the hypothetical wren

My sleep problems continue, which is why I haven’t been especially communicative lately. It’s an odd double-edged sort of insomnia — I can’t get to sleep until late, and then when I do, I wake up a couple of hours later, and can’t get back to sleep until approximately an hour before I wanted to wake up in the first place. Nothing outside of modern pharmaceutical wonders seems to help — excercising, cutting back on caffeine, going to bed at different times and other things have all failed.

The result is that today, I’m feeling especially slow, cranky and defeated. My work load seems manageable when I have some energy, but today, it seems nearly crushing. Bleah.

I would have so gone to this film festival. The films themselves sounds pretty great (I’ve seen Behind the Typeface: Cooper Black before, on the Internet — it’s worth seeing if you ever get the chance, and oh, yes, if you care), and it would have been interesting to be in a room full of my people. But it’s not meant to be. (Luckily, the Art of Typography exhibit will still be on display when I [hopefully] go to San Francisco in March [note to self: buy plane tickets].)

Last night was my first real seminar of the semester (the first ones of each class, where you stare confusedly at the just-distributed syllabus, don’t count). It was actually pretty enjoyable. The professor is interesting to listen to, and the atmosphere is mellow and relaxed — always a plus. I actually spoke in class — five times, nonetheless. Which might be more times than I spoke in class all last semester, not counting official presentations. I’m trying to make a conscious effort to speak up more in class this semester, which is sometimes difficult for me, since I usually feel like an idiot whenever I open my mouth. That was about the only negative or semi-negative comment I got from the professors I had last semester — my written work was great, so wouldn’t it be nice if I also talked in class? The real thing driving my effort, besides self-improvement efforts, is that the professors that teach these classes have threatened to call on people who don’t speak up in class.

In my mind, there is a hierarchy of embarassments. Speaking in class is far lower than a much more terrifying prospect: getting called on in class and having nothing to say. I’ve talked to friends of mine who talk a lot in class re: their approach and the consensus seems to be to say whatever pops into your head. I think I have too many internal filters installed to do that, but we’ll see if I can at least try.

Lunch today was Korean food, from the Korean B.B.Q. House. I think this might be my favorite restaurant in ABQ, but that title seems to change often. I love their spicy tofu, and the various varieties of kimchi I’ve tried, but my favorite thing is something that comes with their combination boxes from time to time: a tiny slab of interestingly textured tofu that is covered with some spicy, red, scallion-laden sauce. I keep meaning to ask what it is, but I figure that the answer will be an odd look, and the reply, “uh, tofu?”

I’m trying to reduce my caffeine intake, due to some sleeping problems this week, so I’ve been trying to limit myself to one batch of French-press coffee per day (approximately 32 ounces). I did that today, but then I also had barley tea with my lunch, and then a pot of genmaicha (my favorite variety of tea) at the Satellite. Letter, not the spirit of the law, all that stuff.

I have a lot of reading to do this weekend, but I’m thinking about driving to Santa Fe tomorrow or Sunday to go see the Charles Sheeler exhibit at the O’Keeffe Museum. I really like Sheeler, but I’ve never seen many of his photographs, so it would be worth the drive. He did a lot of photographs of buildings and industrial sites — for some reason, I always like pictures of those sorts of things (plus, signs and ruins and things found on sidewalks) more than any other subject. But, the exhibit is running until May, so I could easily be talked out of going this weekend by the prospect of sleeping in or hanging around my apartment in my pajamas. I’ll go eventually, though.

I slept for ten hours last night. I feel pretty good now, since all I have to do today is reread some essays I read earlier this week to prepare for class tonight, and then go to a lecture given by someone up for a job in our department. I’m going to easily get used to my no-class-on-Tuesday-and-no-class-until-late-on-Thursday schedule this semester.

If you haven’t eaten the vegetable nuggets at Fei Cafe (the vegetarian Chinese restaurant near UNM), you’re missing out. Crispy, vegetable-y, salty, with a hint of some sort of Mystery Spice. I had some for lunch yesterday, and then I wanted some for dinner last night, too, but they were closed.

I’m divided on the rain we’re getting today. On the one hand, it’s good, in the whole replenishing-the-Earth sense, and it was relaxing to hear pinging on the roof last night, but I don’t want to walk to work in the dizzle and the mud. Plus, grey cloudy days like today give me headaches after a while.

Colorado Luis has a good explanation of the nine seasons of Colorado weather, which are similar to those found here in New Mexico, at least I think. Sunny, warm winter days + spring snow + monsoon summers = fun.

It’s funny because it’s all too familiar.

Someday, I Will Copyedit the Great American Novel

Today was another Terrarium Day — the sort of day where you wake up a bit late and you don’t leave the house until some time in the late afternoon, and, when you get outside, you feel a little dazed and a little too exposed to the outside world, like you’ve been living in a terrarium for some time and just now got out. I ran into someone I know on the sidewalk and she told me I looked cranky and I mentioned the bit about feeling like I live in a terrarium, and I don’t think it quite translated properly on the journey from me to her. I know what I meant, though.

I think it might go along with the general crappy feeling I’ve been experiencing as of late, though. I feel like my color-control or picture-adjustment knob is a little off: everything seems too loud or too bright, clothes feel too rough or too tight, food seems overly hot or not otherwise seasoned right. I’m not sure what the problem is here, whether it’s some mental problem or seasonal issue or general school-starting-again angst. But it is annoying.

I feel a little too sensitive to things. Like, for example, one of the books I have to read for this week, Alison Games’ Migration and the Origins of the English Atlantic World has text set in this extremely annoying typeface. I’ve never seen it before, but it’s designed to look deliberately archaic, as if the letters were left out in the elements to weather and disintegrate. Like, the left side of the lower-case “o” is sort of missing, and the tops of some of the letters are oddly thin and faint, and it’s really distracting me from what it supposed to be a pretty good book. Surprisingly (well, actually, unsurprisingly), no reviews of the book that I have found mention problems with the offending typeface, so it’s probably just me. I really hate it when books don’t have a listing of the typefaces they are set in.