My sleep cycles have been skewed all week as Fuzzy’s schedule and funky, dark, weather pushed our waking time later and later, and lingering cold/sinus issues have me taking either cold meds or benadryl to be able to breathe. (Breathing is good.)

Yesterday (Friday, not Saturday) I slept til ten, wrote for four hours for work, napped, piddled with webstuff, napped, ordered dinner, napped, watched a movie, drank a lot of chai, and ultimately got three hours of sleep on Saturday morning, finally giving up around 7:30 after several attempts to rest. At ten, I went to get the refill of Zorro-dog’s heart pills (blood pressure pills), stopped at Starbucks for a cinnamon dolce latte (venti, nonfat, lite whip) and an apple fritter (so unhealthy, so delicious, and good for my soul) , and the caffeine finally put me to sleep (yes, I know, but when you live a highly caffeinated life sometimes MORE is what is needed.)

Fuzzy joined me in bed – he’s not feeling well, and has been up late with net issues from work all week – and we slept fitfully through the day. Well, I did. I went to bed (caffeinated and taking a melatonin, and wearing the sleep mask mom gave me for Christmas) at 11:40. Woke up at 2:30, looked at the clock, looked at my pillow, moved a dog to a more comfortable (for me) spot on the bed, and went back to sleep. Woke again at six, and made Fuzzy go feed the dogs (Zorro’s abscess inflated again, and he wasn’t into food, but going hungry won’t kill him – really – and he’d had pizza crust late Friday night). Did some light housework – I was sick and then hugely busy, and still sick, during the first chunk of January, so while the Xmas tree has been unlit and the dining room it’s in largely unused for weeks, we never put it away. Last night, I finally got around to putting the ornaments in their new purple tub (will need a second one if we buy even ONE ornament next year) and did a whole bunch of laundry, and changed the sheets on the bed, taking off the flannel and putting the nautical cotton pinstripes back on.

Fuzzy took a benadryl because he’s having an allergy rash, and I’ve been trying to get him to take one for DAYS. “I’m not sneezing.” “But it’s an antihistamine, and a rash is an histaminic reaction.” “But there are no other symptoms.” “There don’t have to be.”

He doesn’t generally take allergy meds. This one knocked him out, but I was still using the bed to fold laundry. Around eleven thirty, I made him come downstairs. We had cocoa and peanut butter sandwiches in bed, and watched 2/3 of a cheesy sci-fi channel movie about tornadoes and gypsies, before conking out at 1.

Then his phone rang at 3:39, and I’ve been up for almost an hour now (used restroom, let dogs out to do same, drank cranberry juice, fetched new bottle of water, wrote this entry.)

My sniffles are back with a vengeance, and I’ve already had a melatonin tonight (which should have kept me out, but at least let me fall asleep quickly) and another (half dose) of benadryl is apparently in order.

While my job does not require that I work “normal” hours, we live in a nine-to-five town, and Fuzzy does have to do most of his work during “regular” time, so I hope I can shift back to a reasonable schedule this week. I missed weight lifting on Friday (Fuzzy worked from home and I didn’t want to blast music) and yesterday (asleep) so will try to do it later today, and then do Tues-Thurs -Sat this week.

And now…back to sleep (as am already in bed).

I’ve been having a love-hate relationship with this blog lately. I don’t feel connected to it. I have other projects that are interesting me far more than MissMeliss.com, and yet, I’m afraid to let go of a blog that has served me well since 2002. Conversations with good friends have me thinking that a new chalkboard is better than an erased chalkboard, and I’ve wanted a site that will lend itself more to my professional writing ambitions.

To that end, my good friend Clay accepted a pittance of a gift in exchange for taking an email of links and sources of inspiration, and turning them into the most beautiful template ever – he’s created something warm, welcoming, and sophisticated, with the rich reds and cafe colors that I love, and even wove in my own words. There’s no real content yet, just the stuff that comes with Joomla (an open-source content management system), but feel free to peek at the layout at MelissaBartell.com. I’ll be announcing it here when the site officially goes live, and doing my best to live up to the wonderful art that was used.

More Clay-inspired goodness comes in the form of software called Crossover, which allows Intel-based Macs to run Windows software without requiring a dual boot. I spent $60, and within fifteen minutes had Office XP up and running on my pink MacBook, which makes me happy, because while NeoOffice and the like are great, I find that I’m enough of a girl that I require Word’s pretty interface, and it’s really easier to have the same software on all machines. Or as near to it as possible.

As to Creativity….I’m burning with ideas but they’re not web-publishable, which is another reason I wanted a separate site, so I can just offer updates about what I’m working on, without publishing actual content. Mermaids, Chick-lit, Cafe Vignettes, and a Family Drama are among the projects in mind.

Wish me luck?

I miss the Sunday paper.

I read the paper online, these days, and we don’t have the newspaper delivered any more, and I miss it. I miss it enough that I’m considering signing up for the weekend edition of the New York Times, because I love the book review and theatre sections, despite the fact that we leave nowhere near New York.

Granted, the Sunday Times wouldn’t come with Kohls coupons, or, in fact, any local information, but I love the way the paper feels so much, I don’t think I’d care. I mean, I’d still have the crossword puzzle, right?

Crossword puzzles were meant to be done with pen or pencil on a table in a cafe, or in the living room by a fire, not on the computer. I know there are sites that allow digital crosswords, but the fun in them comes from not being plugged in. From having to rely on your own brain, and using them as a means of engaging strangers in conversation. “Excuse me,” you say to someone who has an interesting hat – a black bowler, perhaps, that reminds you of your Uncle Phil, who really wasn’t a blood relative, but he dated your Aunt Margie for so long he may as well have been. “Can you give me a five-letter word that means ‘comprehensible’?”

And either not-Uncle Phil will shakes his head apologetically, and go along with his own plans, or he’ll smile and suggect, “Lucid.”

And you’ll sip your coffee until it’s gone, even though there are biscotti crumbs in the bottom, and when you get home, you won’t care that your hands smell of newsprint.

Scents of lime and coconut, the former from a candle, the latter from a bottle of bubble bath, swirl together to create a heady, steamy cloak that wraps itself around me, warming my skin, and tickling all my senses. The water is nicely hot, the tub brim-full, the book on the edge waiting to be cracked opened and explored.

But I leave the book alone.

I lean back against the bath pillow, sip from the bottle of cool water, and contemplate what it would be like to swim through the ocean at shark-speed, breaching the surface with the joy of a leaping dolphin. I can swim, of course, but as with all humans, it’s a choppy kind of swimming.

Sometimes I dream of floating in a cradle of seaweed, letting the ocean waves rock me to sleep and then stir me softly into wakefulness, hours later, safely back at home. On windy nights, the sound of the trees turns into the sound of the surf in my over-imaginative brain, and almost – ALMOST – I can feel the water rising and receding.

I soak until the water begins to cool, until my fingers are wrinkled and my skin is pink, and then, as in the famous picture of Aphrodite, I rise from the foam, though my foam is leftover coconut bubbles, and not sea spray, and wrap myself, not in pearls, but a soft cotton towel and white cotton chenille slippers. I rinse the tub. I put on fresh pajamas. I go into the kitchen to make orange juice and raisin toast with melted cheddar.

Later, looking for an image to use in a project, I see a vector illustration entitled “bathtub mermaid,” and I think, “That’s me!”

Today I learned that exercise can totally be a popup blocker for the soul. How so? In the middle of a day where I felt tired, icky, stuck, and stale, I went upstairs and worked out with my new weight machine for an hour (I’ve noticed that there are some exercises I can totally feel in my abs, even when they’re ostensibly targeting other parts of the body, but that’s for another time.)

I love this machine. Granted, it’s still new, still a toy and not a chore, but I love that I can be in my library, with the huge wall of windows, and watch the trees and life on the street, and be inside my own head, and enjoy sweating.

I never thought I’d find myself typing those two words.

I know, intellectually, that my funk was broken, at least for a bit, because exercise releases endorphins. I know that two workouts is just a baby step (the first was Monday), but I’m really proud of myself for doing two more reps on every exercise today than I could on Monday, and I’m even prouder of myself (more proud? Whatever.) for going up there today when what I really wanted to do was turn on the heating bad and eat brownies in bed.

The year will keep turning. My funk will eventually dissipate completely.
I have hope now.

Jeremy beat me to it, but I’ve just watched the trailer for the new Star Trek movie that opens at the end of this year.

It may be only January, but suddenly I’m anticipating Christmas ’08.

Yay, Trek!

No, it’s not a can crusher, although the way Fuzzy goes through warm Sunkist, we could certainly use one.

I bought a home gym. Specifically, I bought this home gym, because while I initially wanted an elliptical, I realized I do I lot of walking already, either in the living room with the dvd, or outside with the dogs (except that the weather’s been awful lately), and I desperately need to work on upper body strength and tone.

We went and looked at the various machines on Thursday, after I’d looked online for several days, and on Friday, Fuzzy picked it up after work. Today, of course, I spent the afternoon at Aveda (my toenails match my hair now), and then we went to David’s Seafood Grill, which used to be Rockfish, but hasn’t been for over a year now, and I had poblano chili soup, and seafood enchiladas and a glass of shiraz, and Fuzzy had what he always has: cedar plank salmon and a house salad with blue cheese dressing, and if he’s ever done in the bathroom, we’re going to put the thing together.

And I can cancel my Curves membership, which is fabulous because they’re only open at funky hours, and I’m really sick of the Christian workout music they play…there’s something really wrong with any version of Amazing Grace that involves synthetic drums and a disco beat, you know?

(But maybe we should re-think the notion of a can crusher.)

Cartons and boxes piled high
Former homes for routers and towers
used cisco servers
Liberated from the powers
that be

Tools hung haphazardly on the wall
A snow shovel kept just in case
(It never actually snows enough
to need such a thing in the place
we live)

Endless bits of cat-5 cable
In many different hues
Connectors and phone cords
USB dongles in boxes marked “shoes”
taped shut

Escaping leftover styrofoam
A jungle of bubble wrap
A bike unused since 2004
A dusty baseball cap
From Gateway

Missing it’s base,
The old Christmas tree
Meant to be left on the curb
I wanted to mark it “Free”
Last November

He said we couldn’t
Set it out
While still missing parts
Might be lying about
I gave up.

Next sunny day
The plan is to clean
And flatten the boxes
And sweep til things gleam.
One can dream.

Thanksgiving, 2005.
We’re in Branson Missouri for a week of hanging out with Fuzzy’s family. Part reunion, part vacation, much togetherness and frighteningly unhealthy food.

On the way home, I realize we were just a short drive away from where Laura Ingalls Wilder lived the bulk of her married life with Almanzo and Rose. Sadly, it was too late to turn back. We settled for pausing for a couple hours in a place called Artist’s Point, where I bought homemade sorghum molasses and watched the sun set in a valley worthy of being on a thousand postcards.

But it was Laura who followed me home.

Ever since then, I’ve had this idea, one that was expanded by an October, 2006 trip to South Dakota, of doing a modern story juxtaposed with Laura’s journey, of showing the contrast between DeSmet when it was young and Charles Ingalls worried that there wasn’t enough breathing room because the town was growing up so fast, and the sadness of witnessing the death throes of towns like the one where Fuzzy grew up, where family farms are being sucked up by corporations, and kids are fleeing to the big cities.

There’s sadness, but there’s beauty, too.
But I’m a city girl, and I worry that I couldn’t tell the tale properly.

Please go here for a mid-month question.

Thank you.