the quiet time

It is 3am, and I'm wide awake. A side effect of having more than my normal amount of coffee today.  I used to be fairly addicted to coffee, drinking a pot (10 cups) a day, but now I drink maybe 2 cups.  Today I drank about four.

The air is cool and fresh tonight.  So thankful for that.

I have a new camera... a Nikon D800.  It's a top of the line model, and a full frame camera, with a huge 36.something mega pixels.  You can take photos in a FX format or a DX format.  I got it with a prime 50mm lens, 1.4, which I'm happy to have... haven't had a prime lens since my old film days.
The thing is, though, that I haven't been out with the camera yet.  I'm kind of intimidated by it.  Have got to get my feet wet with it, though, and I hope soon.

I've stopped wearing my wig (as you can see in a pic of me in the last post).  Got so tired of it, and  now that it's getting warmer, I certainly don't want anything covering my head.  I am even liking my Annie Lennox look... something very liberating about it.

 Hard to believe that nine months have gone by since I was first diagnosed with cancer.  The days seemed to disappear, really.  But I remember being sooo tired most of the time during those chemo days.  Geez.

Now I just have to find out when my "exchange" surgery is... when they exchange the expanders for the breast implants, and you get  your foobs (fake boobs). That's major surgery again, and will be glad to get past that, because it will the the sort of end of a long hard road.  I got through it okay with a little help from my family and friends.

Sometimes I feel guilty staying up so late.  I don't know why.  I can almost hear my mother calling "I hope you shut that light soon", as I stay up late in my room, the light peeking out from  under the door... enough to assault her senses at such hours.

Today I should not feel guilty at all.  I kicked cancer's butt, and I deserve to do whatever I like for a while.  If I want to sleep into the afternoon tomorrow, so be it.

Oh wow, I started reading over my novel tonight, with a critical eye!  Yikes, am I ever going to have to do some serious rewriting.  There is quite a bit of "telling" in the book, when I should be showing.  That alone will be a tremendous task.  If I do that, it may even be a good novel. 

insomnia

Cigarette smoke in the light of the moon

The bed creaks as I turn and
ancient bedsprings stab my back

I wake to yet another night
too late to play with others

The clock pushes four a.m.
The trains still run a schedule

There are only two cigarettes
left in the pack

that ol' insomnia

The night grows too long to be awake. Four thirty in the morning, and I have not been to sleep yet. Been reading my own novel. Sometimes I like to do that. Played trivia online. Looked at my photographs. Read my own blog.


I hear people being a bit loud outside. No doubt drunk from a long friday night. I remember those days. Coming home and having your head spin every time you closed your eyes. Feeling like hell the next day. Then, maybe doing it all again on saturday night. Such were the times.

These friday and saturday nights are much like any other night, with not much to tell, really. Uneventful and ordinary. Don't mind it that way.

Another couple of hours till daybreak. I don't think I'll make it.

Another game or two online, and I'll be off to dreamland. Just wanted to drop in here.

friday morning

Can't sleep tonight. It happens. Got my monitor delivered today, as my other one died on tuesday night. Never had that happen with a monitor before. Anyway, I was without the internet for a couple of days, and truly, I didn't know what to do with myself half the time. Such is my life. Having the connection is important. I want to talk to my niece while she's at work via instant messaging; I want to connect to the trivia game I play with lots of other people; I want to read blogs, and look at my own again; I want to go to my forums and post with good old internet friends. These are things I'm used to doing throughout the day. Oh, and of course looking over pictures, editing pictures, watching videos of Logan,
So, anyway, I got my monitor, and I guess I am catching up on lost time by staying up all night like this.
With the help of my friends, Dinamarca, Mim, and Tammie, I was able to get polymer clay, which is the basis of my dollmaking. Thank you all again. I am thrilled to have materials. But, with the weather being so hot and muggy, I haven't had much inspiration to start on any works yet. Hopefully soon. Me and my friend, evie are doing a challenge together to create an Autumn doll by the Equinox, so I have some thoughts of design swirling through my head. From what I'm envisioning, it would also be something I could enter in the Polymer Clay Central monthly contest in September, the theme being "Leaves".

What thoughts are swirling through your head? :)

can't sleep, so just a note

It's 20 past 5 in the morning, and I have been up all night. Did some novel writing, but not enough to warrant being up till this hour. But sometimes sleep just doesn't find its way into your bones, and your head is awake, too.

I had an email in my spam box last night that gave me pause with the subject line of "long lost". It didn't seem spam-like. I opened it up, and it turns out it is my (long lost) cousin who I haven't seen in some twenty or thirty years. Last I remember she lived in Arizona. Oddly enough, Iive up the block from the house she lived in as a kid.She was doing a search for our surname, and found me on one of the art sites I belong to. It was so good to hear from her, and I look forward to reconnecting through this wonderful web.

It's still dark out, but I don't think there's much chance of sleep just yet. Not feeling it.

Today is Labor Day... the unofficial "end of summer". Children are returning to school this week, and the streets will be quiet.

I have no particular plans.

random scans

Some randomly scanned photos... not of any great import, but I can't sleep, so this is what I'm doing instead. Click for a larger image, not to mention dust.

(focal b/w on Picasa 3)

(unaltered, 35mm macro)

(Delaware Water Gap)

(red window)

meandering last night

I get out of bed after having slept a couple of hours, then sit here at the computer, perusing links and reading blogs. A lot of what I read has to do with opening to new creative inspiration ... people discovering a new writing style, or a sudden yearning to draw or paint. It also has to do with opening to new psychological and philosophical insights.. wanting to learn of different spiritual paths, and delving into holism, embracing the Goddess, or Buddha, or Jesus. Many different people with myriad things bringing them forth into their lives. Then there are some elders, who've walked the path of the creative or the spiritual, and offer teachings, in their own ways, or show the results of their own learnings, through words or pictures or songs, or other forms of the creative. What a varied, yet often the same, tapestry.

It's nearly 4am. I pull up my blog on a separate window, so I can listen the music as I write. It soothes me.(Yet I've decided to remove the music, because it's getting rather repetitive, and I can 't figure out how to change/add songs!) The radiator is hissing. Not the best sound, but at least there's heat coming up. It's 16°F/-8°C; pretty cold for these parts, I'd say, but probably not for some of you Canadians out (up) there.



Time to try sleeping.

isomnia

Another bout of insomnia. No big deal. I amuse myself by drinking red wine and perusing writings on the net. Camomile tea and soft music might be the better alternative here, but oh well.
Little Guy walks around my legs, tickling me with his fur. Morrison is on the couch arm, and decides to jump down and check the kitchen for food. I hear him crunching on the hard food, which I always leave down for them.

I've been pondering over this novel-in-a-month venture...Nanowrimo... trying to plot out my story, and get a feel for the main characters. It's nerve wracking, because when I think about it, no words come to mind, and I wonder if I will be totally blocked for this endeavor. There's no time to think about it once it comes, though, and quantity seems to be of the first order. Truthfully, if I ended up with 50K words of anything I'd be happy. Well, that's not true; I can do without thousands of words of crap.
I have an idea of the beginning of my story, and a scene I would like at the end. The middle I don't have mapped out fully, except for certain ideas of characters meeting, and a turn-around in the main characters life... that'll have to be okay, because I don't think I'll be working on this plotting stuff much more this month.

Seems some heat came up, as the radiators were hissing. Now it's a little too warm, so I opened a window. Surely it's not quite time for heat just yet. It's 41°F/5°C. I guess a little heat won't hurt. The wine is warming me too, I suppose.

Well, that's enough rambling for now. Hopefully sleep won't be far behind.

whatever gets you through the night

In the dark of morning I wake again. I don't mind it much. I slept a few hours, and it's still what I consider late night, not early morning. Like it matters.
I need to do housekeeping, but that's not something you start doing at two in the morning.... of course, you could... but I'm not!

I go to my Blogger dashboard to check for updated blogs... always good to read what people are up to, and often, what they are making/photographing/drawing, etc.,.
It's funny how you end up moving into a community of bloggers, recognizing "followers" in many different places.
"My" community consists of lots of creative people; art-makers, craftspeople, photographers, writers. It's quite a bunch of creativity!

Dear Yoon See dedicated a post to me yesterday because I had recently reached my 100th post mark. A creative soul, with a heart as big as the sky. She expresses herself in a way that embodies life and great joy. How fine to be able to communicate with someone like this who is so far away (she is from Malaysia!)

Seems there is always someone awake somewhere.... someone writing, someone reading. I like it.

insomnia, love, and crystals

You can just tell when a night of insomnia is upon you. It's 2am an you've watched all the syndicated repeats you can possibly stand, and still sleep doesn't come.

I get out of bed, groggy from a nightime medicine I take, but not groggy enough... just enough to stumble over to the computer to see if there are any other life forms out there at this hour.
No, there are not.

I miss 2am notes from a lover who is no longer around. Miss the constant banter back and forth, the tones of "you've got mail" over and over again.
Now the mail is silent, except for one or two old beaus who still reach out, wanting to know if we can get together. And still, I don't have it in my heart to be with anyone else. It has been three years, and I can't bring myself to consider a new acquaintence, or even an old one. Makes me wonder how long it takes for this kind of love to go away... that something that continues to hold me back, as if it were still part of my life. Talk about lack of closure.
I wait for an email that says Forgive me, I know I was wrong, I should have never stayed away so long. The email doesn't come, but still I expect it; each day I expect it.

How does one close the heart, and move on?

I learned many years ago to wear a crystal around my neck, to cover my heart center, to keep it protected. It has been a long time since employing that knowledge, and I'm thinking it may well be time to do that again. These are simple actions, and they help me to remember.

Tomorrow I will look for the right crystal to protect my heart; surely there is one around here somewhere. Perhaps I'll look now.

Here's one that has been around for quite sometime. My father used to carry it with him. Time for it to be cleaned and programmed, and prepared for me.

to watch

I rested my head against dream pillows
stuffed fat with lavender and agrimony

I held dream crystals in my palms

I drank honeyed chamomile and kava kava

and still I could not sleep


Indeed
all these things wakened me

to a space between

that's the insomnia talkin'

I hold hard to dreams. It's only after reaching them, that I'm not sure what to do.
The problem with dreams coming true, is that, in reality, they are shaped so differently. .. less ethereal, more brick and mortar, flesh and blood.

something comes true
naked in all its expression
its realness less appealing

But sometimes

something comes true
naked in all its expression
and the dream is so insignificant
in the light of one real moment

This is just me, remembering dreams come true. :)