books and late nights

I'm up late reading again. Okay, that late but certainly later than I intended.  My dreams this past week have been tumultuous. Important people, beloved friends, in trouble or in need and I'm there but I can't help. So, bad dreams. 

Less so since I started reading again. It's been...maybe three months since I've read a book. That's too long. Yes, I listen to short stories every night, and some of them are very long indeed, actual novels sometimes, and yet it's not the same. 

Listening for me is not the same. These single sentences at a time. Different. Looking at a page of text in my hands is an act of osmosis; I'm reading one line but the lines I've read before it are still sinking into my mind and the lines coming up next that I haven't consciously read yet have still been glimpsed, at the edge of my vision, and the coming words are not an absolute surprise because they've been sitting on the windowsill like a cooling blueberry pie and the smell has reached my nose. 

Something like that, but not exactly. 

It doesn't happen when I'm listening to books. Which I believe in wholeheartedly; I do not weigh their values against each other. 

If I could sink into the words, I would. For a little while anyway. It sounds like great fun. 

*Here's some calm, peaceful, slow, bliss, tender, gentle inspired by your listening on Tuesdays at night*

Allegedly. I do have a modicum of control over my Tuesday nights and apparently this is what I gravitate towards. If there's a hammock, for example, I'll gravitate towards that too. 

Whoa, where did this choir come from? You know how sometimes you're wandering through a dark forest and then a choir starts singing all around you? I'm not easy to faze, generally, and this threw me a bit. 

Ultimately, I decided it probably had nothing to do with me, and I pressed on. I still hear them now, fading in the distance. Of course, they could be keeping up with me and just singing more softly to make it seem like they're fading into the distance. Choirs are crafty, sometimes. Do not underestimate their aural abilities. 

They're probably not doing that.

This seems like a good time to go to sleep. 

I keep meaning to write. Every night as I'm falling asleep I mutter a curse at myself. There's no reason I can't. Gotta find the reason I don't. 

There was an article today on NPR's website about the "transformative power" of keeping a daily journal. 

I didn't read it.

But it did get me thinking, so probably that's why I'm here now. 

"Transformative" is an interesting choice of words. Value-neutral, I'd say. That's the danger of the daily journal. Memory is memory, but writing is composing, editing, ommission. It competes with the memory. Usurps it, sometimes. 

It's dangerous to run around thinking you're the hero. Everything costs, everything has ramifications that we don't get to see. 

I think I've been decent about journaling about my regrets, or when I've been an ass, or selfish, or completely wrong. 

I think. I'm sure I've left out a lot. 

I've gotten really into dehydrating food. Mushrooms, mostly. Dehydrated oyster mushrooms grill up real nice and in a tortilla it *almost* reminds me of carne asada. 

Oh, another thing I've been doing is trying to sleep better by avoiding light. Not all light, of course, but again on NPR, a sleep scientist was talking about one of the factors in good sleep being controlling your exposure to light as you wind down and get ready to sleep. 

I don't know that I'm particularly sensitive to it (it seems to vary wildly among people) but I have been using only low, red lights in my room. Like now, I'm writing on my phone, on Night Mode which is supposed to filter out any blue light or whatever wavelengths that scare away all the melatonin. The rest of the room is bathed in an eerie red glow. 

It reminds me of being in the Army, furtively writing letters after Lights Out, in the glow of my red flashlight. 

Just like old times. Except I don't know who I'm writing to, I suppose. My transformed self maybe. 

I wonder what I'll transform into. 

and then

Handpan music and thoughtfulness. 

Sometimes my possessions feel like barnacles stuck on the ponderous sea mammal of my mind. 

I like looking at houses for sale online, when all the rooms are empty and there's just... space. It's appealing to me in a way I don't really understand. 

Maybe because stuff distracts me. I don't know. Peace is an empty room, except for a  mattress and a bunch of books. 

Then the other part of my brain knows it's not that big a deal; that what I don't like is feeling that I should be more organized, more spartan, utilitarian, and less distracted. 

Then I wonder what I would do otherwise? And I remind myself that there isn't a perfect time, or the perfect conditions, to do anything and to look for the things that bring you closer. 

Or something like that. 

Level 43

I've turned 43, and while that it isn't a significant cultural milestone, the way turning 21 is, for example, I confess I like the way the number looks. It's not an age where I find myself pondering my own mortality. Rather, it is my father's recent health issues that more keenly mark the passing of time. 

He's in good spirits, he is still friendly and outgoing, but he has fallen a couple times now. And he was advised to get a pacemaker but he is not interested. Defiant, still. 

Around one's parents, I imagine we'll always feel like a child. At least I do. Especially when I raid the cupboards for snacks. 

He's not afraid of death, so that's comforting in its way. 

Defiant, still. 

Grape Jelly

I don't usually write in the morning because I'm a big ol' grump. I don't feel grumpy this morning. I got a new mattress (after a failed attempt to live like a monk and sleep on a mat) and it turns out I really like sleeping on actual beds. 

It's important to revisit information and check against any new data points. 

For breakfast, I think I will have a sandwich with crunchy peanut butter and grape jelly. I failed to buy bread at the grocery store yesterday (I got distracted by some vegan cashew-milk chocolate ice cream bars) and so my sandwich will either be on a hamburger bun or a tortilla. 

Maybe both. I see no problem with this. 

There's still some lingering divorce stuff I should probably explore today. Mostly bank stuff. 

After I figure out this sandwich situation, of course. One challenge at a time. 

*Update: I ate the ice cream bars for breakfast. 

vegan food

It's absolutely beautiful this morning. Is the kind of gorgeous that makes people suffer through the Dune-like conditions during the summer. 

Food smells good. The sound of them slaughtering tofu in the back is kind of disturbing though.