Insomnia

You know, there’s really nothing on TV past 3am. There’s not a whole lot on at 2:30 either, but last night I did catch the last 10 minutes of some Animal Planet show about paternal behavior in penguins and seahorses. That was pretty cool, except for the overzealous narrator, who seemed to be gearing this towards people with extremely short attention spans. When that got over, the next show was about scorpions (with an equally overzealous narrator) and all the other channels just had infomercials selling weight loss products.

Its been over a month since I’ve been home from Nicaragua, and I’m still not sleeping. I wasn’t really sleeping that well in Nicaragua either… and come to think of it, that whole year of proposal-writing prior to going to Nicaragua was wracked with heart palpitations and insomnia as well. Let it suffice to say, I really need some sleep.

Last night I did some reading to make me sleepy, but that just got me all riled up about my dissertation and the fact that I’ve been home for over a month and haven’t even started it. TV didn’t work (watching a show about scorpions wasn’t helping), so I finally started cleaning the house. I scrubbed the bathroom from floor to ceiling (by the way, I’ve found that baking soda is the best thing to clean the tub with—it lifts grime, is cheap, and is environmentally responsible) and then moved onto the kitchen. Having scrubbed myself into the living room (and not wanting to track across the wet kitchen floor), I finally laid down on the couch about 4 or 4:30.

If I’d just stayed up a couple more hours, I would have been awake to receive the email Eduardo sent me when he got to “work” at the Hacienda at 6am (Wednesdays are his day to work). I’ve gotten about 3 messages from him since he mentioned that he had a problem with his kidneys, and none of them have returned to this issue despite the fact that I have asked him about it repeatedly. He just says “Hola Melissa, como estas?” and that’s it.

As a result of getting very little sleep, I felt like a zombie all day and looked like I was either hung over or strung out. But surprisingly, I’m not tired; I just kind of feel like I’m stuck in a loop. I keep starting things (like a load of laundry or reading a journal article) but interrupt myself to go to something else (like clean up a mess or begin reading a different journal article), so I’ve gotten nothing done all day.

This weekend is the big 10 year high school reunion, but I won’t be revisiting the past. Instead, Rob and I are going to North Carolina to the wedding of one of his friends. I’m hoping that Amy will fill me in on all the reunion details; maybe I’ll get myself together and try to make it to my 20th.

At any rate, I’d better get going and try for a good night’s sleep tonight. Oh, and for those who read my last entry about the bike crash—I am all healed now except for a scab on my knee. And Pat, don’t feel bad about laughing! I realized that that’s why I write these things. Its like the wise poet Emily Saliers once said, “You’ve got to laugh at yourself; otherwise, you’d cry your eyes out!”