Passion

We have a place to live! We got into the awesome community house. It is a 7000 square foot Victorian mansion in downtown San Francisco that used to be a Buddhist temple. Yeah, I know. It sounds insane. And awesome. I can't wait to see it in person.

We leave a week from today (well, yesterday, since it's waaaaay after midnight now), and I'm finally starting to feel the excitement I've been looking for. It's becoming REAL. I really get to go home. I get to go back west, where there are mountains and ocean and family! And friends! Lots and lots and lots of awesome friends.

Friday was my last day at work here, so I have this entire coming week off to work on packing and loading up the car. It always amazes me how much stuff people manage to accumulate in a year. I think I own more stuff right now than I've ever owned, but I'm looking forward to paring that down and giving a lot of stuff I don't need anymore to Goodwill, and packing everything important to me into my car. For some reason, being able to fit everything I own into my car is some kind of mental achievement for me. Maybe because I've been nomadic for the better part of a decade now, and having less stuff means spending less time packing and unpacking. 

I'm awake right now because my teeth are hurting me and I took some of the Tramadol the dentist gave me a couple weeks ago. It claims it might make me drowsy, but every time I've taken it I've become unable to sleep. Which also explains why the last couple entries were written in the middle of the night and sound like I'm on drugs - because I am on drugs. Anyway, the dentist also gave me a bite guard, which is supposed to help alleviate teeth clenching, which is theoretically the cause of the sore teeth, but I've had the guard for about six days now and I don't think it's helping. I think getting to San Francisco will help, because I've never had a teeth clenching problem before, and I'm pretty sure it's connected to this move. Once we're on the other side of it - and living in a mansion in my favorite city in the world - I should calm down enough not to grind my jaw into pieces while I sleep.

On yet another painkiller-induced tangent, I'm annoyed that we somehow managed to decide to drive across the country just as the Olympics start. I'm going to have to find radio stations that offer some kind of coverage, or maybe stream something from my phone. That should actually work out pretty well; it'll give me something to think about during the 34 hours of driving with Claire meowing the entire way.

I don't know what is wrong with my sleep schedule. It's always been odd; I usually am most comfortable going to bed around 2 or 3am and waking up around 11. I do my best writing between about 10 pm and 2 am, and I seem to have the most energy then as well.

In the last couple weeks my body has rebelled further from the societal norm of going to bed at 11 and waking up at 7. I now collapse, exhausted, around 2 am, hoping to sleep until 10, and instead wake up after four hours. And I can't go back to sleep! So I get up and putter around for an hour and then go back to bed, and instead of sleeping another four hours, I'll sleep for something ridiculous like nine hours, straight through any alarm I've set, and wake up with the day completely wasted. I don't understand this.

But here I am again. It's 6:30 in the morning and I've had four hours of sleep. I think today I will not allow myself to go back to bed for fear I'll just sleep through until Thursday. Body, I will beat you into submission. If you won't sleep a continuous eight hours when I want you to, then you will have to suffer the consequences and stay awake all day.
Mwa ha ha.

In completely unrelated news, one of my KnitPicks Options needles broke (tragedy!!). If I weren't leaving for Michigan tomorrow I'd call them up and demand they send me a new one. Should I call them up and demand they send a new one to Michigan? I kind of need it to finish the hat I'm working on....