Rest less night

"I could not help it:

the restlessness was in my nature;

it agitated me to pain sometimes."

-- Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

Sticky gumball machine eyes 8-7-13

"I'd woken up early, and I took a long time getting ready to exist."

-- Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet 

Sticky gumball machine eyes (2) 8-7-13

"I've been put down, pushed around, apprehended and led downtown.
An' I can't help it if I'm out of sight,
'Cause I'm restless tonight."

-- Alison Krauss, "Restless"

Giving insomnia the finger (actually four fingers because I hate it that much)

“Every time you come in yelling that God damn "Rise and Shine!" "Rise and Shine!"
I say to myself, "How lucky dead people are!”

-- Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie

Fingers with cutout faces, one in stitches 7-8-13

“Do you wake up as I do, having forgotten what it is that hurts or where, until you move? 

There is a second of consciousness that is clean again. 

A second that is you, without memory or experience,

the animal warm and waking into a brand new world.”

-- Jeanette Winterson

“I didn't want to wake up.

 I was having a much better time asleep. 

And that's really sad.”

-- Ned Vizzini, It's Kind of a Funny Story

Dark circles

“Did you ever wonder if the person in the puddle is real, and you're just a reflection of him?”

-- Bill Watterson

Self portrait 6-21-13

“The girl in the mirror wasn't who I wanted to be 

and her life wasn't the one I wanted to have."

-- Francesca Lia Block, Pink Smog

“... the abyss you stare into and that stares back at you is your reflection in the mirror --

we all have it -- that shadow self -- that dark heart ...”

-- John Geddes, A Familiar Rain 

Sleep deprivation chamber

 "... night brings me many a deep remorse.

I realize that from the cradle up I have been

like the rest of the race -- never quite sane in the night."

-- Mark Twain

" We wake in the night, to stereophonic silence."

 -- Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook

Self portrait 6-19-13

"Beware thoughts that come in the night.  

They aren't turned properly; 

they come in askew, free of sense and restriction, 

deriving from the most remote of sources."

 --William Trogdon 

"Ghosts were created when the first man awoke in the night."

 -- J.M. Barrie, Little Minister 

Midnight Cowboy

"For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, 

and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.”

-- Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist 

Midnight cowboy 6-8-13

"The lunar look skimmed scantly toe, breast, arm,

Then edged on slowly, slightly,
To shoulder, hand, face; till each austere form
Was blanched its whole length brightly.”

-- Thomas Hardy, "A Cathedral Facade at Midnight"

I scored another lucky jackpot at the thrift store -- a whole bunch of pose-able little action figure people, including:

1. a super-muscular wrestler with a really unattractive bowl haircut and weird embossed chest hair.
2. a bounty-hunter-ish dude with black gloves, cargo pants, a goatee, and handcuffs hooked on his belt.
3. a bridegroom in tux, bow tie and cummerbund, whose head is on a spring allowing it to recess, turtle-style, into his shoulders.
4. a paunchy gangster-y guy with a beer gut, a handful of papers and a black-stained pointer finger.
5. an orange wizard-y or maybe Zeus-ish guy with long, curly white hair and a white beard, wearing a purple toga and holding a handful of what might be thunderbolts? Or maybe protoplasm? 
6. and for today's face .... a li'l cowboy.

Except the cowboy's face isn't really there.
I mean, it's there in real life, but here it is rendered as just an empty, blank space.
Which forces the question ... if it's blank, is it still a face?

I am going to argue that yes, it is still a face, even if it is featureless.

I am going to argue that facial space without any features is still facial, and therefore still a face. Plus, the cowboy is wearing a hat, and his little ears stick out, which both imply a head, which implies that there has to be a face hidden there in the blankness somewhere, even if you can't actually see it.

For backup, I will rely on Dictionary.com, which defines a face as "the front part of the head, from the forehead to the chin."

So there.

Plus, it's my blog. So if I say it's a face, it's a face.

Feeling dazed and a little confused after yet another sleepless night, I feel a kind of kinship with this lonely li'l night wanderer, out there roaming around under the moonlight with only his shadow and the moon for company.

I can tell from his very blank expression and empty stare that he is a fellow insomniac who knows intimately the punishing, bone-deep fatigue and loneliness of long, wakeful nights, and who knows all too well how slow the night can go, and yet how quickly a morning is over.

I wish he could wander over to my house so we could talk about it.

If he could, I would give him fresh warm gingerbread.

I made some at 5 a.m. because I was still up.

Night comes creeping

“Fading light means more than just the end of another day. 

Night is when terrible things emerge from their sleep and seek soft flesh and hot blood.”

-- Jim Butcher, Turn Coat 

 

Self portrait with spider 6-6-13

“The thought burrowed into her heart as darkness fell. 

It coiled in her guts as she wedged herself amongst the boughs of a tree to sleep.

And in the morning, it woke with her and clung to her back,

riding on her shoulders as she climbed down, hungry and exhausted from nightmares."

-- Paolo Bacigalupi, The Drowned Cities

 

 

Self portrait with spider (2) 6-6-13

“You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. 

I wove my webs for you because I liked you. 

After all, what's a life, anyway? 

We're born, we live a little while, we die. 

A spider's life can't help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. 

By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle.

Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that.” 

-- E. B. White, Charlotte's Web  

Naked Barbies in mustaches!

“Different though the sexes are, they inter-mix. 

In every human being a vacillation from one sex to the other takes place, 

and often it is only the clothes that keep the male or female likeness, 

while underneath the sex is the very opposite of what it is above.” 

-- Virginia Woolf

Naked Barbies in mustaches 6-1-13

“I have not lived as a woman. I have lived as a man. 

I've just done what I damn well wanted to, and I've made enough money to support myself, 

and ain't afraid of being alone.” 

-- Katharine Hepburn 

"The wounded child inside many females is a girl who was taught from early childhood 

that she must become something other than herself, 

deny her true feelings, in order to attract and please others.”

-- Bell Hooks, All About Love: New Visions 

In today's edition of Helpful Advice from an Exhausted Insomniac's Addled, Sleep-Deprived Brain ...

Sometimes you've gotta do what you've gotta do just to keep breathing.

If gluing silicone mustaches on naked thrift store Barbies helps to get you through a day without totally losing your shit, then for fuck's sake, please glue silicone mustaches on naked thrift store Barbies.

Because the way I see it, gluing silicone mustaches on naked thrift store Barbies doesn't hurt anybody. It might keep you from hurting yourself. And it's fun for the Barbies!

Here at A Face A Day, that's what we call a "win-win-win".

So if you feel like you might be about to lose your shit, STOP!
Be a win-win-winner, like me, and glue silicone mustaches on naked thrift store Barbies instead!

Next time on Helpful Advice from an Exhausted Insomniac's Addled, Sleep-Deprived Brain, I'll discuss some burning insomniac questions, like "Who the fuck is going to eat all of these cookies?" and "3 a.m. Dilemma: Ironing or pumping iron?"

Luna tick, Luna tock

“Zaphod felt he was teetering on the edge of madness 

and wondered if he shouldn't just jump over and have done with it.”

-- Douglas Adams, 

The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Polymer clay face 5-30-13

“Of all the things a man may do, sleep probably contributes most to keeping him sane.” 

-- Roger Zelazny,  Isle of the Dead 

“I lie on the floor, washed by nothing and hanging on. 

I cry at night. I am afraid of hearing voices, or a voice. 

I have come to the edge, of the land.

I could get pushed over."

-- Margaret Atwood, Cat's Eye

Ding ding ding!

Insomnia fun fact!

Since I was up all night and the moon was big and bright ...

Luna is the Roman name for the Greek goddess of the moon, Selene. She is best known in ancient art and literature for her role in the myth of Endymion.

Endymion was a shepherd, and is thought to be the first human to observe the movements of the moon. I figure he watched the moon a lot because he was up at night literally counting sheep and looking out for predators that might be stalking his flock in the dark.

At least he had a good reason to be awake, unlike me, who was up all night fending off anxiety, agitation and total lunacy by polishing all of my boots and shoes, lifting weights, reading a photography magazine, and watching Robert Irvine salvage yet another dying eatery on "Restaurant Impossible."

Ding ding ding!

Bonus insomnia fun fact!

"Lunacy" is a term that comes from the word lunaticus, which means ... wait for it ... "of the moon" or "moonstruck". "Lunatic" is a term referring to people who are considered mentally ill, dangerous, foolish or unpredictable. Hence, today's crazy face.

Yay! Fun with etiology!

But back to our myth.

According to the story, Selene (aka Luna) was super-infatuated with Endymion the hottie demigod shepherd, who was a son of Zeus, and who was young and beautiful (especially, it seems, by moonlight).

Apparently, Selene/Luna thought Endymion looked particularly good when he was asleep, so good, in fact, that she asked Zeus to grant him eternal youth and eternal sleep so that she could enjoy gazing at his flawless, moonlit, slumbering face forever and ever. Zeus granted her request, and every night until the end of time, Selene visits Endymion where he sleeps endlessly and eternally in a cave on Mount Latmus.

Sleeps endlessly and eternally ...

I'm totes jelly.

Some hottie demigod shepherds have all the luck.

Ding ding ding!

This isn't fun anymore.

2:49 a.m. ... at least somebody's smiling

"Always keep your words soft and sweet, 

just in case you have to eat them." 

-- Andy Rooney

Smiley face cookies 5-27-13

Smiley face cookies (2) 5-27-13

"Life"

A crust of bread and 

a corner to sleep in,
A minute to smile and 

an hour to weep in,
A pint of joy to a peck of trouble,
And never a laugh 

but the moans come double;
And that is life!

A crust and a corner that 

love makes precious,
With a smile to warm and 

the tears to refresh us;
And joy seems sweeter 

when cares come after,
And a moan is the 

finest of foils for laughter;
And that is life! 

-- Paul Laurence Dunbar

I like baking cookies.

No, really, I do.

But let's be honest -- cutout sugar cookies with frosting are a real pain in the ass. 

Too much fuss with the rolling and the cutting out and the rolling again. 

And the cutting out. 

Again.

They take too long and the cleanup is a drag -- all that flour everywhere. 

And there's always that little bit of scrap dough that gets wasted.

And you have to make the frosting.

And you have to wait for the cookies to cool so you can frost them.

And nobody enjoys cleaning out a frosting-smeared pastry bag and piping tip. 

Nobody.

I have to be pretty desperate to bake cutout sugar cookies with frosting.

Like, up at 2 a.m., already lifted weights, already watched my all DVR'd episodes of "Restaurant Impossible" (Dear Robert Irvine, please come whip my life into shape) and "Best Ink" (yay, Teresa, you're my favorite!), none of the three books I am currently juggling are doing it for me, you-can't-break-me-I-won't-take-an-Ambien desperate.

Welcome to 2:49 a.m.

Cheerfulness can seem a little scarce at 2:49 a.m. when  agitation and anxiety are churning on high. 

When everyone but me is snoozing peacefully.

When sleep feels like a half-step sideways, four steps back, way back, kind of affair.

Sometimes, when you're the only one up at 2:49 a.m., you have to rummage around in the cupboard and scratch together enough ingredients to bake your own batch of cheerful.

Like Albert sings in "Bye Bye Birdie," sometimes you've got to:

Take off the gloomy mask of tragedy,
It's not your style;
You'll look so good that you'll be glad
Ya' decide to smile!
Pick out a pleasant outlook,
Stick out that noble chin;
Wipe off that "full of doubt" look,
Slap on a happy grin!
And spread sunshine all over the place,
Just put on a happy face!

Then go ahead and take that Ambien.

Nighthawk

“All my life I have been a poor go-to-sleeper. 

No matter how great my weariness, 

the wrench of parting with consciousness 

is unspeakably repulsive to me. 

I loathe Somnus, that black-masked headsman binding me to the block; 

and if in the course of years I have got so used to my nightly ordeal 

as almost to swagger while the familiar axe 

is coming out of its great velvet-lined case,

 initially I had no such comfort or defense.”

-- Vladimir Nabokov

Self portrait 5-20-13

Somnus is the Latin name for the Greek god Hypnos, 

a son of the goddess Nyx  (night) 

and the personification of sleep. 

His palace was a dark cave where the sun never shined. 

His dwelling place had neither door nor gate 

lest he be awakened by the creaking of hinges.

Serenity now!

"We can be serene even in the midst of calamities."

-- Swami Satchidananda, The Yoga Sutras

 

"Let reality be reality."

                                                 -- Lao Tzu

Stone garden statue in my backyard 5-18-13

Frank:      "Serenity now! Serenity now!"
George:    "What is that?"
Frank:       "The doctor gave me a relaxation cassette. When my blood pressure gets too high,
                  the man on the tape tells me to say 'serenity now!"
George:     "Are you supposed to yell it?"
Frank:       "The man on the tape wasn't specific."

-- Frank and George Costanza, Seinfeld episode 159, "The Serenity Now"

I am trying a new approach.

Instead of lying awake all night struggling for sleep that never comes, I have decided to stop fighting against my insomnia and start cooperating with it instead.

The first step is acceptance.

Insomnia is my "calamity." It is the card I've been dealt. It is my reality and it doesn't seem to be going away any time soon. 

So we're going to have to find a way to co-exist.

I think it's called coping.

I did a dry-run of the new plan last night. It went like this:

I went to bed at 11:30 p.m.

I was still wide awake at 2 a.m., so I got up and lifted weights for an hour. 

I know, I know. Trust me, I know. All the sleep advice says not to exercise late in the day or in the evening, because it might disrupt normal sleep patterns. Well guess what? My sleep patters are already abnormally fucked and I'm not sleeping anyway. Also, I've been wanting to work some strength training into my routine. And, 2 a.m. is neither late in the day nor is it evening. It is technically early, early morning. So I was actually getting a head start. Look at me being the early bird. Getting that worm.

I was wider awake (and sweaty) at 3 a.m., so I baked molasses cookies.

My very wise friend Jill suggested this tactic. In an email (all the way from Chile!), Jill wrote:

"Do you ever cook at night? 

I used to do that a lot. Actually, baking, more often. 

You can just make tons and tons of things, because it doesn't require a lot of concentration 

and it gives you something to do that has a tangible outcome. 

Plus you live with guys, so they can eat your stuff." 

She was right. 

It didn't require much concentration and I wound up with a satisfying pile of 5 dozen delicious cookies that made my not-sleeping seem not-so-futile. Plus, the house smelled amazing -- spicy and welcoming and homey. Jill was also right that the guys I live with would eat my stuff. This morning, my husband went back for thirds with his coffee. Even my paleo, carnivorous, carb-hating weightlifter-of-a-son gobbled a few. As he was chewing one cookie and reaching for another, he told me, "These are really good cookies." Bonus mom points.

While the cookies baked, I watched an interview from 2009 with Jason Bateman on "Inside the Actor's Studio," in which Bateman said there would be a film version of  Arrested Development. Wait, what? Did I miss something or is Jason Bateman just a big fat liar?

At 4 a.m. I was still pretty awake (and salty about Jason Bateman being a liar and all), but I went back to bed anyway. I drifted off around 5 and dreamed that an old friend and I were de-hoarding her mother's house. So it appears as though I accomplished that, too.

I slept about an hour and a half. 

I was awake again at 6:22 a.m. and got up for another day. 

This day. 

And even though my eyes are puffed like Mr. Magoo, and even though I am really tired and will probably be pretty much worthless for the rest of this day, at least I managed to sidestep a lot of the negative, toxic, self-loathing, dark, emotional and psychological turmoil and anxiety that usually shits on my sanity while I'm lying helpless and hopelessly awake for hours and hours on end. 

Also, my shoulders look pretty buff.

Baby come back ... a love letter

“Fatigue is here, in my body, in my legs and eyes. 

That is what gets you in the end."

                                                                               -- Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale

Self portrait 4-9-13

"Sometimes you just gotta hope for the hope of having hope some day."

                                                                                                        -- Jeffery Thompson

Dear Sleep,

I miss you.

It's been so long, and I feel like we've drifted so far apart. But if the chasm hasn't grown too wide and deep, if there is still even the slimmest shred of a possibility of a tiny flicker of hope that we can somehow maybe repair the rift, then I am ready to make amends.

Our separation has been painful for me. 

If I have offended you in some way, I am sorry. 

If I have taken you for granted, please forgive me.

Living without you has been miserable. My days and nights are flooded with sweet memories and happy thoughts of you and how we used to be.  

We used to be so good together.

Can we please try again?

I promise I'll treat you better this time. 

I'll be nicer. 

I'll try harder.

I'll be prettier, taller, funnier ... whatever you need me to be.

Just please, please, come back.

I'll leave a light on for you.

Desperately,
Me

Hey. Hey? Are you awake?

"The worst thing in the world is to try to sleep and not to." 

                                                                                                -F. Scott Fitzgerald

Self portrait 4-5-13

I don't sleep well.
I don't sleep enough.
In fact, all too often I don't sleep at all. 
This is not by choice.
I get super annoyed by the "you need more sleep" advice that says people need to stop skimping on sleep, stop being so busy and dedicate more time to shut-eye. As if sleeping or not sleeping is merely a simple choice.
Like blue socks or black socks?
Tuna or salmon?
Paper or plastic?
Trust me, if sleep was merely a simple choice, I'd be choosing it.
But you can't always get what you want.
And sometimes, you can't even get what you need.
Because the cruel hand of whatever evil tyrant rules the night keeps rocking the cradle, jarring you awake as soon as you begin to drift.

"Hey. Hey! Are you awake?"

I understand now why they use sleep deprivation as a means of torture.

Insomnia is a cruel, cold-hearted bitch.

I read a lot about not sleeping when I'm not sleeping. It doesn't help. It's kind of like smelling something delicious, like fresh bread baking, without getting to eat any of it. It just leaves you feeling left out and hungry. Also, it's not all that sleep-inducing or comforting, at 3 a.m., to find out that chronic sleep deprivation can increase your risk of heart disease. And type 2 diabetes. As well as cause:

• irritability
• cognitive impairement
• memory lapse/loss
• impaired moral judgment
• symptoms of ADHD
• impaired immune system
• decreased reaction time/accuracy
• aches
• tremors
• hallucinations
• psychosis

The jury is still out on whether sleep deprivation can kill humans. But it has killed animals in sleep deprivation research studies. Rats. Dogs. Puppies.

That's right. Puppies. Dead puppies.

Sweet dreams.

Twinkle, twinkle

“Rather nice night, after all. 

Stars are out and everything. 

Exceptionally tasty assortment of them.” 

                                                                          -- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned

Night face, 4-1-13

“Could it be that the planets are castaway heads.”

                                                              

                                                             -- Visar Zniti, The Condemned Apple: Selected Poetry

"Insomnia" the movie

Today's face is my first ever animated video face!

It is a special kind of self portrait -- a sneak peek into what it's like inside my insomniac head when I am desperately seeking sleep. Even in the deepest, deadest silence of the calmest, darkest night, it can get pretty noisy up in here, here inside my restless, wide-awake mind.

I mean, I want to hear the calm and blissful harp, but it seems as though all my mind can conjure are crying babies, beeping alarms, blaring sirens, crowing roosters and ticking clocks which, at 4 a.m., might as well be f***ing jack hammers.

If you've ever struggled with chronic (or even occasional) sleeplessness, you have my deepest sympathy and understanding. If you sleep regularly, deeply, soundly and undisturbed, don't ever take for granted how lucky you are. Oh, yeah, and also, I hate you.

Insomnia sucks donkey balls. Big. Fat. Hairy. Donkey. Balls.

But then again, without insomnia, there would be no "Insomnia the movie," now, would there? Without insomnia, half the posts on this blog wouldn't even exist. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Maybe it's just a thing.

Hey. I can't sleep. Give me some slack.

And while I am pretty experienced and well-versed about the subject of my own insomnia, I admit right up front that I am a very extremely amateur stop motion video artist. Very extremely amateur. My work is rudimentary at best, I know. But I am trying to learn.

There are folks out there who do amazing things with this super fun visual medium.

I am not one of those folks.

But that does not mean I can't still play with their toys.

Going, going, gone

Drifting off to sleep,


I thought about her.


How nobody is perfect.

How you just have to


close your eyes


and breathe out

"Drifting," self portrait series 3-15-13

and let the puzzle


of the human heart


be what it is.

-- Sue Monk Kidd,  

The Secret Life of Bees

Up all night

"But three, now, Christ, three a.m.! Doctors say the body’s at low tide then. The soul is out. The blood moves slow. You’re the nearest to dead you’ll ever be save dying. Sleep is a patch of death, but three in the morn, full wide-eyed staring, is living death! You dream with your eyes open. God, if you had strength to rouse up, you’d slaughter your half-dreams with buckshot! But no, you lie pinned to a deep well-bottom that’s burned dry. The moon rolls by to look at you down there, with its idiot face. It’s a long way back to sunset, a far way on to dawn ..."

-- Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes

Self portrait 3-12-13

Sleepless.
Again.
Grrrrrr.
On the brighter side of being wide awake at 3 a.m., I got to watch that new episode of Pawn Stars (Chumlee lost 5 pounds and Steve Carell dropped by the pawn shop).
So, there's that.
Jesus. Just shoot me.

To sleep: perchance to dream

Ay, there's the rub.

Polymer clay sleepy face (2) 3-9-13

I sculpted this little face during a long car ride yesterday following a string of difficult nights of very-little-not-til-the-wee-hours sleep, and fresh (or not so) on the heels of a night that yielded absolutely no sleep at all.

Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada. None.

I rode in the rear seat and passed the time there and back pressing and molding and smoothing and rubbing the egg-sized lump of clay in my hand until this sleepy guy emerged.

He is my second sleepy head this month (see also March 2). Maybe in my desperate quest for sound, regular slumber (who am I kidding? At this point I'd settle for any quality of regular slumber) I am subliminally (or not so) shaping sleep totems for myself. Maybe by making sleeping faces I am trying to conjure magic or some kind of spell for myself that will hold the sleep stealers and insomnia bandits at bay. I don't know. But at this point, I'm willing to try just about anything.

He looks peaceful, despite his earnest little furrowed brow. He makes me feel peaceful. He is resting on my pillow. And I did finally sleep better last night. So maybe some drowsiness really did seep out of him and into me.

Maybe not.

At any rate, sculpting clay is a lovely way to pass time in the car. I highly recommend it.

A long night this morning

"Am I sleeping? Have I slept at all? This is insomnia." 

 -- Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

Self portrait 2-10-13

Wide awake. Again.

"I've always envied people who sleep easily. 

Their brains must be cleaner, 

the floorboards of the skull well swept, 

all the little monsters closed up 

in a steamer trunk at the foot of the bed." 

--David Benioff, City of Thieves

The nights are long and lonely 2-4-13