Insomnia in anticlimatic

Back in the day, if I only got two or three hours of sleep at night my subsequent day was wrecked- tainted by twisted thoughts and an overall greasy feeling; like a range cook top after too-long a morning cooking bacon. For the past three weeks, every night, that’s all I’ve managed, and by day I’d never know that I was barely sleeping. It’s usually right around dawn that I can doze for a couple hours before fixing some coffee and hitting the showers before work. Once there, I have about the same energy I usually do, and come nightfall I’m wide awake again- reading by lamplight in the living room to avoid keeping the missus from her beauty sleep. Charlotte (my cat) keeps me in good company.

Just finished chewing through Ready Player One, which I found quite addicting despite being irked with a number of the cliches I can only imagine it pioneered (and thus probably can’t be qualified as cliches). I don’t particularly care about 80s nostalgia, despite being there in person and having a bit of my own. I haven’t cared since Donnie Darko came out, and I am especially annoyed with any cliches associated with geek culture- perhaps because I am a geek- or was (nah, AM), and whatever self loathing elements I yet possess cause me to take general offense. Most of what bugs me is the lore studying- the rote memorizing- of “hip” shit, movie lines, authors, sci-fi anything, etc- all of which I’ve been guilty of enjoying in the past. I wonder if I’ve left it behind, if it’s to the point of annoying me now. They say the only things we really hate about other people are reflections of our former selves. That could be it.

My mind feels a bit like mush lately. When I lay in bed at night I like to construct fantasies in my mind and watch them play out, but lately the fantasies I can build are half rendered- and the first action just seems to stutter like a broken record- like my mind has lost the ability to generate and follow a linear narrative as it once could. I’ve been telling myself it’s the lack of sleep. A lot of it probably has to do with my dad, too- that and the weird ass world in which we all now live. I feel I have an overwhelming amount of things to do- which is about how I like it- with too many pans in the fire that I can only seem to find time to check on every once in a while. Can’t be helped. I have a minimum quota of at least 4 hours per day of doing absolutely nothing, a protocol on which my sanity depends. That ultimately leaves fairly little room for house hunting (the next time I check that frying pan it will be to finally call a realtor with my pre-approval letter to have them start finding houses in my price point for me), teaching myself masonry to put a rock border around the cabin garage, completing the flooring in said cabin, and completing the remodel of my mother’s house- all projects my dad started and then abandoned to us. Following in his wake is no easy task, as his signature style of what-the-fuck-am-I-looking-at “winging it” is like decoding an adventure game riddle. “Oh, a random pipe sticking out of the ceiling that’s been cut off, what could you be- oh, a rats nest of wires stuffed into a cubby, what are you?- oh, a door that seemingly leads to a drop off over the stairs, what was your purpose?” It never ends. I’ve got a woman to propose to (a ring to find), three different vehicles to repair, an online junkyard scavenger hunt to go on for the engine wiring harness for a ‘97 tacoma to get, and of course the standard 40 hour work week to fill in the gaps here and there. Maybe that’s what’s been keeping me up…I don’t abide unfinished projects well, psychologically speaking. My therapist says I have “perfectionist issues,” whatever that means. Not that I’ve seen him since March, what with the Covid and my irrational hatred of Facetime Skype sessions and all.

Listen to me, rambling on with my daily minutia like this is a diary or something. What nerve. Feels good, though. Sleep shall be mine this night. Thanks for listening.