Doodles and gossip.

Man, it’s nice to feel what it’s like to have had enough sleep every once in a while. The chronic insomniac that I am, it’s a rare feeling to get up and not to feel exhausted. I’ve had insomnia issues since I was very little. I have distinct memories of sitting up all night gazing out the window, or climbing out on top of the garage roof and watching the stars until the sky turned sapphire to periwinkle and the turtle doves lulled me back inside to sleep.

Don't ask me what it's supposed to be.
A deer; a horse, a dorse.. Who knows? He
also appears to be floating. We may have
our answer. It's a reindeer.

My ideal hours of highest function are between eleven PM and four AM. It has always been that way. I have always thought myself to be nocturnal, being forced to function in a diurnal life. My brain gets really crazy when I go to bed. It just goes from one thing to another and I keep trying to quiet it, purposefully imagining things to distract it, but in the end, it wins, and my temper flares with every glance at the ever-advancing clock. I hardly ever arrive at work with more than five hours of sleep at best; sometimes much less.

Yesterday, I’d gotten to work with about two and a half hours of cumulative sleep. So by the time I got home, I was completely dead. I went to bed around nine at the hubbers’ heels. We chitty-chatted and joked for a while and then I read until about ten-thirty. That is unheard-of-early for me. I woke up this morning still dragging butt, but that’s just because as a chronic depressive (dysthymic), I like to sleep and if left without alarm clocks or dogs or spouses or a bladder, I’d sleep indefinitely. I like sleep. It’s quiet.

Today I woke up spry and well.. awake. It’s so rare. The blue sky and the blooming trees have added to my good mood. I know, what’s up with that, huh? Me in a good mood, LOL! But yep... here it is.

We are meeting with a member of the hubby’s family tonight that has been sort of estranged by a family squabble. It’s not really fair that everyone just cut her off like that, she’s the daughter of the person in question who’s started the problems, and even though they are no longer speaking to her, it seems ridiculous to me that they would ostracize her kid. She’s stuck in the middle, and their expectation is for her to take sides against her own mother. No matter how misguided and ridiculous her mother is, she is still her mother. I’d even defend Satan to some extent. She’s still my mom.

I kind of messed up the fox's head, and when I tried to fix it,
messed it up more.

The whole thing is really upsetting and makes my whole opinion on families even lower. She can’t help what her mother does, and she has struggled with her own problems all of her life because of her mother. They should be supportive of her, and inclusive and loving—but that’s not the case. The last time I saw her was when everyone was still on speaking terms. It was her birthday and the family invited us over to celebrate ‘her birthday’. Everyone was there, but as soon as the food was eaten, the cake sliced and the presents opened, they all migrated upstairs to watch wrestling (seriously) and just left her downstairs alone. I felt so awful for her. The party was more of a get-together for wrestling night than it was about this family member. She’s a nice, genuine kid. Sure she isn’t perfect, but who makes great decisions during their late teens and early twenties? Yeah... nobody. She made some horrific ones like marrying some older manipulative abusive freak at 19 for one, but she got away from him. She’s back in school, and building her own life. She’s doing well. She’s with a good guy who is in the Navy—responsible and who has adored her forever.

::shrug:: Meh. Dunno.

She struggled with identity and with a difficult family situation for her formative years—of course she’s imperfect, but hell, that’s no reason to write her off, nor is the fact that everyone’s pissed at her mom reason enough to pretend she doesn’t exist, or to call her a ‘piece of sh*t’ as one family member so aptly and coldly described her (and her mother as well).

Hubby and I have kept in touch with her through Facebook—defying this silly moratorium on dialogue with those people imposed by family. She’s in town this week and so we are grabbing an old Christmas present we keep forgetting to send her from the year before last (I honestly have no recollection what is inside the wrapped box anymore), and meeting her for dinner. I’m looking forward to seeing her. She’s a smart, nice kid. I’m sure there will be an awkwardness when the other family members find out we met with her, and I imagine they will be biting back a million questions; but it is what it is. Families can be infinitely stupid and ridiculous about relationships—I’m sorry but I don’t want to be stupid and ridiculous along with them. Especially towards someone who has always been sweet and welcoming to me. She’s young and needs as many supportive people around her as she can get. If some relatives are too proud to get over themselves it’s their loss. In my mind, she’s just a kid. Get over it.

Okay, these guys turned out HELLA cute.

Office Specials: These are my ‘phone doodles’. I spent a lot of time hunting people down and asking questions with the phone wedged on my shoulder yesterday; so these little things were all peppered over a piece of paper at the end of the day..