all the tired in the world

There goes my evening

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I have spent the last half hour doing nothing.  Not a relaxing nothing.  More like a deer-in-headlights nothing.  A stuck-between-too-many-things-to-do nothing.  Procrastination of the if-I-wait-long-enough-to-decide-what-to-do-with-myself-I-won’t-have-time-to-do-anything kind.

At the very least I could have been reading.  I gave up on one of the Hugo books (nominated for the YA award) yesterday.  It wasn’t bad, but it didn’t grab me, so last night I started one of the remaining Best Novel nominees, one I’ve been looking forward to because it’s by Seanan McGuire and I have yet to read anything by her that I didn’t thoroughly enjoy.  So why wasn’t I reading that?

I can go do that now, but sleep is looming, and even though it’s the weekend, I’m planning on getting up stupid early to run (before it’s hot), and I don’t want to skip tomorrow because I skipped today because I was up for two hours last night with Jack and when I’m up that long with him in the middle of the night, my 5am run is the first thing to go in favor of just a little extra sleep before I have to get up anyway because 6am is work time for me.

[Pausing for breath]

Well, that was helpful.

 

What if all my work was filled with zzzzzzzz?

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Hi.  Working on very little sleep here, so I don’t have a lot to give tonight.  I try to stay a day ahead (at least), but I have two drafts not yet ready to go and not enough brain power to do anything with them right now.  Tonight, you get stream-of-barely-consciousness.  Let’s see how it turns out.

Jack was up from 2am to 5am last night, and so were we.  I dragged myself out of bed around 6 because that’s almost the only time I can work, and I do have to actually do some work.  That was painful.  Jack didn’t nap today, which is both surprising (he was super tired today, considering last night) and not surprising (naps are VERY hard to come by these days), so I didn’t get that window to myself.  I was able to answer a couple of emails during the day, but that didn’t get me very far, so I’m staying up late tonight to get some stuff done.

That is probably going to backfire on me.  He went to sleep right away tonight (John didn’t even finish the first bedtime book), but it’s impossible to predict anymore when Jack will sleep through the night.  It’s easier if I stay pessimistic about it and assume he will not.  Not a lot I can do about whether he sleeps or the need to stay up to work.  It just is, and it won’t last forever.  It’s not his fault he’s having trouble sleeping, and it’s hard to get worked up about the ravioli he throws on the floor when he’s only doing it because he’s tired and cranky and doesn’t know how to fix it.  (I do – GO THE **** TO SLEEP.)

Enough of this.  Gotta work.  Gotta sleep.  Gotta try again tomorrow.

Are you here? Am I here? Is any of this real?

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Do you know what I did today?  I mean, really, do you know?  Because I don’t.  What day is it?

This long weekend really threw me.  I was happy to have it, don’t get me wrong.  It’s really nice to have a day off, even working half time.  Figuring out how to fit four hours of work into every day is more stressful than I imagined it would be.  I’m not losing any sleep over it or anything, except that’s not true.  I AM losing sleep over it because I get up extra early to get a couple of hours done before John has to get to work.

I don’t think that’s what I meant to write about because what I DID mean to write about is that I don’t have anything to write about.  Which is a really boring thing to write about because if I really don’t have anything to write about, I shouldn’t write at all.  EXCEPT that I’ve been on a roll these last couple of months, only missing two or three days, and I’m feeling the pressure.

Also, I TOTALLY had something else to write about, but I forgot what it was sometime in the last paragraph.

I am going to bed before this gets any worse.

Are obnoxiously arrogant teenagers better than brooding vampires?

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Oh, this book I’m reading.  It’s young adult, which usually means it’ll be fast-paced at least, and the premise is interesting, and it’s not TOO teen-angsty (yet), and no one has asked me to sympathize with an ancient brooding vampire inexplicably in love with a 15-year-old (YET).  Okay, that last one isn’t fair – none of the characters are ancient brooding vampires, or even vampires at all.  But there’s at least one really obvious plot twist coming (I KNOW WHO YOUR FATHER IS, MAIN CHARACTER), and if I’m meant to believe none of these characters even suspected, then the author thinks I’m an idiot.  Maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised and be totally wrong.

I sound like I don’t like the book.  I’m enjoying it, when I have time to read, but I’m usually really tired by then, and I can’t get very far in one sitting before I’m unconscious.  This is a terrible position to be in.

Can’t brain

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Today was not a good day for braining.  Jack woke up at 2:45am and got some snatches of sleep before he gave up on trying around 4am, so the three of us have pretty much been up since 2:45 this morning. Well, Jack’s asleep now, but I’m coasting on fumes and won’t be conscious much longer.  Also, his nap was WAY too short and then, tired and upset as he was after only sleeping for 40 minutes, he couldn’t settle down enough to sleep again.

On the plus side, I’m the one who got him to sleep for his nap today, so yay me!  I’m pretty sure it wasn’t my nap technique that had him waking up 40 minutes later.

BUT short nap yesterday then bad night last night then short nap today possibly means bad night again tonight soooooo I’m going to bed right now.

Terribly sorry about only complaining about my lack of sleep tonight.  Let’s try again tomorrow.

Putting Jack to sleep is exhausting

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The traffic last night was conspiring to keep Jack from going to sleep.  And we REALLY needed him to go to sleep (and sleep all night – which he did HOORAY HOORAY!).  Over the last several days, we’ve been having some trouble.  Jack didn’t get a nap at all on Saturday, he only got a little more than half an hour on Sunday, and he only got 10 minutes yesterday, when he REALLY needed a good nap because the night before (Sunday into Monday) was ROUGH.  He slept for about 4 hours, woke up a little after midnight, and then didn’t go back to sleep until 4am.  He wasn’t fussy after the first bit – he was just awake.  Wanted to babble at us.  We did our best to convince him that it was time for sleep, it was dark, and all good babies and gucks and woowees sleep when it’s the middle of the night, but he didn’t get the picture for several hours.

We’d gotten complacent – before Sunday night, he had slept for 11 to 13 hours straight every night except one in the month of April, and we were beginning to feel human again.

One bad night isn’t a pattern, but with several days of short or nonexistent naps followed by a night like that one, it’s hard to feel positive.

Anyway, the traffic.  John was putting Jack to bed, and I was doing the dishes.  At three separate times within 40 minutes, ambulances and fire engines went screaming down the road, sirens blaring, and THEN some giant truck laid on his horn as he went through the intersection near our house.

I nearly went outside to yell (at what, I don’t know – the universe?) “THE BABY IS TRYING TO SLEEP, PEOPLE!”

Now, as I speak type, he is napping. I don’t know how long we’ll get, but something is better than nothing and we’re at 20 minutes so far, so today is already a win over the last several days. Hold your breath and don’t slam any doors, my dudes, because the baby is sleeping.

Looking for sleep opportunities

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Jack’s morning nap today was in my arms.  Usually, once he falls asleep, I take a couple of minutes (at least) to gaze adoringly at the sweet cuddly baby before I open my book or close my eyes.  This morning, I’m pretty sure I was asleep before he was.  I certainly don’t have any memory of his sleeping face.  I am SO TIRED.  Wednesday night wasn’t quite as bad as last Monday, but it was bad enough (he was awake from 2am to 5).

I can’t even write about it without yawning.

I don’t need sleep anymore

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For the first time in a long time, like months, we had a really bad night with Jack.  He’s fine, and he was fine during the night.  He was just, you know, awake.  He went to bed like normal, pretty easily.  He was asleep in the crib before 7:30.  He woke up about 3 and a half hours later, just before 11pm.  We had JUST climbed into bed.  I hadn’t even put my book down yet.  John changed his diaper, and then I tried to nurse him back to sleep.  For most of an hour.  He didn’t go to sleep, so I stood up and held him, trying to sway him to sleep.  He’d put his head down, then shift it, then shift it again.  I thought it was going to work, but then he started to squirm and protest, so I sat back down with him and tried to nurse him to sleep again.  No luck, repeat of the almost-settling on my shoulder, and then around 12:30 I texted John to come in and try, since he usually has really good luck getting him to sleep on his shoulder.  Not that night – Jack was having none of it.  Less than 15 minutes later, I was nursing him again, thinking super-sleepy thoughts at him, but it still didn’t work.  Around 1:30, maybe a little before, I tagged John back in, but Jack just didn’t want to sleep.  John put him in his crib and stayed nearby – Jack happily crawled in circles on the mattress for half an hour.  So a little before 2am, it was back to nursing (and another diaper change) for us.  Then I tried the crib thing.  He giggled and wanted to play.  I tried reading to him from outside the crib, but the light from the kindle fascinated him.  I tried lying down on the floor next to the crib, but he kept babbling at me and reaching through the slats to poke me.  Then around 2:30 John texted me to suggest we take him for a drive.

YES.  BRILLIANT.  LET’S DO THAT TWO HOURS AGO.

Jack was asleep within 20 minutes, and we were in bed by 3:15.

Was Jack kind enough to sleep in since he was awake for four hours in the middle of the night and we hadn’t yet gotten ANY sleep?  Um, no.  No, he was not.  We all got up at 7am that morning.  That’s less than four hours for me and John, for anyone too tired to do the math.  Jack at least got that first 3 and a half hours.

Next question: why am I up NOW, at 10pm, with that in my recent history?

…

…

Hm.

I thought I’d have more time!

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Nursing Jack, wonderful in itself, has been especially great because it’s time I’ve been able to read.  Even if only for 5-10 minutes, I get to read multiple times a day.  Lately…not so much.  I’m still nursing him as much as ever, but he rarely settles down and just eats anymore.  Instead, he does gymnastics.  Or parkour.  Sometimes he ends up practically upside down.  I need both hands, making it pretty difficult to read.  He does it almost every time, even before bed and in the middle of the night, and especially before naps, and once he settles into sleep, I’m getting him into the crib pretty quickly.  I am NOT complaining about him napping in the crib instead of on me – that is WONDERFUL and HELPFUL and I use that time to get work done so I don’t have to work as late at night.  Occasionally (okay, all the time), I wish I were holding him for a nap instead because he’s so cuddly and warm and sweet, but really, he sleeps longer in the crib, and we all need that.  A napping baby is a charming, adorable, and funny baby who sleeps better at night.

What was my point?

Right.

So I lost my nursing/reading time to acrobatics, and I have to use napping time for work (like, ahem, right now).  I try to read in bed at night, but that’s not working, either.  For the last five nights in a row I’ve done that thing where you’re reading and then you wonder why you can’t see your book anymore and you realize your eyes are closed and when you open them the words on the page don’t look at all familiar so you go back a page or two and try again but then, whoops, you can’t see the book anymore and who flipped ahead to that page and oh, crap, I’m just going to go to sleep.

Everything is blurry

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There must be a trick to transferring a sleeping baby from your arms to the crib, but the internet won’t tell me what it is.  I get a lot of “put the baby down sleepy but not asleep so he can learn to put himself to sleep”, but 1) he still falls asleep nursing, so that’s harder than it seems, and 2) he screams when he hits the mattress whether he’s sleepy or sleeping, so drowsy disappears fast.

He does sleep at night, so it’s not like we can’t get him to sleep in the crib at all, but bedtime is the most stressful time of day for me.  The last two nights (three? too tired to remember), it was John who was able to put him down quietly, so we’re going to keep going with that and hope it works.  Of course, that limits bedtime and will eventually get us into trouble.  Eventually being in two weekends, when John is out of town.

Fun times ahead.

Connecticut seems small but OH MY GOD IT NEVER ENDS.

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Things I should do now that I’m home:

  • Unpack suitcases
  • Start laundry
  • Put the car snacks away
  • Put the presents away
  • Pick up the random clutter we left behind in our hurry to get out the door Friday night
  • Clean up the dripping mess we tracked on the floor inside the back door because our landlord didn’t send anyone to shovel or salt the driveway or the back steps.

Things I’m going to do because it took us 6 and a half hours to get home instead of 5 because I-95 SUCKS:

  • Sit in a chair.
  • Eat the Chinese food that will be delivered any minute or so I hope because the car ride took forever and I’m hungry.
  • Sit in the chair some more.
  • Look at the wall because I’m too tired to brain.
  • Stop looking at the wall and try to watch some TV that doesn’t require concentration.

Okay, I might clean up the mess by the back door.  There’s a towel RIGHT THERE.  I can manage that, as long as I’m waiting for food.

Too…tired…to…brain

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Back home, thoroughly exhausted, and there’s a fancy party in Newport tonight.  We’re going with John’s parents, and I’m afraid I might not have the eyelid strength needed to keep both eyes open past 8pm.  Maybe one at a time, but not both together.  If anyone there takes pictures, I’ll be the one in the background winking.

I have the olds

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We’ve had a really good, really fun few days, but oh my god the late nights.  I’m SO TIRED.  On Thursday, we were up past midnight because Greg and Amanda and the kids were passing through on their way to Boston.  We had a great time (and saw them again for an hour the next day before they left), but we didn’t go to bed until late and then the goddamn steam heat banged through the radiator at 3 in the morning, and we still worked on Friday.  Friday night wasn’t too late, but Saturday night we met Dan (from high school with John) and Lindsay for dinner and didn’t get to bed until nearly 3am, and then we were awake by 8am Sunday morning (I don’t know why), and then we were on our feet all day at the Rhode Island Comic Con (which was way fun), and all I want to do is go to sleep.  It’s not even 7:30 right now, but I feel like I’ve been up for days.  I see an early bedtime in my future.

Disaster recovery systems are important

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The cloud is not really in the cloud.*  I mean, I knew that – the cloud is really just a server farm (or several server farms) and thus entirely physical and subject to disasters like hurricanes and I’m mentioning this because we’re using PODS to move our stuff across the country and they’re based in Clearwater, FL, and apparently they got destroyed by the hurricane because their phone lines and EVEN THEIR WEBSITE have been completely down since Saturday.  (That run-on sentence was sponsored by my fear that our truck will not arrive tomorrow and we’ll be living on the floor for another week.)  Based on the phone message I heard on Monday, they had deliberately shut down the customer service center Friday to Monday to keep their employees at home, which makes sense.  I can understand and appreciate that.  But they said they’d be back up Tuesday.  They were not.  They still are not, and now it’s Wednesday.  I can’t get a live person, which, again, I can understand considering they’re probably literally underwater, but for the website to still be down?  I can’t log in to my account to see the status of my shipment.  I scheduled it to arrive tomorrow (Thursday, earliest day possible).  Is it still coming tomorrow?  I can’t check.  I can’t call anyone to check.  Local PODS storage facilities don’t have local numbers.  All numbers route to FL, where there are only unhelpful recordings and hang-ups, and all web URLs route to the Hurricane Irma page they put up.

UPDATE!  All of the above was written earlier today, when I had been trying to contact PODS for three days.  This evening, I checked again and the website was back up!  With a message saying their phone center is open again!  And that they’d be prioritizing existing customers!  Unfortunately, I didn’t see that until after their call center was closed for the day, but I logged in to our account (yay!) to find no new information (boo).  It says our POD is due to arrive at the local storage center before 9/13.  That’s today.  Did it arrive?  That step doesn’t say it was completed, but is that because there’s a backlog and they haven’t updated the system or did it really not arrive?  It also says they’re going to deliver the POD to our house on the 14th.  That would be tomorrow.  Will it happen?  I can’t say.  The night before they delivered it to us in Eugene, we got a phone call, and email, and an update on our account online giving us a three-hour delivery window.  I have not gotten any of those alerts, and it’s nearly 10pm.

It’s all a mystery that I hope will get resolved tomorrow.  More to come.

*If the computing cloud were actually in the real clouds, this hurricane would have REALLY messed with their systems.

Must start earlier

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It’s night #2 of not feeling the blog thing, and I think I can safely say that waiting until after dinner to write is not a great strategy.  Whatever energy I had during the day is gone, completely, and all I want to do is read and go to bed.

This is the summer of binge-watching, so after we watched the entire season of The Crown (loved), we watched the entire season of The OA (disappointing), then all of Doctor Who season 9 (yay), and now we’ve moved on to Iron Fist, the next Netflix Marvel Comics show.  It’s…okay.  The main character is annoying in his naivete, and overall, it’s definitely the weakest of the Netflix Marvel shows.  Still entertaining, though.  I like how all of the shows are connected.

Oh, hey, we saw Wonder Woman last weekend.  The movie wasn’t great (although it’s the most I’ve ever liked Chris Pine in anything, and it was miles better than the other DC movies), but I felt this visceral enjoyment seeing Wonder Woman kick ass during the fight scenes.  I’d watch it again.

Hey, look, even tired I can babble about TV and movies.  Good for me.  Bed for me.  See ya.

Ups and downs

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Tuesday night (4th of July) we were up past eleven, watching fireworks from a footbridge over the Willamette River a couple of blocks from our house.  Sounds great, right?  Like one of those experiences we’re all supposed to savor.  Eh.  The fireworks were totally not worth it – uninspired, no music, blocked by trees, washed out by the lights on the bridge and in the park.  Sorry, Eugene, but your fireworks game is weak.

Tonight, two days later, I’m ready to climb into bed at 10 after 8.  The sun hasn’t set yet, and it’s a beautiful night, but I’m so. crazy. tired.  I bet Margaret and Erik will be able to hear me snoring all the way in California.

Life with me is a real roller coaster ride, people.  Better hang on.

But tomorrow, I’ll have rainbows

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My laptop is downstairs. I am upstairs. I am in bed, and I’m so comfortable, and I’m so tired, and the AC is on, and the lights are dim, and my eyes are closing, and all of this unnecessary detail means that you don’t get the post about our perfect hike on Saturday or the Seattle crab legs saga I keep forgetting to tell you about or the muddled and confused rant about the Netflix series Anne With An E that I’ve been trying to articulate.

Instead, you get choppy thoughts and one long rambling sentence that is meant to be an apology for…not telling you anything interesting. I’m sorry? Yes. I’m sorry.

Too tired to sleep

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I am SO VERY MUCH ENTIRELY TOO OLD for this late night crap.  We didn’t stay for the whole show (we caught a few songs from the headlining band, but then we left), so we got home around 1am and still got up at 6.  I don’t regret it – the Arkells were freakin’ amazing and we were right up against the stage and no, they didn’t pull John up on stage this time, but they didn’t do that bit at all, so it’s okay, and we got to have a nice conversation with the singer after the show, and MAN I love them.  So I don’t regret it, but it’s 8pm on the day after, and my eyes are so tired they hurt.  Hurts to close them, hurts to leave them open.

We met this trio of college girls, friends from high school, who have taken the week off to get together (they don’t go to the same schools) and follow the Arkells and Blossoms (the other band who played last night) from Portland to San Francisco to Coachella.  They were hilariously excited.

Gotta go to bed.  I think tomorrow might be harder than today was.  Because I’m old.

Early bedtimes are a must this week

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I am sore and tired and sore and tired and sore and tired and can I have another day off please?  Yesterday’s workout caught up to me this morning.  I was going to go to a 9:15 yoga class this morning, but I could barely lift my arms over my head and that would have made yoga difficult.  Also, any balancing would have been just impossible because I’m SO TIRED I can’t see straight.  John had a gig last night, and it went late, and then it went later, and then they finally took the stage, and then it was even later because Daylight Saving Time started last night, so it was 3:30 in the morning before I crawled into bed.  Stupid spring forward.  Yoga at 9:15 didn’t have a chance.

So it’s 8:15 on a Sunday night, which technically should feel like 7:15 on a Sunday night, but as far as I’m concerned it feels like midnight on a Sunday night and I really need to be sleeping.