Days of Birth

Today is mine. It's lovely. It's hot. It's humid. It's in August. It smacks of insomnia at this point, as I drink what must be my fifth or sixth iced soy chai. (I'm pretty sure they've all had a fair amount of caffeine in them.)

It's not like I haven't tried to sleep. I did. Around 12:05 I turned my lights out and set my alarm. I think I actually managed to fall asleep. But it wasn't deep. It was more like the kind where your eyes are closed, and you seem able to think clearly despite the muddled attempts brought on by impending unconsciousness. My right arm was hanging over the side; it's the same arm that I pushed a little out of the socket the other day, accidentally of course, so it's a little sore. And all of a sudden, I picked it up, in the middle of my attempt to sleep, and slammed it on the side. Or rather, it did this on its own. Not hard, mind you. Just enough to wake me completely up. No biggy. I'll easily fall back.

Not so. Because here I am, wondering if this will be another night lying awake till 4:30 or so thinking about rearranging my small room, or my workout schedule next week (should I start now?), or the fact that I'll have to thaw out my talapia filets in hot water when I cook them next (can't do that now).

What I won't do is continue transferring old posts from my other, near-death, blog. I can't bear it now. I should be done next week. It's a strange thing to revisit old times. Each post seems so rushed. And I vowed not to write like that anymore. Yet, here I am, trying to rush this one out, trying to feed my new space, so I can hurry up and try to sleep again.

It's a writing exercise. Yeah, that's it.

I ran into an old co-worker from my stint in the records office at New School. That was a trip. We sat in the broken-down-air-conditioner hot air of the R train trying to converse across the aisle. Unlike yesterday, this aisle was free of tourists. But it wasn't working, so I stood next to the train driver who kept his door open, I'm assuming because of the stale air. It was fun talking about the school that, she said, was trying to go corporate. How does that work? Leave it to New School to try and put on a commercial air. Project Runway, I'm sure, is helping.

Today's my 33rd birthday. I'm pretty happy about that. Stories will resume at another time when I am at my most wakeful.