Wow! And I thought only mere mortals read this blog!
Not five minutes after writing my last entry, I went upstairs and crawled into bed, in all my clothes, as my wife and daughter were getting up from their morning nap.
And I just woke up!
Higher powers at work, I tellya, re-installing my love for slumber.
Yessssss, I'm back!
Saturday, February 21, 2004
I am almost ashamed to say this, but it seems like I don't like sleeping anymore.
Not as much as I used too, anyway. Not that long ago, nothing - and I mean absolutely, positively, completely almost nothing - could compare too a really, really long sleep. I would wake up after eight hours on a Saturday morning and go: Naah. And then fall asleep again for a few hours.
But no more. I need to wake up early during the week for work, mostly just before 6 am. The weekends used to be excluded. But this morning, as I lay awake in my bed at 5:50 am, I thought: I don't particularily want to continue sleeping. Which is overwhelmingly sad.
I can already see your e-mails: "'Wake up'! (pun) You have a kid!" But you see, that is not it. Granted, she did only sleep for a few hours at a time betwwen her feedings for the first month or two. But she quickly went to sleeping through the night in two successions. And now, she has been sleeping 11 hours straight for more than a month. So that's not what is keeping me up.
Sad, I tell you. I really, truly miss being drowsy.
Slumber. That's what I miss.
Not as much as I used too, anyway. Not that long ago, nothing - and I mean absolutely, positively, completely almost nothing - could compare too a really, really long sleep. I would wake up after eight hours on a Saturday morning and go: Naah. And then fall asleep again for a few hours.
But no more. I need to wake up early during the week for work, mostly just before 6 am. The weekends used to be excluded. But this morning, as I lay awake in my bed at 5:50 am, I thought: I don't particularily want to continue sleeping. Which is overwhelmingly sad.
I can already see your e-mails: "'Wake up'! (pun) You have a kid!" But you see, that is not it. Granted, she did only sleep for a few hours at a time betwwen her feedings for the first month or two. But she quickly went to sleeping through the night in two successions. And now, she has been sleeping 11 hours straight for more than a month. So that's not what is keeping me up.
Sad, I tell you. I really, truly miss being drowsy.
Slumber. That's what I miss.
Thursday, February 19, 2004
So Dean dropped out.
How come the common denominator is always the lowest of all the denominators? Not that I was very keen on Dean. He just seemed to be the only one speaking his mind. Which was refreshing. He kind of catered to my sort: Those who are always trying to change the world, but are completely disillusioned by The Process.
Actually, I've stopped trying to change the world. Not that I think it's beyond saving. I just feel powerless. I mean, I look at the potential. Of people, that is. And it is overwhelming. No wonder people dominate this earth. But then they go and do stupid things. Like killing each other. Or show utter indifference to the suffering of other people. It is depressing. And you ask yourself: "Why?"
The obvious answer is probably that despite the potential, we can't seem to be able to wield it. We are somehow unable to look these things in the eye and say "No!" Even if we do, it sounds so hollow. So pointless. Even walking among hundreds of thousands of people, trying to stop a war from happening, still felt somehow futile. At least in part. I mean, you could feel proud and your inner self was pleased. "I did my part." But that is not enough. Not nearly.
Maybe being stoic about the whole thing is the only way to go. I mean, trying to change the whole world involves some pretty totalitarianistic maneuvers. Which goes against my core, libertarian beliefs. So perhaps one should not attempt to change the whole world.
But there is something one can do: Change a little bit of the world. Not the whole thing. Just you. And your surroundings. And those you know. And those you meet. This is something one does anyway. We are all mainly affected by our interactions with other people. It's the interactions that make up most of our lives.
I know that "begin at home" is a cliché. And maybe it is escapism. Making yourself believe that abandoning The Great Change for your own backyard is not giving up. But then again, maybe it's true. Maybe that really is the extent of what you can do, anyway. Either way, great things can happen in small amounts.
Take me for example. One day last summer, my daughter was born. I made her. Me.
I saved the world that day.
All of it.
How come the common denominator is always the lowest of all the denominators? Not that I was very keen on Dean. He just seemed to be the only one speaking his mind. Which was refreshing. He kind of catered to my sort: Those who are always trying to change the world, but are completely disillusioned by The Process.
Actually, I've stopped trying to change the world. Not that I think it's beyond saving. I just feel powerless. I mean, I look at the potential. Of people, that is. And it is overwhelming. No wonder people dominate this earth. But then they go and do stupid things. Like killing each other. Or show utter indifference to the suffering of other people. It is depressing. And you ask yourself: "Why?"
The obvious answer is probably that despite the potential, we can't seem to be able to wield it. We are somehow unable to look these things in the eye and say "No!" Even if we do, it sounds so hollow. So pointless. Even walking among hundreds of thousands of people, trying to stop a war from happening, still felt somehow futile. At least in part. I mean, you could feel proud and your inner self was pleased. "I did my part." But that is not enough. Not nearly.
Maybe being stoic about the whole thing is the only way to go. I mean, trying to change the whole world involves some pretty totalitarianistic maneuvers. Which goes against my core, libertarian beliefs. So perhaps one should not attempt to change the whole world.
But there is something one can do: Change a little bit of the world. Not the whole thing. Just you. And your surroundings. And those you know. And those you meet. This is something one does anyway. We are all mainly affected by our interactions with other people. It's the interactions that make up most of our lives.
I know that "begin at home" is a cliché. And maybe it is escapism. Making yourself believe that abandoning The Great Change for your own backyard is not giving up. But then again, maybe it's true. Maybe that really is the extent of what you can do, anyway. Either way, great things can happen in small amounts.
Take me for example. One day last summer, my daughter was born. I made her. Me.
I saved the world that day.
All of it.
Tuesday, February 17, 2004
Monday, February 16, 2004
What an almost absolutely perfect day.
It's "President's day". Apparently. It's chilling how little I know. About some things. Most things, actually. And as I learn more, I realize that what I thought I knew, I don't know at all. So that will probably be the conclusion: I will one day realize that I actually do not know anything. Including this "President's day" thing. And then I will have become the the pen-ultimate white trash that I am destined to become.
Now, how did I get to being white trash in just one paragraph? Especially since it was a perfect, well almost perfect, day? Well, it was, anyway. It began with my wife taking the day off. Because of the "President's day" thing, you see. Which was great. I have been somewhat lonely here for the last couple of weeks. The weekends have been consumed with time with friends. Which is good. But we haven't had time for just us. So that, by itself, was good.
Then, we decided to go skiing. We haven't gone together skiing all winter, strangely enough. And it was great! It was really cold, but the sun shone brilliantly, and the wind blew only quietly. The day was so great, in fact, that neither a fat idiot scratching my car nor my first-ever speeding ticket managed to spoil it.
P.S. Why the 'almost' in 'almost absolutely perfect day'? Well, it's that nostalgia I was blogging about last Saturday. Can't seem to shake it.
It's "President's day". Apparently. It's chilling how little I know. About some things. Most things, actually. And as I learn more, I realize that what I thought I knew, I don't know at all. So that will probably be the conclusion: I will one day realize that I actually do not know anything. Including this "President's day" thing. And then I will have become the the pen-ultimate white trash that I am destined to become.
Now, how did I get to being white trash in just one paragraph? Especially since it was a perfect, well almost perfect, day? Well, it was, anyway. It began with my wife taking the day off. Because of the "President's day" thing, you see. Which was great. I have been somewhat lonely here for the last couple of weeks. The weekends have been consumed with time with friends. Which is good. But we haven't had time for just us. So that, by itself, was good.
Then, we decided to go skiing. We haven't gone together skiing all winter, strangely enough. And it was great! It was really cold, but the sun shone brilliantly, and the wind blew only quietly. The day was so great, in fact, that neither a fat idiot scratching my car nor my first-ever speeding ticket managed to spoil it.
P.S. Why the 'almost' in 'almost absolutely perfect day'? Well, it's that nostalgia I was blogging about last Saturday. Can't seem to shake it.
Sunday, February 15, 2004
One of the pluses of living here - or in Africa, for that matter - are all these industrial-strength drugs you can buy over the counter. Extra-strength and maximum-strength. Alka-Seltzer, for example. Can't get that in many places in the world. And all those wonderful over-the-top-strong allergy medicines. I have this mild case of hay fever, you see. Which actually brings into question these pastoral fantasies I have of laying down on a hill covered in blooming sunflowers, or walking through "fields where the yellow grass grows knee high". But I digress.
Nyquil and Dayquil. The Ying and Yang of cough medicine. Such a beautiful concept. If you have a cold, you only have to ask yourself: Am I going to sleep or waking up? If the former applies, then you doze up on Nyquil. If the latter, then shoot up on Dayquil. Nyquil sounds a bit like 'night' something, and it's filled with sedatives. Enough to put down a horse, in my experience. Dayquil, on the other hand, is your cough-medicine-on-speed alternative. You really feel like you've had a few coffee pots to many, after taking the stuff.
So I have been suffering from this incessant coughing. And a constant flow of citrus-colored snot. This has been going on more or less since Christmas. This morning I woke up with a particularily bad case of this. After not sleeping all that well last night. So I wandered downstairs, looking for a fresh pack of tissues. I was greeted by my wife, who told me I needed to sleep - a cough-free sleep - and promptly stuffed a green-colored pill in my mouth. Before I knew what had happened, I had swallowed it, my wife had handed me some earplugs and one of those dark things that go over your eyes when you are trying to sleep in aeroplanes, and told me to go back to bed.
This was at 7 am. I woke up again just before 11 am. And felt great! It was like someone had said "No, hold on a minute. That is no way to start a day. Let's take two."
"Aaaaaaand, action!"
Nyquil and Dayquil. The Ying and Yang of cough medicine. Such a beautiful concept. If you have a cold, you only have to ask yourself: Am I going to sleep or waking up? If the former applies, then you doze up on Nyquil. If the latter, then shoot up on Dayquil. Nyquil sounds a bit like 'night' something, and it's filled with sedatives. Enough to put down a horse, in my experience. Dayquil, on the other hand, is your cough-medicine-on-speed alternative. You really feel like you've had a few coffee pots to many, after taking the stuff.
So I have been suffering from this incessant coughing. And a constant flow of citrus-colored snot. This has been going on more or less since Christmas. This morning I woke up with a particularily bad case of this. After not sleeping all that well last night. So I wandered downstairs, looking for a fresh pack of tissues. I was greeted by my wife, who told me I needed to sleep - a cough-free sleep - and promptly stuffed a green-colored pill in my mouth. Before I knew what had happened, I had swallowed it, my wife had handed me some earplugs and one of those dark things that go over your eyes when you are trying to sleep in aeroplanes, and told me to go back to bed.
This was at 7 am. I woke up again just before 11 am. And felt great! It was like someone had said "No, hold on a minute. That is no way to start a day. Let's take two."
"Aaaaaaand, action!"
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