Category Archives: disasters

On insomnia

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Couldn’t get to sleep at all last night–to coin a phrase. The creepy part of jet-lag is not that you can’t wake up or stay awake, it’s that you can’t get to sleep at night. I tossed and turned last night and nothing was comfortable, not the pillow, not the mattress, nothing. The hours ticked off–one, two, three, four, and I still couldn’t conjure up sweet dreams. The sandman would not visit my house. The worst part is that everyone else in the whole place was sound asleep. Insomnia is a solitary past-time in which the dark hours of the early morning pass slowly and painfully. Oh, one might find something to eat, read a book, or watch an old movie, but you are really missing out on all that rejuvenating sleep which totally eludes you. Sleep is the antidote for the stress and work of the day. To close your eyes and drift into unconsciousness is the only way to deal with being bone-tired, stress out, and sleepy. Yet, when sleep eludes you as if it were tiny fish in big pond, one suffers from a strange sadness, excluded from a world of dreams in which every other human being has taken refuge. Insomnia is a mean, hard, unfriendly sort that makes friends with no one. To sleep the sleep of the just plain tired is one of the priceless luxuries that no one can keep from you, but insomnia can. You can feel tired, you can feel like you should be be asleep, and you can still be wide awake. Every bone and every muscle in your body will ache, but sleep is a foreign country where you don’t have a visa and you’ve lost your map.

On insomnia

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Couldn’t get to sleep at all last night–to coin a phrase. The creepy part of jet-lag is not that you can’t wake up or stay awake, it’s that you can’t get to sleep at night. I tossed and turned last night and nothing was comfortable, not the pillow, not the mattress, nothing. The hours ticked off–one, two, three, four, and I still couldn’t conjure up sweet dreams. The sandman would not visit my house. The worst part is that everyone else in the whole place was sound asleep. Insomnia is a solitary past-time in which the dark hours of the early morning pass slowly and painfully. Oh, one might find something to eat, read a book, or watch an old movie, but you are really missing out on all that rejuvenating sleep which totally eludes you. Sleep is the antidote for the stress and work of the day. To close your eyes and drift into unconsciousness is the only way to deal with being bone-tired, stress out, and sleepy. Yet, when sleep eludes you as if it were tiny fish in big pond, one suffers from a strange sadness, excluded from a world of dreams in which every other human being has taken refuge. Insomnia is a mean, hard, unfriendly sort that makes friends with no one. To sleep the sleep of the just plain tired is one of the priceless luxuries that no one can keep from you, but insomnia can. You can feel tired, you can feel like you should be be asleep, and you can still be wide awake. Every bone and every muscle in your body will ache, but sleep is a foreign country where you don’t have a visa and you’ve lost your map.

On packing

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If there is one activity that for me is fraught with ambiguity and melancholy it is packing for long trips. Not that I’m going on a long trip or anything, but many people I know are packing up and moving out because school is out, they are graduating, taking new jobs, and moving on. They are leaving and a big part of leaving is packing. I am happy that they are getting on with their lives, but I am sad that they are leaving once and for all, and when people leave, they never come back. When I pack I invariably forget half a dozen things which are vital to my survival, but I do manage to take forty pounds of stuff that I will never need when I get to my destination. In the meantime, I’ve forgotten my toothbrush, an extra pair of underwear, and my glasses. I would forget shoes but I’ve got to put them on to get out of the door. Living in Waco, I have forgotten to bring a coat or jacket with me and regretted it. Packing is such an imprecise science which prone to fail just when you think you have it right. You forget the little book with all your passwords, the cord to your phone charger, your phone, your keys, your snacks. If there is an art to packing it has to do with traveling light, always including a towel, never expecting that you will remember everything. In other words, when you get to your destination, just imagine that you will have to go buy a few things because that’s just the way packing is. Packing is both the sign for a new destination and leaving behind of a current place, all of which is fraught with multiple complications which are all undergirded by strange feelings of loss. Sure, you can always, “phone home,” but it’s not the same as being there. So even getting out the suitcases makes me just slightly morose and cranky, irked, maybe.

On packing

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If there is one activity that for me is fraught with ambiguity and melancholy it is packing for long trips. Not that I’m going on a long trip or anything, but many people I know are packing up and moving out because school is out, they are graduating, taking new jobs, and moving on. They are leaving and a big part of leaving is packing. I am happy that they are getting on with their lives, but I am sad that they are leaving once and for all, and when people leave, they never come back. When I pack I invariably forget half a dozen things which are vital to my survival, but I do manage to take forty pounds of stuff that I will never need when I get to my destination. In the meantime, I’ve forgotten my toothbrush, an extra pair of underwear, and my glasses. I would forget shoes but I’ve got to put them on to get out of the door. Living in Waco, I have forgotten to bring a coat or jacket with me and regretted it. Packing is such an imprecise science which prone to fail just when you think you have it right. You forget the little book with all your passwords, the cord to your phone charger, your phone, your keys, your snacks. If there is an art to packing it has to do with traveling light, always including a towel, never expecting that you will remember everything. In other words, when you get to your destination, just imagine that you will have to go buy a few things because that’s just the way packing is. Packing is both the sign for a new destination and leaving behind of a current place, all of which is fraught with multiple complications which are all undergirded by strange feelings of loss. Sure, you can always, “phone home,” but it’s not the same as being there. So even getting out the suitcases makes me just slightly morose and cranky, irked, maybe.

On snoring

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A nasty thing to do, but not all of us can control the fact that we snore. Personally, I would prefer to not snore, pass the night in total, sepulchral silence. Because the night is for total, blackout silence. Maybe a cricket, maybe a ticking grandfather clock, maybe the creaking of centenary Victorian home. No one should get up in the night. Snoring is an interruption in the peace of the night. Snoring is non-lineal, unpredictable, chaotic, torturous. If sleep and rest are about restoration and redemption, how can snoring be anything but trouble? I have startled myself awake from snoring too loudly. Luckily, this has only happened once or twice. My snoring is annoying, but it’s not consistent. Many nights I pass quietly in the arms of the sleep angels who watch over this simulacrum of death that we call sleep. Snoring is an ironic and bitter development that interrupts that sweet rest which restores and rebuilds after a hard day at work, or just a had day. Given the right circumstances, we all snore: a cold, allergies, to many drinks, too tired, crabby. So this is the dilemma: who sleeps on the sofa? Snorer or snoree? If the paint is coming off of the ceiling, or the wallpaper is pealing, perhaps the snorer should be encouraged to seek refuge in another room and leave the poor suffering victim to enjoy the bed alone, especially if earplugs are not an option.

On snoring

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A nasty thing to do, but not all of us can control the fact that we snore. Personally, I would prefer to not snore, pass the night in total, sepulchral silence. Because the night is for total, blackout silence. Maybe a cricket, maybe a ticking grandfather clock, maybe the creaking of centenary Victorian home. No one should get up in the night. Snoring is an interruption in the peace of the night. Snoring is non-lineal, unpredictable, chaotic, torturous. If sleep and rest are about restoration and redemption, how can snoring be anything but trouble? I have startled myself awake from snoring too loudly. Luckily, this has only happened once or twice. My snoring is annoying, but it’s not consistent. Many nights I pass quietly in the arms of the sleep angels who watch over this simulacrum of death that we call sleep. Snoring is an ironic and bitter development that interrupts that sweet rest which restores and rebuilds after a hard day at work, or just a had day. Given the right circumstances, we all snore: a cold, allergies, to many drinks, too tired, crabby. So this is the dilemma: who sleeps on the sofa? Snorer or snoree? If the paint is coming off of the ceiling, or the wallpaper is pealing, perhaps the snorer should be encouraged to seek refuge in another room and leave the poor suffering victim to enjoy the bed alone, especially if earplugs are not an option.

On the end of the world (or maybe not)

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This may be the last note I ever write, or maybe not. That lunar eclipse last night has a lot of people worried about about the end of times, the end of the world, the second coming, the apocalypse. Some think that the full red moon was one of the signs of the end of the world. I must say, though, I have my doubts since normally occuring astronomic phenomenon are both predictable and regular. In other words, since time begin this lunar eclipse was on the calendar for last night–no way to avoid it, no way to be surprised by it. Since the moon goes around the earth and the two of them go around the sun, it is only logical that at some point the earth would come between the moon and sun. It only stands to reason, then, that there was absolutely nothing special or mystical about last night’s lunar eclipse–simple astronomical physical mechanics of planets orbiting other planets–no mystery here. The fact that the moon turned a reddish color is also irrelevant–red light waves are the longest and refract easily in the earth’s atmosphere, lighting the dark moon. Again, no mystery here at all. Stellar and planetary mechanics are naturally occuring phenomena that are predictable and describable and fall into a science that we understand pretty well. This is not a sign of the end of times, not a sign of the coming apocalypse, not a sign of any kind–good or bad. Unfortunately, people have tendency to see “signs” where there are none–black cats, broken mirrors, tea leaves, tarot cards, calendar dates, white whales, spilled salt, raining frogs, ripped pants, falling silverware. When are we going to get it through out heads that there are no such things as “signs” of the future? So I guess I’ll just have to keep writing.

On the end of the world (or maybe not)

Posted on by

This may be the last note I ever write, or maybe not. That lunar eclipse last night has a lot of people worried about about the end of times, the end of the world, the second coming, the apocalypse. Some think that the full red moon was one of the signs of the end of the world. I must say, though, I have my doubts since normally occuring astronomic phenomenon are both predictable and regular. In other words, since time begin this lunar eclipse was on the calendar for last night–no way to avoid it, no way to be surprised by it. Since the moon goes around the earth and the two of them go around the sun, it is only logical that at some point the earth would come between the moon and sun. It only stands to reason, then, that there was absolutely nothing special or mystical about last night’s lunar eclipse–simple astronomical physical mechanics of planets orbiting other planets–no mystery here. The fact that the moon turned a reddish color is also irrelevant–red light waves are the longest and refract easily in the earth’s atmosphere, lighting the dark moon. Again, no mystery here at all. Stellar and planetary mechanics are naturally occuring phenomena that are predictable and describable and fall into a science that we understand pretty well. This is not a sign of the end of times, not a sign of the coming apocalypse, not a sign of any kind–good or bad. Unfortunately, people have tendency to see “signs” where there are none–black cats, broken mirrors, tea leaves, tarot cards, calendar dates, white whales, spilled salt, raining frogs, ripped pants, falling silverware. When are we going to get it through out heads that there are no such things as “signs” of the future? So I guess I’ll just have to keep writing.

On panic

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Often times, in the middle of a crisis–the planet is about to be destroyed right out from under you, for example–it is too easy to just panic and lose one’s head, do something stupid. One should never let the adrenaline decide anything for you. Panic is the worst thing there is for problem solving because it immediately blinds you to all possible solutions. I find panic is worse when I feel out-of-control, which is most of the time, but panic also encourages you to think that you have control at all. Thinking you are in control is the worst kind of illusion under which you might operate, and panic arises out of the illusion that you can control anything at all. Most all panic can be avoided if we can just keep our whits about us, breath deeply, sip a cold beverage, and, in most cases, just do nothing at all. Decisions made in haste under panic conditions are almost always bad decisions. I would venture to guess that almost anything done in panic should never have been done at all. In fact, most of the time, doing nothing is the best thing to do. Put off your decision, sleep on it, give it some time to mature, let it disappear on its own, or let it resolve itself with no intervention on your part at all. Panicking is for unexperienced amateurs who really don’t understand the wisdom of time and space, and that giving yourself both will often lead to a lucid and less emotional solution that is good for everyone. Most of the things in life that lead to panic are usually the intranscendent trivia that have nothing to do with anything important at all. In fact, most of the stuff that makes us panic can very often be ignored altogether. The second you start to rush things, everything goes badly very quickly.

On panic

Posted on by

Often times, in the middle of a crisis–the planet is about to be destroyed right out from under you, for example–it is too easy to just panic and lose one’s head, do something stupid. One should never let the adrenaline decide anything for you. Panic is the worst thing there is for problem solving because it immediately blinds you to all possible solutions. I find panic is worse when I feel out-of-control, which is most of the time, but panic also encourages you to think that you have control at all. Thinking you are in control is the worst kind of illusion under which you might operate, and panic arises out of the illusion that you can control anything at all. Most all panic can be avoided if we can just keep our whits about us, breath deeply, sip a cold beverage, and, in most cases, just do nothing at all. Decisions made in haste under panic conditions are almost always bad decisions. I would venture to guess that almost anything done in panic should never have been done at all. In fact, most of the time, doing nothing is the best thing to do. Put off your decision, sleep on it, give it some time to mature, let it disappear on its own, or let it resolve itself with no intervention on your part at all. Panicking is for unexperienced amateurs who really don’t understand the wisdom of time and space, and that giving yourself both will often lead to a lucid and less emotional solution that is good for everyone. Most of the things in life that lead to panic are usually the intranscendent trivia that have nothing to do with anything important at all. In fact, most of the stuff that makes us panic can very often be ignored altogether. The second you start to rush things, everything goes badly very quickly.