All In My Head?

I don't know what it is, but my heart has been racing every time I try to do something calm for almost the entirety of the day. I hate when this happens, because my body is telling me that there's something wrong when I know there isn't. Additionally, a racing heart means an inability to fully calm down ("You can't sleep--you're in danger!"), and therefore, insomnia.

So now I come to the usual dilemma: Lie in bed for an hour and try to calm down, fighting off ridiculous anxieties and fears, or get up and type in blog (check) and see if anyone else is still awake to hang out with. Matt has someone over (Sam, maybe?), but I'm not sure I want to hang out. Plus, staying up rarely makes me tired unless I do it for a few hours, by which time I've ensured that I won't get enough sleep and I'll be exhausted tomorrow. I'll probably end up staying up for a little bit to see if anyone is online. It's so hard to resign myself to lying in bed in silence. I can't listen to music or an audiobook when I'm in this state because I'll listen to it for hours without getting any sleepier. My attention span cannot be exhausted when I'm like this.

It has me a bit worried because I've been like this for maybe two weeks now, off and on, but mostly on. My sleep schedule has been off--maybe I'm fighting off the illness that's going around campus or something. I've been having vivid dreams every night for about that time period as well. Usually I get a week of vivid dreams at a time every now and then, and then they subside. This is the longest that kind of streak has run, in my recent memory at least. I worry that it's a sign that whatever anxiety disorder/abnormality I have is getting worse. I feel like a manic-depressive person without the depression. I just have normal and manic, and then the mania turns to neediness, loneliness, and paranoia. So I don't think I really get depressive spells, just "funks," where I'm down because I'm coming off being up. If that makes any sense.

I wish this blog were more entertaining. I just only seem to remember to write in it when I can't sleep.

Am I Superficial?

Happiness is the fact that "Heroes" is on tonight.

Midnight Ramblings

I don't know if I have insomnia or if I just don't want to sleep. I've been sort of manic (I dunno if I should use that word because I'm not sure if I'm actually manic-depressive or just have some sort of anxiety disorder that has depression attached, but I suppose for all intents and purposes it's like mania) for the past few days, and now I'm crashing. Not a really hard crash, but still, it's annoying. At least I don't have class tomorrow.

It's probably because it's senior year and I had to register for the GRE and everything, but I've been thinking a lot about the future lately. Mostly about jobs, school, marriage even. I mean I don't intend to get married for a while, but it's still the next major thing on the horizon that's not school-related. Kids come to mind every now and then, but are usually easily dismissed. If my biological clock is ticking, it's doing so very quietly.

I suppose things just feel like they're coming to a close. There's a certain sense of resolution approaching like the kind you feel when you're almost at the end of a book. The story's not over, per se, but this volume of it soon will be. Everyone is 21 or soon will be, so the final stage of adulthood as far as the law is concerned has been achieved. Friends are deciding on grad programs or jobs and seriously thinking about specific careers. I'm not afraid of growing up; in fact, some part of me can't wait to take on the challenges of true adulthood. But yet, it's hard to fully comprehend the fact that I will never be living under the same roof as these people again, never living on this campus (unless I work for this school), etc. I suppose everyone feels this way at this time. Part of me still doesn't comprehend the fact that I'll never be in London with the people I was there with again. I may never see my host family again. Hell, I may never return to London, though I intend to.

These thoughts are always there, but at times they rush at my consciousness all at once so that I become a (trite simile) deer in the headlights, frozen in the face of so many possibilities.

All for now. Sleep will come soon.

New Hair

ShortBlueHair
Originally uploaded by rantelwolfrider

For those of you haven't seen it (or a decent picture of it) yet, here's a pic of my new haircut and color. Cut by Attitudes Salon, color by Wren (Special Effects Electric Blue), photo by Wren.

It's not as waxy and/or fluffy as I can get it, but I think that's a good view of it when it's somewhat tamed.

P.S. I despise the new Flickr.

I No Longer Hate Charles Dickens

"His hat presents at the rims a peculiar appearance of a glistening nature, as if it had been a favorite snail-promenade."

Bleak House, 297.

Observations During Dictation

"The dragon now knows how to spell 'dickery.'"

Murphy's Law

Of course I had to wake up feeling crappy on one of the two days of class I have a week. Especially since it's technically my Monday today. On the bright side, I've gotten a good chunk of Thursday's homework done already. Now I just need to buckle down and read like 40 more pages of "Northanger Abbey" and 50 of "Bleak House" before Thursday. I should be able to do it tonight and tomorrow night, and I'll have to because Wren and I will be spending the majority of our Wednesday getting our respective hair cut and then bleaching and dyeing it ourselves, which is a very time-consuming process.

I must make myself look presentable for my last day of yucky hair (hopefully). Day: Lunch 11:30-12:20, Class 12:30-4:50, Meeting 5:00-5:50(?), Dinner 6:00-7:00, Reading till bed.

Shouldn't I be in class?

It's Monday morning and my mind hasn't yet grasped the fact that I only have class twice a week. I have the constant nervous feeling that I should be somewhere, though I know I have nothing to do today besides read, eat lunch, read, eat dinner, read, go to work, and read.

The Teach For America people are bugging me persistently, convinced that I'm the perfect candidate for their program. They obviously don't know me very well. I've tried explaining to them that though I won a leadership award, I won it with four other people, and that I'm really not all that great at leading on my own. I'm also really only good at leading peers, not children, much less low-income children. How well do you think a twenty-something 5'4" skinny white girl would fare in that kind of situation? I'd go "English is cool!" and then all of the kids would walk out of the classroom and I'd have on idea what to do. Plus, how many low-income area schools do you think are in Olympia? Probably none. I really don't want to move to south Tacoma or Seattle and give up (yet again) living with Trevor in the amazing apartment in Olympia so that I can get eaten alive by elementary school kids. And yet now I'm going to feel guilty because for all I know this is some sign from God that teaching poor kids is my calling in life. Wren says God should do something more obvious, like dropping a pile of Teach For America fliers onto my head from On High.

Wren and I have gotten through one week of our new exercise regimen successfully, so hopefully that's a good sign and a reason to hope for continued success. Now that the 24-Hour Fitness in Olympia is open, Wren and Trevor and I can race our way into good health. We're calling you out, Trevor! Granted, 20 minutes of speed walking four mornings a week isn't a ton of exercise, but it's something, and if it's consistent, it'll produce results.

Time to get cleaned, get fed, and get read (past tense).

In the Light

I have no motivation to go down to breakfast today (except my growling stomach) after yesterday's waffle incident. There was no whipped cream--the scandal! However, I shall overcome.

Wren works till 4:00, which means I need to get some serious reading done before she gets home. The life of an English Major is structured to try to make us hate the thing we love.

I feel significantly better today, though my mood wasn't helped by strange dreams. Every now and then I get a week-long stretch of vivid dreams and nightmares. I think it's a cyclical thing, but I can't decide what determines the cycle. Last night I had a dream about a girl that Trevor calls "Poison Sarah" (no relation to Comic House Sarah). I mean, the dream wasn't about her specifically, but she played a significant part in it. I dreamt that I came home from London and while I had been gone, Trevor had been sort of seeing this girl. It wasn't a serious thing, and it wasn't clear in the dream whether or not it had been romantic at all, I just knew they had spent a lot of time together. Everyone seemed to think this was a perfectly normal thing, and even I seemed not to be too bothered about it. I just remember coming home to our apartment (which in the dream looked nothing like our apartment in real life) and finding Sarah's books on the shelves, and mementos of the time they had spent together while I was gone. I don't really know how I feel about it yet, besides unsettled, but a lot of my dreams make me feel that way.

Time to give in to the call of breakfast. I don't think I'll be risking a waffle today or the disappointment that might come with it.

Introductions and Reflections

Disclaimer: Written under influence of insomnia, anxiety, and a smidgen of caffeine.

I'm starting up this blog for a number of reasons, including but not limited to the following (in no particular order): 1) I haven't been writing in my journal, 2) No one reads my Xanga anymore, 3) Facebook is not conducive to serious blogging, 4) Wren suggested it, 5) I need an outlet.

It's 1:40 AM and I'm not asleep, but thankfully tomorrow is Sunday. Sunday will be spent doing chores and reading and putting up posters and reading and trying to cheer the fuck up and, of course, reading. I've been in a random funk all day, which pisses me off because Trevor was visiting and most of the housemates were here and it should've been a wonderful time. It still was a wonderful time, but I didn't want to spend any of it being a mopey little whiner. This is a really stupid thing, but Wren's newfound stability throws my occasional irrationality into stark contrast (at least in my mind). No offense whatsoever toward Wren is intended by this, it was just a weird thing I thought of today. I don't really know how to explain it so that it doesn't sound bad. I just mean that I suppose it just makes me wonder what it would be like to fully understand that the way I feel today isn't really a part of who I am.

During my 3.5 months in London I had maybe one or two days like this, and they were mild. It was the strangest and most wonderful thing, but I know it was only because I was constantly busy and excited. I basically just exhausted all mania and worry and distracted myself from all depression. I'm making it sound like I think I'm bipolar, but I think I just have an anxiety disorder that presents itself as mania, and the depression is either an aftereffect of crashing from an overanxious bought or something completely separate that I inherited from my father. And I feel stupid for seeming so melodramatic about the whole ordeal because as far as emotional disorders go, mine really aren't that severe. And I'm going to keep going around in circles like this if I don't stop myself.

I hope that most of my posts won't be like this, though some probably will. My writing should be noticeably improved in other posts, as it's almost 2:00 and I'm not really in my best form.

I'm grateful daily for the love of those who forgive my self-indulgences, alleviate my distresses, and appreciate my eccentricities. These people are comforts in a life that is clearly already so full of blessings as to be undeserving of more. I hope that somehow I can even the balance, if only slightly, by returning some comfort to them.

Next time: less cryptic, more Maddo.