except without the part about your mom

*sigh*

I think this is the fourth night in the last six where I haven't been able to fall asleep. Tired. Sleepy even. But I just can't seem to drop off to sleep.

Almost makes me want to try this, although the waking hours certainly aren't particularly useful if you're trying to participate with most of the world around you.

Have I mentioned BAH*?

UPDATE: to answer Leah's question in the comments, and for full disclosure, here's the list of things that I can think of that I've tried over the past few weeks:

• reiki
• meditation (which really is kind of like reiki. Or vice versa.)
• hot shower (I'm a life-long night showerer. I don't sleep well when gritty or sticky.)
• warm milk (with Ovaltine)
• staying up later
• visualizing the comfy feeling I have in bed in the morning when I don't want to get up
• being mindful of the images that play behind my closed eyelids
• visualize constantly dropping into deeper layers of consciousness/reality.
• avoiding computer stuff right before bed

I'd be happy to hear other suggestions.

* not to be confused with "baa." Seriously, does counting sheep actually work for anyone?

An Observation on Language

I'm finding that I have recently developed the habit of using the word awesome to describe a certain flavor of experience that I'm having or have had at a particular time. And generally in these instances, when I say awesome, I mean totally sucked balls or completely useless piece of shit.

So the SOOTTAD and I finally got a chance to play with a particular undisclosed object we've acquired in the past few months, and I think you follow me when I say that the only way that I can adequately describe this object is that it was totally awesome.

What I've been reading

While I did recently finish rereading the first Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (which I had first read sometime during high school -- man, I missed a lot of details back then), I really just wanted to mention a few articles that I've stumbled across on the 'net over the past few weeks and wanted to mention, for one reason or another.

• A group is its own worst enemy
  
  It's largely writing in the context of social software development, which I find interesting in and of itself despite the fact that I'm not a social software developer, or even a regular old ordinary software developer, but rather because I find the whole massive online community phenomenon totally fascinating and a bit frightening as someone who only skirts the edge of social network applications and whose spouse harbors a significant distrust of the lack of privacy on the net.
  
  I also find it interesting because one of the things that I really value in life is the connection and community I have with other people, and I've fallen into the trap (if a trap is really what it is) of wanting to be inclusive and wanting things to be fair. And oftentimes, I equate fair with equal, which may not always be the case, but which is probably one of the simpler ways to deal with things because at its core, it at least *seems* fair. Even when it's not. But regardless, I've seen groups get too big for their own britches and implode, I've seen the inclusion/exclusion behavior, I've had the unfortunate experience of trying to "protect the group" when the group had no formal rules or protocols for doing so. It was helpful to read something that gave me some perspective on the social dynamics.

• Childhood TV viewing can cause teenage problems
  
  Not to vilify TV or anything, but I'm kind of glad we don't have cable right now. Still looking into buhgiant front projection systems, FWIW.

• How Callous are Republicans?
  
  National news just depresses me these days. Well actually, in general. And it seems like the politicos are all about Iraq, Iraq, Iraq and troop numbers, and staying the course or bringing them home. It's rhetoric, media posturing, politican partisanship and it's all bullshit. They fucked up. We're there. If we stay, it's going to continue to suck balls. If we pull out, it's also going to suck balls. It will probably suck even more balls, actually. In the meantime, ya think maybe you guys could maybe try fixing health care?
  
  Matt Miller comes up with the HCCAT, the "Health-Care Callousness Assessment Test":
  

  "Question 2: Do you believe individuals' buying their own solo health insurance can be the answer to the problem of the uninsured? The only noncallous answer is no. The problem with the individual market, as anyone with the most innocuous ailments can attest, is that profit-seeking insurers want to cover only younger, healthier people who don't need insurance. The very idea of individual insurance is an oxymoron, since insurance is about spreading risks across a group. Group coverage creates little socialized-health republics in which the young subsidize the old, and the healthy the unwell, with all those in the group paying the same premiums."

• Doctor Warns Consumers of Popcorn Fumes
  
  Yeah, I mostly stopped eating this stuff after I learned that it was full of trans fats.

• The 411 on High-Fructose Corn Syrup
  
  Too bad it's not actually the 411, it's more like a ... ok, I don't have a clever phone-metaphor. Basically, it's just saying: "ooh, HFCS is bad, whoOOOOOoooo!" It'd have been nice if they could have actually linked to the research or something. Not that I don't believe it or anything, just sayin'.

• Vitamins 'could shorten lifespan'
  
  More advocacy for eating a balanced diet rather than trying to make up for your deficiencies through pill-popping. Feeling pretty good about that soup that's cooking on the stove right now, made almost entirely from vegetables from the CSA community farm. (the onion and organic chicken were from the supermarket. And I think the zucchini was from the SOOTTAD's parental homestead.)

• Things that Running Teaches You About Life
  
  The funny thing about this article is that while I don't wholly disagree with the author's conclusions (I see value in what he's said), I feel like I take away a much different set of lessons. Running isn't about weight loss for me, although it is about staying healthy, both physically and mentally. Anyway, here's my take:
  

  1. This is not a race. Sometimes when I go running, I need to remind myself to slow down -- I'm focusing on conditioning, I've trying to avoid injuries. I time my runs, but it's really just feedback to let me know how I'm doing.
  2. Sometimes, even when it is a race, it's still not a race. Again, with the feedback. And the sense of accomplishment. My plan is still to run a marathon next fall -- when I hit, um, a particular age milestone. I wonder if this will still hold true if I'm trying to make a qualifying time.
  3. Enjoy the scenery. Look flowers! Critters! Whoops, car! (Have you smelled the grapes yet this fall?)
  4. Remember to breathe. In. Out. In. Out. Good stuff.
  That's all I got right now off the top of my head. I suspect there a few other things, but there you go.

Ugh.

Stupid not being able to fall asleep until after 3AM. It's probably the third night out of the last four. And now I'm waking up wicked late.

Or maybe it's the other way around.

*sigh*