Wednesday, March 31, 2010

The Zone and My Sleep

Hello there.

I haven't written one of this post thingys in awhile (not that anyone reads them.) I have been too busy suffocating under a crapload of busy. I'm in that stage of my junior year college spring semester where I cry at a sign of sympathy from anyone. I don't really know why that is. It's like I can only hold it together when its self-contained; just keeping up some internal encouragement monologue so that I can keep juggling chainsaws, axes, samurai swords, etc. while walking over a hot bed of coals as I do my taxes. But the moment someone else walks by and is like "Holy smokes Batman! How do you do it!" I lose the momentum that keeps me hurtling forward and face plant in smoldering natural resources.

But crying is a weird symptom of stress. I feel like a body under stress should try to conserve its energy and fluids not hemorrhage them when a passing stranger says, "Are you okay?" But I don't know, I guess it's cathartic. I generally only cry when I'm upset anyway. I never cry during sad moments in movies, TV shows, books, etc. I am "moved to tears" I would say but they do not manifest. They only manifest with any kind of regularity when I'm stressed or pissed off at someone. This fact has always irritated me. Whenever I fight with anyone I want to seem strong and in control but I always end up bawling. I always want to shout, "I'm crying 'cause I hate you so friggin' much not because you hurt me!" In a perfect world...

In a perfect world I would be asleep right now. I was planning on going to sleep, I really was. I brushed my teeth and washed my face. But as I was smearing high potency acne medication (do not use if you plan on becoming pregnant, what?) on my slightly damp skin I realized I was in The Zone.

The Zone is a tricky entity. The Zone is writing zen, nirvana. The Zone is stream-of-consciousness that is good. I can't write a good blog if I'm not in The Zone. That might be another reason I haven't written anything in so long, I wasn't in The Zone for that long.

The last recorded instance of The Zone occurred Thursday March 25th. It was triggered by a Shakespeare test on The Merchant of Venice and Othello. I wrote 5 pages of brilliant Shakespeare analysis in an hour and a half. It's impossible to do that without The Zone. The Zone must be induced by that potent combination of furious thought and limited time.

However, after the test, still in The Zone, I went to have lunch with my fiance's grandparents at the Olive Garden instead of sitting down to write a masterpiece. So, I cannot go to sleep till I have at least utilized this incarnation of The Zone to my best ability. Thus, I keep writing.

But I really should go to sleep. There is this cautionary fable for children whose moral is: say please. I read it as a kid and I think it stuck with me because of the way they personified "please." The Please is a tiny jester-looking creature that lives somewhere in your mouth and every time you use it it gets out to breathe some fresh air. Fresh air being all it needs to survive and thrive. If you do not use your Please, however, it withers away and is very sad. I feel like this story could be applied to Sleep. Sleep of course would be a tiny sandman-looking creature. My Sleep is malnourished and starving because it does not get used enough. But my Sleep is not a Please. It does not kindly hide somewhere in the body when it is neglected. No, when I bring Sleep out it is aggressively needy. It needs to get out in that fresh air. It's so aggressive that it sometimes does not let me put it away. So I'm forced to stave off Sleep - even though I don' t want to - just so I can get things done because if I let it take over I won't wake for at least 12 hours if not more. The only thing that works is alarms and an amazing ability to resist temptation. Though I have to admit, sometimes that siren call is too much and I miss classes and hours go by like seconds in a hazy dreamworld.

That call is overtaking me now. I feel like I have blogged enough. I am going to go to sleep. I have earned it and my Sleep has earned some fresh air. Goodnight, sweet Internet.

Brianna

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