Damn it. Was I really in bed for that long? It didn't seem like that long at all. I should've just stayed in the bathroom and the dark hallway. I just ate a small bowl of delicious 8 dollar cereal I only buy when I am feeling special. Apparently I was feeling special today because I managed an entire trip to the grocery store without freaking out. [not totally true. i did a pretty good job of it on the way there.] I got out of bed to use the bathroom and came downstairs to eat the cereal, but at least I didn't drink the orange juice and I haven't turned any lights on. When I get out of bed while trying to sleep I am not supposed to turn any lights on. That's what the How To Sleep Better blogs tell me. I wanted to go to sleep so early and instead I got in by the latest mark (2. Maybe. I touched my guitar and didn't look at the clock before I went up. Maybe I wasn't in bed that long after all) but the point is that I want to GET UP EARLY so I can stop staying up all night. But that's been shot to all hell now hasn't it

I brought a notebook to bed with me and set it on the plastic chest of drawers next to my head. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe the notebook was churning all my thoughts looking for words under overturned stones. I got them, I got an idea just before I got out of bed

the problem is that it was the first positive thing I'd thought since I'd been in bed, churning churning cycling about jobs and the various issues in me getting one, mainly my lack of interview wardrobe. There is always something, one little thing that can certainly wait until the next day, that my mind chooses to fixate itself upon while I'm trying to fall asleep and it must turn over again and again, uselessly, it's the middle of the night, I'm like those commercials for Bing except I am the other search engine spitting out remotely related words and phrases or the hybrid human-modeled Cylon/brain of the ship (nerdery); there's nothing I can do about it now so let me be, brain.

Please. I am too tired to write right now, I thank you for the glorious idea I will probably talk myself out of tomorrow but for now can we just call this a purge and let me sleep in peace?

At the thought of "tomorrow", it starts again. I'd worked myself up into such frothing frenzy of negative self-talk that I'd started to turn it into positive ambitions for tomorrow "I am READY! I am ready to write those cover letters! YES!" but then, there it goes again, ah, tomorrow with hesitation and frustration and already the fingers freeze over the keys my breath freezes my chest squeezes my lungs I am telling myself all the reasons I will never do anything

and with the otherside I am comforting myself with the thought "shhshh, it will be a nice day, we tackled groceries today, no reason to leave the house at all, don't have to deal with that awful outside"

and for all the awesome changes I am making, the tea I am drinking, the days I do not count since my last smoke, the fibers on the carpet that seem to be fluffier with the increased frequency of vacuum strokes, the food in my belly, my happy tinkling laugh

for all these things I am still somewhat bewildered by this version of self who is rising up to meet me, who is introducing herself without a name