time for all of them...Not if you're trying to get to bed early. Which I apparently never do.

MY FAVORITE BREAKFAST: The one you saw on Facebook...That's where I found it, in a language I didn't understand. But do you think I could find the video for this blog? Nope.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Separate egg yolks from whites. Whip egg whites with a pinch of cream of tar tar until it looks like frothy white icing, and forms small peaks. I do my mixer on low, and ease up to high. Fry your bacon or sausage while doing this, on medium high heat.

Place whipped egg whites in an oven safe dish, taking care to make a 'well' or deep hole for the yolks. Pour yolks into those wells. Keep an eye on your meat ;)

Bake eggs in oven for about ten minutes, longer if you don't like your yolks runny.

Remove bacon or sausage, and blot them on a napkin. (saves a shocking amount of calories-like 300 or so, I've heard) Season your eggs with salt and pepper after you remove them to a plate. Eat and enjoy <3 The more you do it, the easier it becomes.

BTW: Even if you break your yolks, you can drizzle them over the whipped whites and it will still taste pretty awesome :)

Don't Follow the Tomato! (Tired rantings written a few days ago)

Sooooo close. El Toro from Looney Tunes

So the bull jumped from a third story window to the street. He gave me this look...like he had no idea how he got there....But I understood completely. Just like I understand why the vegetables visit at night.

This is how my brain tells me I'm falling asleep.

I'm on the very cusp of slumber. But this time I got up instead, because I started giggling and suddenly I had to pee. And I couldn't help but share this with you because the confusion on the bull's face was priceless.

Surely I'm not the only one 'blessed' with cartoon characters for Sandmen? Why are my escorts to dreamland animated versions of various produce or in this case, livestock? (I saw marshmallow puppies last week.)

As a life-long insomniac, I've learned interesting things about my sleep patterns over the years. I sleep better in the city, rather than smaller towns or farmhouses. I sleep better with some lights on and a little bit of noise. I need to be REALLY warm...Two blankets in the summer kind of warm. If I fall asleep with the television on, and my husband shuts it off, I will wake up immediately.

I've recently recognized how my thoughts turn to cartoons or become extremely abstract as I drift off. Does anyone else get wacky crap like that? Or am I just weird?

I'm too tired to write anymore but I'd really like some opinions. All I know for sure is that the tomato with the gangster accent (Pssst. Hey, writah. Yeah you. C'meeeeere!) is a bad influence on me, and I shouldn't listen to him when he tries to coax me through that blue door. He usually ditches me on the highway.

Insomniac and the City

I'm late again. Whoops. And I don't have a very good excuse. Just like I didn't have a blog prepared. You'd think with all the hours I spent tossing and turning and grumbling in the dark this week I would have had time to come up with something. So here it is.

Insomnia sucks.

How did debspoons@FreeDigitalPhotos.net get in my room to draw Freya and me?

No shit, right? True, it's common for writers to have sleep issues. Our characters won't stop shouting to be written and the plot bunnies run races in our heads. But this is ridiculous! I have slowly turned vampire--Apparently I only sleep when the sun comes up.

This is the reason I need to live in the city, folks. It revolves around my nocturnal needs. Run out of smokes, need a snack, something to read? 7-11 is two blocks away through a nice quiet neighborhood free of wolves and bears. Want fast food? MacDonald's and Wendy's can oblige you. Let's not forget those hearty Denny's breakfasts. For live entertainment, show up just after the bars close. Oh yeah...there's bars to hang out in. And coffee shops. (Tim Horton's anyone?) You can catch up on your laundry if you've got quarters.

I should go get one right now.

And only a few years ago, someone invented a reason to never need to go out in daylight. Twenty-four hour Walmarts! One huge store full of all the things and it's open 24-7. Bliss. Yes, I know Walmart sucks. But this is the city where competition between stores thrives. How long until we have 24 hour Targets and Costcos?

Heeeeey! You know what we need now? All-night libraries and bookstores! What do you think? Is that a good idea? Or is that just 3 hours of sleep talking?