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ravenI keep writing scraps of things to post and then not posting them. Notes and queries:
1. It is now about ten days until I go home. I am still two exams and one 5000-word paper short of actually departing the country. I am also (probably) nursing the beginnings of a bad cold which is all my own fault, but, ouch. I am up for no reason, as usual; my sleep disorder has got so, so much worse just recently, and I am getting more and more actively upset about it. It's been a minor inconvenience in my life so far - okay, sometimes a major inconvenience, but not always - but now I'm at a state where I'm seriously looking at having it my whole life. I have not grown out of it. I will not grow out of it. I am going to be alive fifty-plus more years and I will have to spend that time managing it, dealing with it, medicating it, sorting out workarounds for it, getting adjustments at work for it, maybe, but I won't ever sleep like a normal person. I knew this, intellectually - for one thing, my dad has it too and he hasn't grown out of it - but it's one thing to know that and another to suddenly feel it.
On a slightly lighter note, my psychiatrist's name is Dr. McKenzie. In light of the SG-1 rewatch, I am finding this small fact impossibly entertaining.
(2. Also in light of the SG-1 rewatch, a random thought that occurred to me. You know what the internet needs? The internet needs fic about Claire Ballard. She's the definition of a minor character, yes, but consider the one detail we do know about her: she was a field archaeologist, publishing, working on digs, generally being awesome, with a very young child in tow, in 1965. Why has no one written omg-women-are-awesome fic about her? Why does the whole internet not cater to my whims?)
3. Exams start tomorrow (not for me, thankfully), and the law school is an interestingly fraught place to be at the moment. I thought I was immune thus far, and then I found myself getting obscenly, irrationally furious that one of the precious library carrels was being taken up by someone who wasn't a law student. (The law library is airy and beautiful and technically a public library, so it does get undergrads and people from other schools studying in it. But, you know, law school finals, tomorrow, be fair.)
"How'd you know they weren't a law student taking an outside class?" asked Shim later.
"Because," I said, through gritted teeth, "they were reading an LSAT prep book."
I stomped off downstairs to get some coffee and find somewhere else to study, and when I came out bearing a mug of awful vending machine coffee Tobermory yelled at me, poured it down the sink and got me real coffee from CTB. I think it's people's kindness that keeps me afloat. (Though I'm not doing reverb10, a lot of my friends are and I've been watching the prompts, and today's question asked about what kinds of community you've been part of in 2010. I wouldn't ever have believed it a few months ago, especially given previous experience, but the law school is a community, and one I'm happy to be part of: it's left-leaning, vaguely elitist, far from perfect, but has a quality of shared endeavour.)
4.. That, and birthday cake left over from a party I went to at the weekend (got drunk on pink champagne, I am so cool) and also "Little Wings" by Kris Delmhorst, which I've had on repeat the last couple of days. (artist's free download at link, try it, it's great).
5. It is cold like breaking. Have I mentioned that, recently? It is cold enough that you expect the air to shatter. Over the weekend I piled into a car withthingswithwings, eruthros and livrelibre and we went on a trip around the lake wine-tasting. (Which was fun! There were interesting whites and rieslings, rosés and sparkling wines, but the highlight was definitely a spirit tasting at the north end of the lake, where we were given honey vodka, mead and maple syrup liqueur by a kind chap with a tendency to dreadful puns. Maple syrup liqueur. I didn't buy any because it would be dangerous to have in the house.) My point is by the time we were driving back at the close of the day, I said something about how you could take a picture and caption it "desolation, a study" - the snow flurrying, the frosty intensity in the lake, the landscape just losing all depth, hazing into grey and white and back again. I'd never seen bleakness like it; I'd never seen anywhere with quite so much nowhere to go around. I mean, it has its own beauty, but it's not a simple kind.
In short: it's very cold. Hi.
6. I have vids stuck in my head. The constructed reality vid, but also apparently the internet hasn't any Sam-Carter-is-awesome vid to satisfy me, and now I keep.... pondering. T'wings assures me that vidding is not as scary as I think it is, but nevertheless, nevertheless I am skeered, because it is not like writing. Writing is... okay, for whatever reason, I don't have any issues about writing. It's something that happens. I feel like If I took up vidding, I would have to.... make things happen.
I am aware this makes no sense.
7. And now it's 1.30am, and I can't sleep and my meds aren't working, so I am putting bluebook citations in my attainder paper and moping. One week and four days until I go home.
1. It is now about ten days until I go home. I am still two exams and one 5000-word paper short of actually departing the country. I am also (probably) nursing the beginnings of a bad cold which is all my own fault, but, ouch. I am up for no reason, as usual; my sleep disorder has got so, so much worse just recently, and I am getting more and more actively upset about it. It's been a minor inconvenience in my life so far - okay, sometimes a major inconvenience, but not always - but now I'm at a state where I'm seriously looking at having it my whole life. I have not grown out of it. I will not grow out of it. I am going to be alive fifty-plus more years and I will have to spend that time managing it, dealing with it, medicating it, sorting out workarounds for it, getting adjustments at work for it, maybe, but I won't ever sleep like a normal person. I knew this, intellectually - for one thing, my dad has it too and he hasn't grown out of it - but it's one thing to know that and another to suddenly feel it.
On a slightly lighter note, my psychiatrist's name is Dr. McKenzie. In light of the SG-1 rewatch, I am finding this small fact impossibly entertaining.
(2. Also in light of the SG-1 rewatch, a random thought that occurred to me. You know what the internet needs? The internet needs fic about Claire Ballard. She's the definition of a minor character, yes, but consider the one detail we do know about her: she was a field archaeologist, publishing, working on digs, generally being awesome, with a very young child in tow, in 1965. Why has no one written omg-women-are-awesome fic about her? Why does the whole internet not cater to my whims?)
3. Exams start tomorrow (not for me, thankfully), and the law school is an interestingly fraught place to be at the moment. I thought I was immune thus far, and then I found myself getting obscenly, irrationally furious that one of the precious library carrels was being taken up by someone who wasn't a law student. (The law library is airy and beautiful and technically a public library, so it does get undergrads and people from other schools studying in it. But, you know, law school finals, tomorrow, be fair.)
"How'd you know they weren't a law student taking an outside class?" asked Shim later.
"Because," I said, through gritted teeth, "they were reading an LSAT prep book."
I stomped off downstairs to get some coffee and find somewhere else to study, and when I came out bearing a mug of awful vending machine coffee Tobermory yelled at me, poured it down the sink and got me real coffee from CTB. I think it's people's kindness that keeps me afloat. (Though I'm not doing reverb10, a lot of my friends are and I've been watching the prompts, and today's question asked about what kinds of community you've been part of in 2010. I wouldn't ever have believed it a few months ago, especially given previous experience, but the law school is a community, and one I'm happy to be part of: it's left-leaning, vaguely elitist, far from perfect, but has a quality of shared endeavour.)
4.. That, and birthday cake left over from a party I went to at the weekend (got drunk on pink champagne, I am so cool) and also "Little Wings" by Kris Delmhorst, which I've had on repeat the last couple of days. (artist's free download at link, try it, it's great).
5. It is cold like breaking. Have I mentioned that, recently? It is cold enough that you expect the air to shatter. Over the weekend I piled into a car with
thingswithwings, eruthros and livrelibre and we went on a trip around the lake wine-tasting. (Which was fun! There were interesting whites and rieslings, rosés and sparkling wines, but the highlight was definitely a spirit tasting at the north end of the lake, where we were given honey vodka, mead and maple syrup liqueur by a kind chap with a tendency to dreadful puns. Maple syrup liqueur. I didn't buy any because it would be dangerous to have in the house.) My point is by the time we were driving back at the close of the day, I said something about how you could take a picture and caption it "desolation, a study" - the snow flurrying, the frosty intensity in the lake, the landscape just losing all depth, hazing into grey and white and back again. I'd never seen bleakness like it; I'd never seen anywhere with quite so much nowhere to go around. I mean, it has its own beauty, but it's not a simple kind.In short: it's very cold. Hi.
6. I have vids stuck in my head. The constructed reality vid, but also apparently the internet hasn't any Sam-Carter-is-awesome vid to satisfy me, and now I keep.... pondering. T'wings assures me that vidding is not as scary as I think it is, but nevertheless, nevertheless I am skeered, because it is not like writing. Writing is... okay, for whatever reason, I don't have any issues about writing. It's something that happens. I feel like If I took up vidding, I would have to.... make things happen.
I am aware this makes no sense.
7. And now it's 1.30am, and I can't sleep and my meds aren't working, so I am putting bluebook citations in my attainder paper and moping. One week and four days until I go home.
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no subject
on 2010-12-08 02:04 pm (UTC)I hate synopses and do not do them often, and it's not as though one *could* drink that stuff fast enough to get properly incoherent.
no subject
on 2010-12-09 07:34 am (UTC)no subject
on 2010-12-08 03:08 pm (UTC)my solution to this problem is that I vid using the exact same methodology that I use to write academic prose. Not the methodology I use to write fiction, mind, but my essay-writing system. there are outlines. anyway it makes vidding less scary for me.
seriously, though, come over this week/weekend sometime, bring your computer, and I'll teach you to vid.
no subject
on 2010-12-09 07:35 am (UTC)no subject
on 2010-12-08 07:03 am (UTC)I'm so sorry you're not sleeping, and at such a horrible time. But you are very, very close to being home and free, and the world only spins forward, apparently, so you will get there. It's just physics. YOU CAN'T ARGUE WITH PHYSICS.
Also:
I'm seriously looking at having it my whole life. I have not grown out of it. I will not grow out of it. I am going to be alive fifty-plus more years and I will have to spend that time managing it, dealing with it, medicating it, sorting out workarounds for it
oh man. Fancy seeing you at this party, too.
Love.
no subject
on 2010-12-08 07:22 am (UTC)Love you too. Insomnia SUCKS.
no subject
on 2010-12-08 07:38 am (UTC)I do, uh, have sleep meds that theoretically work right now, but for them to work I have to take them. And... that is where the communication breakdown occurs. Anyway, obviously this is not as bad as yours, because mine is really just a mental block at this point. If it would work for you, I'd give you my growing stockpile of trazadone.
Also, man, Iona, I don't know how you do it. I am sleeping these days, just at nut-job hours, but during several periods this year I wasn't at all, and it is surreal. I mean, whoa. Who needs mind-altering substances when you have insomnia?
hmm, only 2:00 a.m., what to do next. Researching medical providers, outlining Yuletide, applying for tutoring jobs: far too productive. Oh I know LJ icons.
(I may be being really obnoxious at people this week [month, year] and never giving them a break from me, I can't really judge right now. If I get obnoxious at you, please tell me. <3)
no subject
on 2010-12-08 07:46 am (UTC)If I get obnoxious at you, please tell me. <3)
Nonono! One blessing of being in this time zone has been having you keeping me company into the small hours, it's very comforting. (Although it makes me wonder: what if I'd been living somewhere Eastern all along and we'd been having conversations like this for EIGHT YEARS? I mean, can you even imagine.)
no subject
on 2010-12-08 07:54 am (UTC)See, this! A few weeks back I said to my doctor, Yes, everything's fine, I have gone down a rung on this ladder, oh also I hallucinated the other night. I had never done that before! It's so odd! And, I don't know if you have this too (knowing you I wouldn't be shocked), but I was quite quite aware from the start not only that it wasn't real, but also specifically that it was a hallucination. So my body was a little wtf wtf wtf what is happening in the dark in your closet that should not be there, but my brain was going, oh for god's sake, chill the fuck out, dude. I'm trying to watch this. How interesting this sensory experience is! I wonder how you'd write about it.
(Although it makes me wonder: what if I'd been living somewhere Eastern all along and we'd been having conversations like this for EIGHT YEARS? I mean, can you even imagine.)
I think we would both be entirely insane.
Possibly because neither of us would have ever slept.
no subject
on 2010-12-08 03:02 pm (UTC)*waves*
Mine are not necessarily insomnia related. But yeah. I just, y'know, tend not to talk about it cos that's crazy.
no subject
on 2010-12-08 01:21 pm (UTC)You've been to Indiana, right? The desolation/emptiness you describe sounds like home to me. (Oh dear, that sounds a bit morbid.) Illinois--hell, that's the midwest for you, right there.
no subject
on 2010-12-09 06:10 am (UTC)I've spent quite a bit of time in Indiana, yes! I believe you, I do; so much open space!
no subject
on 2010-12-08 02:59 pm (UTC)Unrelatedly, I am alternately squeeful about and jealous of the idea of you like roadtripping with all these other BNFs. *grin*
Hang in there, lovely. Ten days is an eternity, you just have to plough through it. We're all routing for you.
*hughold*
no subject
on 2010-12-09 07:33 am (UTC)(I am somewhat flattered at being described as a BNF. :))
*squish*
no subject
on 2010-12-08 05:04 pm (UTC)Vidding is fun! It is so exciting to see footage you fit to a song. I get the same kind of thrill from it as I did from working on and perfecting dance steps.
no subject
on 2010-12-09 06:05 am (UTC)no subject
on 2010-12-08 05:22 pm (UTC)And it is nasty cold out there. I can't go across campus without my ears feeling like they'll break off.
no subject
on 2010-12-08 05:27 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2010-12-08 05:30 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2010-12-09 12:21 am (UTC)Also, I would be really happy if you took up vidding. I bet you'd be good at it.
no subject
on 2010-12-09 06:20 am (UTC)I don't know about that! But I have a space of free time coming up, and it's worth a try. :)