deeplyshallow // wide awake

wide awake

This is exactly why I should never give in to the impulse to go to bed early, which is what I did just four hours ago, at a perfectly reasonable (if totally childlike) nine o’clock. I haven’t turned on a light, am just sitting here in the absolute dark, which I’ve already successfully navigated to retrieve a package of crackers, a diet soda. An unsettled stomach, this is why I am awake. The chill in the air: this is not why I am awake, but the fact that I chose to sleep in sweatpants and socks to ward it off most definitely is.

The discomfort that I felt for most of yesterday, that utter conviction that I had somehow done something massively wrong, and just hadn’t yet felt the repercussions of, turned out to be as unfounded as I hope my nervousness about rededicating myself to Eleanor will be. I woke up bright and early today, wore a new shirt, had some delicious hot chocolate and listened to a killer road song, and by and large felt wonderfully okay. For the past two days Highway 1 has been as beautiful as I have ever seen it, the fog a half-dozen shades brighter than usual, the sun high and white, like a searchlight submerged in water; the words ‘mysterious’ and ‘magical’ come to mind. I whipped through the fog like a banshee in my new ship, and a girl in a rickety old Mazda held pace with me for a mile, glancing my way a few times with a shy smile. I kicked it up to eighty-five, testing out my newer, higher center of gravity, just because I felt like it. Jacked up the stereo, sang along like I haven’t since I was in high school, to songs that I haven’t listened to since the year after high school.

Felt good today. Still felt pretty good tonight, and when I realized I had a grocery run to make, I felt so good that I drove twenty miles out of my way just because.

Over lunch today I confessed to some chuckles that I have not yet figured out how to remove the top on my Jeep. Or the doors. Or how to flip the windshield down. Or even how to open the rear door. (C’mon, I’m still waiting for my delinquent owner’s manual, okay.) N. was particularly snide, having Jeeped her waty through Hawaii recently, so she attempted to show me how it’s done after work. After much fumbling and tugging, it was established that I am not the wussiest Jeep owner ever, just that this shit is not intuitive, and that said snideness was entirely unwarranted.

Came home to a dangling FedEx notice: sorry we missed you, sign here, we’ll leave it tomorrow, etc. I don’t recall ordering anything recently. (Although to be fair, this doesn’t mean anything: once, about a month ago, I woke one Sunday morning and found an order confirmation email in my inbox. I wonder: am I the first person who has ever discovered that, in the middle of the night, he has gone sleep-shopping online? And has even managed to almost order useful things, like jeans that were only one size too big? I am pretending that I did not order that Western shirt, which hangs in my closet unworn, two sizes too large and just a little too ridiculous to wear. I can’t possibly be the only one, but I got some seriously crazy looks when I told a couple of people about this, so maybe I am.)

Songs which I have been listening to on multiple, multiple repat: “Not California” and “We’ll Meet Along the Way” (Hem, Funnel Cloud); “Can I Stay” and “Empty” (Ray LaMontagne, Till the Sun Turns Black); and the absolutely flawless “Steam Engine” from My Morning Jacket’s It Still Moves, a song I should have discovered long ago but only just have. There’s not much better than finding out that an album you’ve listened to as much as I have listened to that one can still surprise the hell out of you. Some albums have much more than staying power going for them.

Wide-awakedness is beginning to slough into droopy eyes. I’ve been sleeping restlessly for weeks now. One full night, that’s all I ask. Just one, just one without a dream that involves sorting index cards endessly, or setting up guides in a 500MB Photoshop file. Just one.