Category: Writing

  • You Would Think

    You would think I would know better. I have been trying for some time to get my stupid ass to bed on time. This has turned into a task that I fear I will never accomplish.

    I’m over 40, and I can’t stop watching TV at night. I have been making my way through Rick and Morty, and then last night I found out a friend of mine had a part in Fosse/Verdon, so I had to watch and look for her.

    I’m sure you can see how this goes. I finish and episode, and then I think I can handle one more. And then it’s 2am.

    I should know better…

    But I think I need to start to accept that this is not a life style that I can lead.

    I have always been a night owl, and I love staying up late alone. I like flipping channels, and looking for movies that I haven’t seen before. That’s still fun to me.

    And that’s the problem.

    I’m trying to change a behavior that, logically, I know is in my interest to do, but my heart isn’t into it.

    Being sleep deprived isn’t fun, but in a weird way, I have come to learn to live with that. It sucks, but I somehow know that in the middle of the day I will rally and recover.

    I’m an adult, but man, I have no idea what I’m doing, except finishing Fosse/Verdon tonight.

  • Midlife Thoughts

    I moved 1,000 lbs of clay today. I needed to do it for my job, and I did have help, but still… I moved 1,000 lbs of clay.

    As I was driving the clay across the county in my small SUV, I did have that moment where I had to ask, “How did I get here?”

    That’s what the past two weeks have felt like. Honestly, how did I get to where I am?

    Is that the call of the mid-life crisis? Is “Once in a Lifetime” the unofficial theme song of these moments. “That’s not my beautiful house! That’s not my beautiful car!”

    Does anyone care about mid-life crisis anymore? I read about how people now shit all over “American Beauty” now. Not only because Kevin Spacey is in it, but because it’s about a material successful guy, who buys a sports car, changes jobs, and lusts after a teenager. When you say it that way, does anyone want to see a story about comfortable people who aren’t as comfortable as they would like.

    It’s also like he movie “The Land of Steady Habits,” which played like a John Updike or John Cheever story were updated and retold. I liked the movie, but it also functions off of the male midlife crisis trope.

    The more I think about it, that seems to be a bunch of stories written by men. That, “I have lost my spark and must reclaim it by behaving the way I did in my past.”

    I really hope that’s not what I have to look forward to. I would prefer to regain my spark by moving forward, and not by trying to be that idiot from my past.

  • Sleep Stuff, Too

    The plan really hasn’t been working. I’m not going to be at a decent hour, and even if I fall asleep on the couch around eleven, it’s not restful and I still have to wake up and drag myself to bed, proper.

    Very annoying.

    I am still fighting this, though I don’t seem to be able to admit to myself why I am fighting myself. I would hate to think that I have something going on in my head that I consciously am unaware of.

    There is the little boy in me that just can’t go to bed. There isn’t an issue with my wife, such as we aren’t fighting about anything. Our jobs are a little stressful, but are jobs are always a little stressful.

    I did say that there was a psychological element to all of this, but now I am thinking that it might be bigger than I thought, and could be the dominate factor.

    I was able to cut out the extra and mindless eating, so that says to me that I can make changes, as the putting on of weight was a major factor in staring all of this.

    Just going to bed; To actually turn off the tv, shut off the lights, and go to bed, seems to be beyond me.

    It’s like I need to pass out, and not gradually take myself to bed.

    To create a bedtime routine, is that what I have to do?

    Yuck…

    Still working on it.

    Sort of…

  • Sleep

    I never said I was smart, but I have always hoped I would be one day.

    With all the changes that have come my way in the past year, I have noticed two major developments:

    1. I don’t sleep well
    2. I have put on 20 lbs.

    There are other things that have changed, and not necessarily for the better, but I have these two are the most important, should be addressed relatively soon, and interconnected.

    My sleep problems have become more severe over the year, I am up later, and I find my self mindlessly eating. (Ice cream and chips are my biggest weakness.) If I were to sleep better, then I wouldn’t be eating at 2am, right? That seems simple. I should be able to address this easily.

    And you can figure out that I haven’t been able to get my arms around this.

    I had been thinking that I don’t have enough time to get all the things done that I desire to do. I even said that to myself the other day as I ate chocolate ice cream and watched “Drunk History.”

    That’s when it started to dawn on me; it’s not the lack of time, it’s the bad management of time.

    There is a psychological factor here. Planning out my sleep, and all the other things in my life doesn’t feel fun, or spontaneous.

    But is being out of shape and having no energy, and watching my life pass me by fun and spontaneous?

    This will be a long slow process of getting my life back on track. I will have lots of setbacks, and screw ups, but when I woke up today, I had to admit that the way I am living now isn’t making me happy.

  • There Goes That Joke

    First, I acknowledge that with everything going on in the world, this is not a big deal.

    But

    Using the word “nasty” has been ruined.

    My wife and I are of the age when “Miss Jackson if you’re nasty!” was, and is, cool as shit. As a couple, it is used playfully, silly way. Such as, we are flipping channels and the wife comments that she hates that show, which I say, don’t be nasty, and you can guess what her response is, Miss Jackson if you’re nasty.

    And Trump has ruined it.

    We have both caught ourselves about to use the work jokingly with each other, and then we pull back. We don’t want to even use the same words as him, even if we both clearly recognize that the other is joking.

    I mean, we didn’t have this issue with, “binders full of women.”

    And I know that it will be coming in the news, because it is when any woman stands up to Trump, and clearly points out how stupid he is, that’s when the “nasty” word is rolled out. Like clock work.

    What I feel is that I don’t want to use “nasty” in any context now. To do so feels like I am empowering Trump’s use of the word against women.

    I also know this is a little silly, but it is the game with language; who can get to a word first and redefine it to their own purposes.

    Just sucks