I am, by design, a night owl. Most nights, regardless of whether I need to be up at seven in the morning to get Elise on the bus, I stay up until the wee hours of one or two o'clock, and sometimes even later if I am writing and on a roll.
Last night, I was feeling funky. I wasn't really tired, but I didn't really feel like doing anything either - I wanted to blog but didn't know what to write about other than the usually fluff of complaining about writing (hah), I didn't feel like working on my outline for NaNo or working on VZFS! or the zombie story that I've been hacking away at for years... so I put on some Desperate Housewives around 11pm... and I was passed out.. soon after. I woke up a little after midnight, having no idea what I had just watched or whether I had processed any of it at all, and then I just shut off all the lights and went to sleep for real. It's probably the first time that I've gone to bed early in, well... I can't even remember. Since I've been sick, probably. But I'm glad I did.
This morning, I woke up and I wasn't tired. Novel idea isn't it? Going to bed when I'm tired, and not when I'm DONE doing things for the day? I woke up and actually had a spring to my step. I got Elise breakfast, packed her snacks and bag, helped her brush her hair, and got her on the bus.. then, oh man, I came back in the house and made myself a cup of coffee. I got back in bed and read a book for a while, made another cup of coffee, had some cereal, and now here I am. Blogging in the morning. Awake, wide awake, feeling good.
Still, there is the half-dread that in forty minutes when I walk into work I'm going to have my day ruined by the presense of my boss, the spirit crusher. I never know whether he'll be there, what the mood will be like, whether my resentment will grow as it has been doing pretty consistently for the last six months or so. It's hard to tell.
But I can tell you one thing - I took Elise to the Shack for dinner on Friday night and as I was watching the waitresses bustling around, delivering food, smiling at patrons, making little conversation as they freshened coffee and took away plates - my heart literally ached, that's how hard I came to the realization that I just want to go back to waitressing again. I just want to have the kind of job again where I go to work, do my job, and just come home. No thinking about things left unfinished, no worrying about bills and spending money that isn't mine... I feel like that guy in American Beauty - I just want a job with as little responsibility as possible. It sounds wonderful.
But that means I have to be brave - I have to go out on a limb, first of all, and do that thing that I hate doing more than most things, which is go job searching. Am I ready? I should be. I don't know what I am waiting for sometimes.
But meanwhile, I'll keep getting ready for NaNoWriMo. I'll finish my outline, I'll say my goodbyes to friends and family and social life, and I'll be so glad when next Monday comes, so I can get writing at midnight. I'm really looking forward to it this year, for a lot of reasons. I'm really looking forward to an excuse to stay in and spend more time by myself, for one thing, because as much fun as I've been having with the campaign and friends, I feel like it's sort of wearing me out a bit. There's a reason, there's definitely a reason, sometimes I'm much better off alone.
And, winter's coming. This is not a good thing. Last night I fell asleep in a sweatshirt under blankets and I was still cold, but when I woke up I was sweating because the heat had turned on in the middle of the night for the first time this year. It was only about 40 degrees when I took Elise out for the bus, and I imagine it was much colder than that during the night. This is not a good thing. But if the winter's coming, here in my room is exactly where I want to be.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012