I'm awake right now, at nearly six in the morning, which I both should and should not be. Should because I have homework due in fewer than five hours and that homework is not yet done. Should not because I'm tired enough that small currents of white light periodically crawl, worm-like, across my vision and, startled at how close they are, I jerk back violently before I realize that they're just side effects of my randomly firing optical nerves and not actual photonic annelids that traverse the empty air as if it were soil, seeking to burrow into my flesh.
I thought it was raining when I started this post, the constant, medium-speed rain that falls in heavy, fat drops and sounds like nothing so much as a pot of water boiling steadily on the stove. Then I heard a car engine turn over in the driveway and rumble into quiescence again and the boiling noise stopped; it was only coming from the car and the sky is nothing but the morning color of charcoal and same weak, phlematic drizzle it's been all day.
My homework is to write a memo describing something of statistical interest in the most recent Washington State Population Survey, using a particular set of software to give fancy graphs. When I began this assignment, long hours before now, I did not know how to use the software. I now know, vaguely, how to use the software, but I've forgotten the something that my memo was to address. I'd made it up, earlier today, but all of my ideas have crawled away from me, like tiny little worms of light.
I can't focus my vision properly, but I keep looking around anyway. I hurt myself, sometimes, when I'm too tired not to. I find things that hurt me to look at, mostly happy things, and I forget to look away. There's something satisfying about a bitter, ironic fish-hook smile that comes with that hurt. It's like eating week-old stew; it tastes foul, but it'll still fill your stomach.
The car's back outside again, or maybe the sky's started boiling. Either way, the worms are getting worse. My homework won't get done tonight; I think I have to close my eyes now. Maybe tomorrow I'll have control of them again.
Comments (10)
Now you need a dame to walk through that front door with a job for you. It'll be trouble, you know, but trouble usually pays well. And if it gets your mind off the stench of your current task, well so much the better.
Posted by Erik | January 17, 2006 10:49 AM
Posted on January 17, 2006 10:49
You know what's freaky? I can't actually remember typing up most of this post. I remember writing the title, and maybe a phrase or two from the second and third paragraphs, but other than that the whole thing could've been written by someone else, as far as I remember.
I had six hours of sleep, interrupted beginning in hour three by roofers directly overhead. In between fitful gasps of sleep I worried that the ceiling would give way and any number of men in coveralls, hammers and nails, or maybe two-by-fours, would drop on top of me. Didn't happen, though, and I think my roof might be fixed now. That's something, at least.
Posted by Jason | January 17, 2006 1:08 PM
Posted on January 17, 2006 13:08
It has a certain haunting descriptive quality that I've never heard from you before. Save it, use it, add it to your "How I'm like Coleridge" collection.
Posted by Erik | January 17, 2006 1:38 PM
Posted on January 17, 2006 13:38
Yeah, I was going to say that you should write when you're spaced out more often. Light worms are freaky.
Posted by Eric | January 18, 2006 2:36 PM
Posted on January 18, 2006 14:36
Me and Coleridge have much in common, yes...
I'll work on the writing while half-asleep. Maybe if I'm lucky I can spend my entire life sleeping. Hhm... What was that sign I used to have on my bedroom door? "You don't have to be awake to be productive?"
Posted by Jason | January 19, 2006 1:15 AM
Posted on January 19, 2006 01:15
Writing tangent: Are you aware that on Merin, Rebecca refers to Hitherby as "A webcomic without pictures?" Is someone stealing from someone? And if so, who?
Posted by Erik | January 19, 2006 12:19 PM
Posted on January 19, 2006 12:19
I know there's some stealing going on, but I can no longer remember who's stealing from who, at least in terms of the exact phrase. I know that Rebecca said, at some point before I started the Fables, that she thought of the structure of Hitherby as a webcomic's structure, but I can't remember if she used the exact phrase. If she'd been using it regularly at the time, I know I wouldn't have, but that doesn't mean she didn't actually articulate it first.
At the same time, I know Rebecca used to read the Fables, back when I was posting them.
So, who knows?
Posted by Jason | January 19, 2006 4:45 PM
Posted on January 19, 2006 16:45
Sounds like you've got a bad case of SAD. Time to spring for a horkin' huge full-spectrum light source.
Posted by eef | January 21, 2006 4:41 PM
Posted on January 21, 2006 16:41
Or a Powerpuff Girls marathon.
Posted by Ben | January 23, 2006 8:26 AM
Posted on January 23, 2006 08:26
By God could I use some more Powerpuff Girls in my life.
SAD, Ed? Maybe I have. I couldn't say for sure, though; it'd be a new experience for me, I wouldn't really know what it'd be like.
Posted by Jason | January 23, 2006 11:28 AM
Posted on January 23, 2006 11:28