Killing time

 "Again time elapsed."

-- Carolyn Keene, The Secret of the Old Clock

Mixed media self portrait 6-20-13

“The time would not pass. Somebody was playing with the clocks ... ”

-- Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five 

Clocks--that's the problem.
Every clock is a nest of minutes and hours.
Clocks strap us into their shape.
Instead of heading for the nearest star, 

all we do is corkscrew.
Clocks lock us into minutes, make Ferris wheel
riders of us all, lug us round and round
from number to number,
dice the time of our lives into tiny bits
until the bits are all we know
and the only question we care to ask is
"What time is it?"  

-- Jerry Spinelli, Love, Stargirl 

("The Clock on the Morning Lenape Building)

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  

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.

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.

You don't have to rip my face off

“I want to make something of myself. 

I believe it’s called a statue. 
” 

--Jarod Kintz

The Titanic would never have sunk if it were made out of a sink.

Smiling bendy man with magazine cutout statue and a polymer clay face 5-16-13

“Stealing, of course, is a crime, and a very impolite thing to do. 

But like most impolite things, it is excusable under certain circumstances. 

Stealing is not excusable if, for instance, you are in a museum and you decide 

that a certain painting would look better in your house, 

and you simply grab the painting and take it there. 

But if you were very, very hungry, and you had no way of obtaining money, 

it would be excusable to grab the painting, take it to your house, and eat it.”

-- Lemony Snicket, The Wide Window

4 a.m. blues

“There is a dead spot in the night, 

that coldest, blackest time 

when the world has forgotten evening 

and dawn is not yet a promise. 

A time when it is far too early to arise, 

but so late that going to bed makes small sense.”

-- Robin Hobb, Assassin's Quest 

Polymer clay face 5-15-13

"I could hear the roots of loneliness 

creeping through me when the world was hushed 

at four o'clock in the morning.” 

-- Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“Night is the hardest time to be alive  ...

It lasts so long, and four a.m. knows all my secrets.”

                                    -- Poppy Z. Brite

Is that all there is?

“It's a very salutary thing to realize that the rather dull universe 

in which most of us spend most of our time 

is not the only universe there is.”

                                                                                                 -- Aldous Huxley

Self portrait 4-12-13

I am a prisoner held captive by chronic pain.
It is a lonely confinement that holds me hostage, day and night.
Some days are better than others.
Sometimes, my pain allows me some freedom -- a little fresh air and sunshine, some semblance of "normal."
But other times ... other times are something else entirely.
Other times, daylight is snuffed out and the prison walls close in.
The unrelenting pain is exhausting -- physically, emotionally, psychologically.

It starves me of precious sleep. (The stingy sleep rations here are like watery slop shoved under the door on a filthy tin plate.)
It steals my confidence.
It grinds down my defenses.
It erodes my relationships.
It devours hope and shits despair.

It's tempting to give up.

Except that I've found an escape.
I've located a secret passageway that takes me to another place. A place beyond the pain.
These faces.
This art.
This blog.
This is how I escape the pain.

I can't stay here forever, of course. My visits are clandestine. It is a temporary sanctuary. But a sanctuary nonetheless.
Here, I forget the pain if only for a little while.
Here, something like a blessing lifts me up and out and away.
Here, there is a kind of relief, even if it is simply a momentary distraction, a fleeting illusion.
Whatever it is, I don't care.
Until the pain snatches me back from this other place, I'll sink hard and deep into the sweet beautiful weightlessness of this atmosphere. I will cling desperately, begging it to devour me, to gobble me up so that I never have to go back into my hungry captor's claws.

But I know pain will hunt me down.
I can already hear its footsteps closing in.
Feel its hot, sour breath on my neck.

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.