Sleep was better last night. I thought after a decent night’s sleep I would feel better. Turns out that’s not how it works. My sleep debt started to catch up with me making this morning feel like a long Monday morning. Which was exactly what it was. Long. And Monday-like. And, actually, a Monday.

My experiment in writing yesterday did not go well. It was too negative and didn’t put me in the right frame of mind. It’s similar to how I feel about George Saunders after reading through two of his stories in Pastoralia. His writing is good, tight, and funny. It’s also depressing, sad, and pathetic, and leaves me with little energy to think positive thoughts. DFW was that way a bit, but it never felt dark. You were more laughing with the characters than at them. It feels like in the two GS stories I read, I was laughing more at the characters than along with them. Given the strength of the writing, I’m willing to hold off on a final judgment until I’m deeper into his works.

The light in the fridge went off. It always goes off after the door has been open too long. This usually happens, like today, when it’s being cleaned. The only way I’ve found to reset the light is to switch off the power at the electric box. I did that. It’s now back on. I feel like I accomplished something. Tiger’s car seat in Doolies’s car was also broken. I fixed that. I am on what I can only describe as a rampage of accomplishments today. It feels good.

As you may be able to tell, my brain is not functioning at a high level right now. It’s a combination of the dinner, the small glass of wine, and the sleep debt. I’m paying interest on it and it’s causing fuzzy thoughts and pained wrists. That latter pain is likely caused by too much typing and bad posture. I’m leaning on one elbow and my head is tilted to the side. My feet are out in front of me and crossed. My back is not square against the chair and there’s a slight pain in my backside where it makes contact with the executive-looking chair. I should change positions but I can’t imagine a more comfortable position.

I tried to fix the internet by downgrading the xbox dongle from 802.11ac to 802.11n. I read somewhere that the n standard reaches further than the ac standard. Hopefully this helps as watching animes with lots of stops (particularly, as I mentioned before, during climatic parts) is nerve wracking. I try to cast Tiger’s mantra: please wait. But even those thoughts grow quiet and rage starts to build from my toes on upward when the circles of buffering appear. I’ll let you know how my experiment goes.

Dinosaur is sleeping next to me. He’s been napping on and off throughout the day, I heard. Hopefully this doesn’t impact his sleep tonight. A few more nights of midnight to five a.m. sleeps will do wonders for my sleep debt. And by wonders I mean to start paying it down. I’m not sure when, if ever, I will return to my bed at nine, 6:45am to wake schedule.

I received my Fitbit today. I bought it out of peer pressure, as everyone at work seems to have either a Fitbit or a Nike+ band. I decided against the wrist band as my wrists are tiny and wrist watches have always bothered me because they rub against my protruding wrist bones. I wish I could wear mechanical watches, as I enjoy their movement and complications. “Complication” is the word for the mechanical mechanisms that add functionality: such as a calendar powered by gears, or a function that tracks the moon’s phases. That takes lots of strange gears and small parts working in concert.

The Fitbit promises to track my stair walking routines. Hopefully this will help keep my fitness level at a decent place so my Naginata is not terribly impacted. So far I’ve been able to survive class but I’ve not been at the same level since my augmented bicycle commuting stopped. I don’t miss the cold and rain on the road. I enjoyed pretending that as a real man, bicycling in the winter was the most rewarding. I did like that nobody was out on the path. But otherwise I was lying. They are building a new bicycle cage at work to replace the unfenced bicycle rack. I won’t know if it’s better until they finish and I bicycle again. I may never know.

My right index finger is hurting now. I should change posture. But I don’t. I continue to sit in this bad posture and try to think of what to write next. So it goes, as that better writer than me used to say.

With our change in plans it feels like our vacation is very far away. We have to make it through the winter and most of the spring before packing up.

There’s a lot of activity going on upstairs. I was helping out and just escaped to finish up with these words. Early words means early anime watching after Tiger goes to sleep. Hopefully we’ll end a bit earlier, as I need to catch up on my sleep. Otherwise I’ll be a bitter David and bitter Davids are not fun to be around. I should know. I’m around him often.

It’s nice to have help over even if it’s only for a few days. I feel less rushed in the evenings. Less trying to coax Dinosaur to sleep for a few minutes to draft words.

I’m counting minutes on the clock. I should probably use this time in a more efficient manner.

I was supposed to call someone for my sister today. I called and was relieved when I received their answering machine. I don’t know what it is about calling new people, but it is nerve wracking. I don’t even know why it creates so much stress, but the build up to it leaves me nervous and jittery and unhappy. I was unhappy thinking about it, and unhappy with the thought that he may return my call. Which I think he did but I was busy. At work. Doing work stuff. So I couldn’t answer the phone and then I was busy doing stuff on my way home, like buying knee pads for Naginata so we can practice new Tendo Ryu techniques. You know, important stuff that doesn’t involve interactions with strangers—if you don’t count having to ask the cashier where the keep the knee pads. That part sucked.

Doolies spoke to the cashier at the grocery store. She was surprised by it. She almost forgot how to do it but without me there, my dark wings hovering over her shoulder, she remembered. And she liked it. She even threatened to make friends so she can do more of it. I don’t know what that world looks like but I can’t imagine it’s a good place. There’s too much opportunity to talk to people I don’t know in that world. That creates stress until I do know them. After that point it is okay. If I can get to that point without going through the first point, I would be on to something. There’s got to be a trick to it. Perhaps alcohol or lots of caffeine. I don’t think I have enough coffee beans in the cupboard to contemplate this trick. That reminds me: I need more caffeinated beans in the house.

At work I learned why families travel with other families to vacation spots. When you go yourself, the parents are with the children the entire time. When you travel with other families, the parents can take turns watching the group’s children, which means they can go off and do things. Like eat dinner without children or go surfing. I didn’t know surfing was a thing that adults do. New thing to learn today: some adults that aren’t Hawaiian or Californian surf. I also learn that others do not. Because they’re afraid of sharks. I’m with this second group. I don’t like sharks or sand or seawater. The dinner and drinks does sound fun, though. Now if only I can meet people without having to meet them and skip right to the part where we know each other, and thinking about talking to them doesn’t feel like hot coal tumbling down my esophagus. That would be good.