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Sleep? Now? Are you Kidding?
2004-03-07 4:39 p.m.

Nappy time? Is it nappy time yet?

Oh no, not today.

I'm very sleepy this weekend. Natural supernaturalism got the better of me on Friday, and the tremendous thunderstorms in other parts of the NE (and the rain/fog/ozone and barometric pressure fluctuations we got here) meant that I was destined to wake up with a migraine. This one wasn't so bad - I only threw up once and lost partial peripheral vision, and only for half an hour or so. Thanks to the miracle of Imitrex, I somehow managed to make it into my 10 am WS class and push through the rest of the day. I had lunch with punk rock Jon and another class at 2:30, but I spent most of the afternoon "resting" in my office and chatting with another teacher.

I sat at my desk with the door open, trying to grade exams. He poked his head in the door and said "Gee, Theresa, I see you're a bit split today". He pointed at my computer, which, finally wired to the internet, displayed consular information on Zambia. I admitted that yes, while I was trying to stay focused on work that is relevant to now, I cannot keep my mind off of my up-coming travels.

I guess I don't feel so bad about that, though - my obsessiveness with planning, thinking, and gathering usually results in a good trip. This trip being a bit more "risky" than some of our others means that much planning, thinking, and gathering must be done before we go.

There must be a career in this somewhere in my future; I just enjoy it to dern much. And I have become quite good at manifesting my own destiny in small ways, without even realizing it. I think if I wish hard enough I can make almost anything happen. My, don't we feel empowered today.

Part of my preparations usually involve more than just good highway maps (which I already have, thanks to a S. African palzee of mine). Not that this is much of a stretch for me, but I've been watching relevant movies, listening to my Ladysmith Black Mambazo cd more frequently. The best part is a new book I've discovered, Jonny Steinberg's Midlands. It's about the 1999 murder of a white farmer in the KwaZulu-Natal midlands of South Africa and the investigation of a potential political conspiracy surrounding the events. I picked it up out of mild curiosity, and now I cannot put it down. It's not so much the story that has grabbed me, but the relationships between black and white in post-apartheid communities. The book raises some really interesting socio-political and psychological questions that most writers would probably be afraid to ask let alone answer, and I like my authors to have cojones, I do. When I'm done, I'll lend it to you, provided I have known you for at least a year and know where you live.

I kind of wanted to sleep and read the above book (alternately, of course) on Friday night, but Steve and I wound up meeting Bruno at a new bar right near a train station in Montclair. It was chock full o' commuters, still in office-wear, who came in on the 6 o'clock train and just never left for the night. When they dwindled down, the bar had less of that high school reunion feel, and we got more comfortable. I planned on being home by midnight, but I met an amazing girl named Hope whom I wound up talking to for the better part of two hours. I was still sleepy, but I was so captivated by Hope - how sweet she was, how much she seemed to think like me, how much we had the same interests, and her bizarre ability to nearly guess my birthday (off by 2 days!), I just forgot that I wanted to go to bed. Sleep is an easy sacrifice for a new friend, though.

Saturday was a bit better, but we had errands to run that kept us out a lot of the day. At night, we went to a Fondue party at Ken's house in New City, NY. Again that whole "I'll be home by midnight" idea fluttered around in my brain, but again got clotheslined by a couple of conversations I was having with Thomas, Nicole and some people I'd met for the first time that night. I just didn't want to leave.

This afternoon? A birthday party for a friend who is turning 35 soon...was planning on only staying for a bit but got sucked in by the penne vodka and cannoli cake. Now on top of already being tired from the vascular Pandemonium going on in my brain on Friday and the medication I had to take which makes me sluggish for days, I am over-loaded with carbs and crashing. I'm going for a swim so that I can wake up, as odd as that sounds. It is, after all, Sopranos night, and we're going to my brother's for a mini-party to watch it.

I'll sleep when I'm dead.

xoxox,