Claritin D = no sleep for me

Morning, dear ones.

I'm in an interesting mental/physical state. Saw dawn today. It was pretty.


Why, you ask, did I see the sun rise? It all boils down to one little pill: Claritin D. Last night, Katie and I went out and did some super fun stuff: bought things at Target, had pho at a Vietnamese restaurant I'd never been to, drove up to the foothills and took pictures, and got Coldstone for the first time since who knows when. THEN we went over to Mary and Julio's, where Nic was waiting with an allergy pill for moi. I had asked him to bring one because my eyes were bothering me and they have a dog, and I even asked him what kind it was...he said claritin. Cool! So, he dutifully brought me one. What I failed to determine was what kind of claritin it was. See, I take the normal stuff all the time. What I DON'T take is Claritin D -- it may as well be cocaine. I CANNOT sleep if I've had it. Not his fault; I should have realized that I was taking a horse pill instead of the dainty little normal claritins--my mistake.

As a result, I lay awake / in partial dream world for the majority of the night. By the time 5 o'clock rolled around, I was about done with that. So, to Katie's bewilderment, I got myself up, made a pot of coffee, and sat down out here in the livingroom to write away my frustrations.

The funny thing is that I'm starting my new job today, and I was worried that I would oversleep. Ha.

As for the job, I'm a little nervous--not about it, but about the fact that I just booked a five-day vacation 20 days from now and haven't told my boss yet. Wish me luck. :-/

You know that simultaneously weightless and super-heavy feeling in your body when you haven't slept? It's the strangest thing... I feel like I'm embedded in the couch but also uncomfortably floaty. Plus there's that pseudo-nausea early morning thing going on... but overall, I feel pretty good, considering. Hope I'm not a space cadet today!

Some pics from last night:







Well... only passed about half an hour with this. Wonder what I'll do 'til 8:30 when I have to leave. Hope you all have a delicious Sunday... smooches!

Coffee musings...

Good morning!

Have you ever noticed that you like the idea of certain things better than the things themselves?

I woke up this morning at around 9:10. Katie had already had her coffee, eaten breakfast, watered all the plants, written in her journal, gotten dressed, etc. before I moved an inch. And as she stood in the doorway of the bathroom holding her coffee mug, she said, "I always like the idea of a second cup more than I actually like drinking it." Which I think is so true about a lot of things. But for me, coffee itself has always been that way. So I'll focus on that.

I LOVE the idea of coffee. It floats nebulously around all of my cozy, creatively-driven fantasies. It's comforting, it's sophisticated, it's even kinda sexy... it comes to symbolize the beginning of every day, pajamas, reading in a coffee shop, working hard on something you actually care about... for me, anyway. But when it comes down to it, I really don't like drinking coffee as much as I like thinking about drinking coffee. You know what I mean? It's almost always a little disappointing.

There were a couple times in my life where coffee really lived up to my unfair expectations. In high school, my group of friends had kind of taken over the Caribou Coffee on Randall. We swarmed there in our under-21 boredom, using the "lodge" for homework, playing cards, sifting through our teenage drama... it was expensive, going there every day, but we had meager bills to pay so it didn't seem to matter. My social existence revolved around coffee. And I loved it.

In the last year of college, I met Alex in Creative Writing. Right before something was due, we'd head over to Merry Ann's at like 11 o'clock at night and sit there til 4 in the morning, chain-drinking bad coffees, writing on our laptops, and ignoring the drunken conversations behind us. I loved those nights.

Also... I have come to appreciate iced coffees in the summer in this house. There's something grad-student chic about making your own iced coffee and sitting down in the shade with a difficult book...feels like you're cheating the system somehow. Although Starbucks does have a leg up where liquid sweetener is concerned.

Anyway, moving past my coffee philosophizing...

Last night Katie and I went out for a change. We went to this little restaurant on the corner of Griegos and Rio Grande where the walls were made of old doors and there was a fire hydrant embedded in the concrete by our outdoor table. SO New Mexico.













It was sweet. Plus, I hadn't eaten barbeque in a while.

Now, if you were under the impression that I was--that Microsoft Paint is incapable of doing anything cool with pictures--think again. Granted, this is pretty basic shit, but it's still cool:









Pretty cool, right?? Ah, color inversion...

Weird. Just heard a cat scream. SERIOUSLY pissed off. Hope it's ok.

Today I'm going to meet up with Nic and do some research for my writing business. Might take some entrepreneur/marketing classes in the fall--they're free for some reason at the community college here. Who knows. I'm feeling pretty excited about the prospect of making a go of it on my own... anybody who's willing, link me up! :)

Have a lovely day! Oh, Crystal, Nic, and Katie: you were in my dream. Ha!