To sleep, perchance to get a migraine and watch M*A*S*H all night long

It began with people laughing at me and ended in tears, as only a night at the hospital for me can.

Last night I had a sleep study. This means people studied my sleep at a sleep clinic in the local place of round-the-clock medical care. I didn't expect to sleep much or well, but I did expect to do better than this.

Let's start in the parking lot. ("If I had a dollar!" you're saying. You trollop) The prep sheet recommended bringing your own pillow, because even it knows how crappy hospital pillows are. I use three during the night, and three very specific ones, because I have spent too many years dealing with headaches and neck pain and anyone else who has knows that this means you have to have very specific pillows in order to not wake up in pain every day. So I stuffed two into a small suitcase and put the third into a giant Ziploc bag.

As I headed for the hospital entrance, I noticed a couple also making their way, behind me, in the same direction. Outside the hospital it's really quite beautiful, I must note; you cross a really pretty creek and pass lots of trees and these round, purple flowers atop tall stems that look like fountains in '70s malls. Also lilacs.

Somewhere around there I heard the people behind me laughing and then this pointed throat-clearing. I had a feeling they were noticing my luggage and remarking that I must be going to the sleep clinic. I turned and looked at them and knew, with my great big giant brain, that something like this was indeed what they were saying.

Also they might have been laughing at the bepenguined winter scene on the pillow in the Ziploc bag.

This made me happy that I might thusly amuse others. YES! PENGUIN! Now I must go sleep on this penguin. You wish you had one too! Kisses!

I checked in at admissions and proceeded to the sleep center. Diane was the sleep technician who would be watching over me through the night in a not-at-all-freaky way. Actually she was really cool and made me feel quite at ease. I warned her that I would likely be going to the bathroom a lot, especially since my kidneys react to urinary obstacles by kicking it up to 11. When people tell her they've had to go for hours but didn't want to bother her, though, she always tells them she wishes they had called. She would much rather they were sleeping. So I told her I would, in that "OK, you asked for it" way where your voice rises in hills throughout the sentence.

It took about half an hour to hook me up to all the wires. I peed and got into bed to read. My face was tensing up quite painfully in reaction to the things stuck to it. One of the few times in my life when I was able to note the difference between head pain and an actual headache. This pain went through regular cycles during which I thought "OH thank God, I'm OK," and then shortly thereafter was cursing the heavens. And it made me drink a lot of water.

You're a smart cookie. You know where that's going.

Once I was too tired to read about Harry's new Firebolt anymore, I tried relaxation stuff on my iPod, and when that was going nowhere, M*A*S*H on my wee DVD player.

Nothing. The pain was keeping me awake, as was the kidney-bladder dynamic duo (trio) that is never so happy as when we're in a situation where it's a difficulty to pee. "Ha, a CHALLENGE!" bladder says (in a British accent, don't ask me why). "Kidneys! Churn out the yellow like you've never churned before!"

When I had to go to the bathroom or needed anything at all, I just said Diane's name, and she came padding along. The intercom was set one way so she could hear me. At one point I said her name and the door opened and it was a young man in scrubs. "You're a METAMORPH!? AWESOME!!" I hollered.

No, I didn't. And no, she wasn't. Although I never did see them both at the same time ...

As I feared, head-pain did evolve into head-ache. Next time I called Diane, Man came again (1 a.m., he told me it was). I asked if there was any reason I couldn't take Aleve. Nope, he said. I stumbled over to grab my purse and dug through it in the bathroom. I knew from past assessments that there should be two Aleve in there. Thank GOD there were. I was an unhappy mess at this point, unhappily triply messy for all the things attached to me making me oh so pretty. "I really don't look like this," I wanted to tell Man and wave my hand before myself so that he'd see the prettiest me ever.

(I wasn't after him or anything. Just didn't want anyone seeing me like that. Not him, not Diane, not God in His Heaven.)

"What's this 'sleep'? It rhymes with
'weep'; THAT I can do."

Aleve kicked in fast. Sleep still didn't. When all was said and done, I slept in a few like 20-minute batches. (Diane said 2-3 hours total.) I also watched several M*A*S*H episodes multiple times. I probably went to the bathroom 7 or 8 times. They wake you up at 5:30 to leave, because by then the techs have been there like 10 hours and need to go home to sleep themselves. When Diane was pulling the wires off me, she recommended I take the day off if I could.

I stopped at work to grab stuff to do at home, got an egg sammich at CTB and came home, to the confusion of five fuzzy quadrupeds. As I got water out of the Brita, Fathom peeked around the counter corner at me and told me in no uncertain terms that I was to be HERE with THEM during THE DARKNESS. At 8 I got back in bed with NPR and zonked out.

I'll find out Monday whether they were able to learn anything or not. If not, I shall not rest until I have killed Lord Voldemort! No, Ron, I will not stop saying his name!

I have no idea why I wrote this a coupla weeks ago.

so youre just a woman on a horse

In fact I suspect I didn't write it, but got it somewhere else. I bet J will know.

But I am NOT wearing a swimsuit yet.

There are many good things about Florida. Summer is not one of them. A Florida summer grabs you by the breath and the lungs as you step outside and crams itself into your nose and airways and ears and hair and shoes and the small of your back, which will be soaked in sweat before you make it the six steps to your car at 9 a.m. It wraps you in a thick wet wool blanket pulled down over your face and doesn't let go till December. If you're lucky.

It makes you want to cut your hair.

Do you SEE what I mean?

Some people who grew up in Florida don't even notice, of course. To you I say Brava. To you I also say See ya in March.

A New York summer approaches, and with it many sundry Happinesses. It's a big change from Florida summers, for sure: you look forward to it. People actually take vacations, and not just cos their kids are out of school. Local vacations. To the lake or the mountains. Even the lake IN the mountains. Yes, lakes in the mountains in the summertime. They're just that good. Cabins and cottages and "camp" when it means "lots of houses by the lake."

This is where those Country Time Lemonade ads happen. I want a bike.

(The nature of my magic will likely mean that I am ruining this summer by paying it early tribute, but a life lived in fear is a life half lived, so fie on thee, Fates. And send me a sandwich, would you?)

Here, summer waits gently for you to open your door and step outside, a lithe blue-gold fairy the color of sunshine, all swathed in modulating green. She invites you to have ice cream and barbecues and lie in the sun not for the tanning but to float in this almost dream world. There are trails to be hiked and water to be boated and bluegreen nights to laugh in and fireflies to watch while frogs peep and crickets sing. Golden golden air to breathe deeply as it nourishes you from the inside out. It revives your soul and reminds you why you came to this Earth.

And you get to wear pretty skirts, too.

what chocolate can do of a Thursday night

As I was lying in bed last night waiting for the sweet gift of sleep -- which, probably thanks to the slow waltz of Wegmans' Chocolate Elegance through my veins, was a damned long time a-comin' -- I felt like my life is really pretty together. It stunned me, wondering why I don't feel like that more often. Most of you know the answer to that: The little things get me down. I'm trying to thwart that, though. See the sunny picture. I think the arrival of spring has knocked some sense into me too, as spring arrivals are wont to do. Forget-me-nots are everywhere, and the lilacs are blossoming -- two of my very ultimately ice-cream-on-top favorite things on this earth. And I'm exercising a lot, too, which just makes a person feel good.

So I want to sing the praises of a danged good life and give thanks to the gods for it all. I have a job that's not so bad, even if it feels empty, and because of it I know Jenny and Chris K and others. I live in New York again, and maybe one day I'll feel like I really even belong here. Shelter over my head, car I love, family close by. Five fuzzbots who are some of the most amazing souls I have ever known. Amazing wonderful terrific sister- and brother-friends, who just make this life a wonderful place to be: (in no particular order) Chris R, Chris H, Ealish, Erica, Matt, Katrina, Amy, Jenny, Mary, Melissa, Chris, Chris, Jen, Blake, Karla, Megan, Paul, Kirt ... I feel like I'm giving a commencement speech here, but it's long overdue. You rock, and I love you all. I am so Goddamned/Godblessed lucky for the fact of you.

What really set me on this path was thinking about what I want in a guy -- and what I don't want. I want someone who's Arrived, who's together and happy and not needy. Someone open and not afraid. Confident and happy enough to reach out to me when I give him a flash of that smile (name the song! EALISH). When I was thinking about this, I realized that I have finally Arrived in my own sense. You never finish changing, but you hit a point where you really start to become the person you've always wanted to be (unless you were lucky enough to be that person long ago). The only thing missing in my life right now is The Guy. Everything else? Smackin' dandy fine, it is.

I've said it before, but you know what? I'm ready. For real.

(Also, I watched Grey's Anatomy last night, and that show ALWAYS puts me into an emotional tailspin or sets me musing about the big-picture state of my life.)

He's even been known to drag one away

Salem likes himself a nice fresh nanner of a day.

My apartment smells like beans

And my lips are weirdly raw and red. So are J's & M's. But I don't think Blake's were. Julie's weren't. The question is, What happened to us and not to others? What did we imbibe/consume? Did the shade of Quexacoatl settle upon us in some dark moment and try to nurse our inner wounds?

Or was it the consequences of the margarita salt? (No; J doesn't like salt.) Not like there was a raging game of Spin the Bottle. (Which, you will not be surprised to learn, I never ever played.)

A spatula and a small blue martini glass didst vanish, however. Somewhere out there they are dancing a sultry flamenco, turning close and slowly through gently spiraling circles of salt in a warm and dimly lit room.