Pseudo-Insomnia

I woke up over three hours ago at 4:31am.

4:31am

For no good reason.

With no 6am call time, early-morning romp, or otherwise worthy (albeit annoying in the case of the 6am call) reason to wake up, 4:30 is just, well, silly and frustrating to this fem-bot.

This happens from time to time for me. Nowadays, probably once every 6 months if that. It used to be more frequent.

I take this as a good sign. A sign that I'm either some combination or all of the following:

• Healthier physically, likely due to better nutrition and physical fitness 
• More peaceful, a happy thought indeed, as I recall more restlessness in the past (thankfully in the past)
• Happier in my relationship, because if memory serves, a good percentage of my sleepless nights in the past were due to lying next to an ultimately doomed (albeit a mostly cordial & civilized death) bedmate and/or just waking up wondering what the fuck about whatever relationship was troubling me at the time...
• More spiritually...connected (or something). This one surpasses even the aforementioned past relationship woes and general restlessness, and is the hardest to describe, quantify and understand. Let me 'splain. There is too much. Let me sum up. Basically, I suspect I sleep better lately because I've connected more deeply* with the non-physical.

(*I use the words "more deeply" because to think that I was ever not connected would be a gross oversight. We are always connected it is only thinking we're not that creates the illusion that we can be disconnected from the essence of which all things are made of and a part of.)

So one or more of the above reasons has helped me, tremendously, in sleeping better. None were sought-out or had as a means to the end of sleeping better, it's just a happy side-effect. But tonight, I awoke at 4:30am. 

Why? Not sure yet. What did I do? I read a few pages from two of the books I'm in the midst of reading. Sometimes I read one book at a time; right now I'm reading four simultaneously. Library due dates and my own diffused attention have caused this book-polygamy. My two favorites of the four and my bedfellows of this morning were Bite Me and The Four-Hour Work Week.

After reading, I decided to transcribe the last chapter of the book. The. Book. 

What Women Never Tell You

It's a relationship book about all the things women never tell men, but that are vitally important and that men desperately want to know about how to have more success and better relationships with women. Strong enough for a man, but pH balanced for a woman.

Marcus and I are writing this book together, but I type like a cheeta, and he types like a panda...a panda with one hand full of eucalyptus leaves. So I've assigned myself the typing portion, and we both record the copy for each chapter (which we completed a few months ago).

But let me reiterate. I typed the LAST CHAPTER of What Women Never Tell You just before I started writing this blog for all of you. 

We still have to edit. Of course. And we still need a publisher, though we'll self-publish if necessary until we get a publisher and are on the New York Times Bestseller List.

But I must admit, it feels...odd

Relieved, but also uncertain. Did I really just finish my first book? 

Maybe that's what caused my insomnia today. Something in me wanted to get up and get it done. So, that's what I did.

I thought there'd be more fanfare and fireworks. But right now I'd settle for some more sleep.

Also, for anyone wondering about my marked absence from the blogosphere for the past several months, my writing energy that was reserved in the past for blogging went towards finishing this book. Hopefully I'll be back blogging away to all of you more frequently. But we may also do a What Women Never Tell You blog and we also may start working on our second book. We'll see. But it is good to be back and I hope you've missed me as much as I've missed all of you, and writing for all of you...this kind of writing - as it's more reflective and cathartic than What Women Never Tell You writing.

Though I am very pleased that I just finished the first full draft of my first book. Maybe there'll be fireworks and fanfare when we really finish it - as in the final edit is done and we send it to the printer. Maybe when we get it back from the printer then we'll have a real party.

Ah, hell. How about I just be happy with this stage of accomplishment.

That's better.

I'm feeling kind of sleepy.

If you were John Mayer, you would too

It's almost undisputed that John Mayer gets around.

Certainly if he were a female, he would be a ho, but since he's a guy, he just has a "bad reputation." The double-standard still exists, unfortunately. So I'm just going to call him a douche-ho, since he seems to be some combination of douche-bag and man-whore.

But here's the thing.

If you were John Mayer, wouldn't you too?

Think about it. Pretend you're John Mayer. You look kinda goofy. You're a little bit of a music-geek. You have a tendency to run your mouth (and probably over-think). And for a good portion of your teenage years and early twenties, you were probably broke. Even though chics supposedly love musicians, they don't always love music-students or starving-artist-musicians. So John Mayer probably got some pre-fame tail. But no tail he had pre-fame would carry the bragging rights of the post-fame tail. Brad Pitt, Charlie Sheen, and Sean Penn are the only modern male celebs I can think of that outdo Mr. Mayer in bragging rights.

Brad Pitt is simply gorgeous. I swear every straight man who, when cornered by me at a party and forced to consider who they'd switch for, most often say Brad Pitt (second place goes to Marlon Brando). His roster is pretty impressive with Gwenlyth Paltrow, Jennifer Aniston, and of course, Angelina Jolie as all serious relationships (it's nice that he has relationships, not so nice that they all have an expiration date). Charlie Sheen just likes to screw anything that's pretty and busty, but he has had his fair share of beauties including Kelly Preston and Denise Richards. Sean Penn must be a stud to have convinced both Madonna and Robin Wright to marry him. Seriously. And it's worth mentioning that Warren Beatty and Wilt Chamberlain were undoubtedly the previous record-holders, just by their sheer numbers. Check this out. Warren Beatty supposedly bedded almost 13,000 women, according to the Guardian UK. Wilt Chamberlain made even Beatty look like an amateur, with over 20,000 notches on his bedpost, according to a Time article.

But back to John Mayer. According to celebbuzz.com and whosdatedwho.com, John Mayer's notch-names include:

• Jennifer Aniston
• Jessica Simpson
• Cameraon Diaz
• Jennifer Love Hewitt
• Rhona Mitra
• Scheana Marie
• Minka Kelly
• there must be more that have somehow been kept secret...(If you want some pictures, click on whosdatedwho above.)
  

Besides the fact that this dude has been getting around in a serious way (keep in mind this is early in his fornication-career, he has many years to catch up with Beatty and Chamberlain though he appears to be behind), he also seems to like his girls light-skinned. Now generally I'm not one to criticize dating preferences, in fact I often celebrate them - for example, I have a friend who likes his women zaftig or extra-voluptuous and it just delights me, but with Mayer... I don't know. I just feel like he's lacking a certain amount of melanin in his celeb-dating varieties.

As much as I'm reluctant to admit this (that's only half-true since I sort of like confessing things sometimes), I used to like John Mayer's music. It's kind of good sometimes. He's a a decent guitarist too and I probably found him kind of appealing (I'm sure the list of women above would agree - at least initially). As a musician, however, any attraction I feel towards other musicians has always been short-lived. It never lasts and I see through and have a very low tolerance for their bullsh!t. They have a bad reputation for a reason. With that said, I've also played with and known some talented and reliable musicians too, but they are diamonds among cubic zirconias to say the least, and like magnets, I'm usually not-so-attracted to my male musician counterparts.

But after a little while, even without ever meeting Mr. Mayer, I got a bad-taste in my mouth about him. This is what I think happened. The negative overwhelmed the positive. I've been known to say the following: Stupid trumps hot. Or, more appropriately in this instance: Douche trumps musician. Other options: Asshole trumps rich; Rude trumps handsome; or for my guys out there, Crazy trumps hot (though according to my guy friends, usually only if you plan on spending more than one night with said crazy chic). Get it? The bad, ultimately, outweighs the good.

Speaking of spending just one night with someone, an old friend of mine used to say, "I've never had a one-night stand... but I've had a lot of eight-hour relationships." I always found that funny.

One last quote from douche-bag of the day before I sign off. I heard through the grape-vine that when Mayer and his music-business posse made Daughter a single off whatever album that was (making a song from an album a single is basically lining it up to be promoted the hardest for licensing, radio stations and awards), Mayer supposedly said, "If we push this song man, I'm going to have a vagina on my forehead for the rest of my life."

Ultimately, I suspect John Mayer isn't necessarily a bad guy, and who can blame him for chasing all that hot, primped, celebrity tail? Think about it, if you were John Mayer, you would too.

More Interesting Katie Strand World Posts

• Tiredness - Varieties of and unforeseen side-effects
• Foreplay is overrated
• Food should be As God Intended or Why isn't everything we eat organic?
  
• Yelling - One of the Highest Forms of Compassion
  
• The Cove - Louie Psihoyos' Oscar speech & a guide on how to create change...
• My Favorite Things...Arrabiata Recipe - Fresh, Organic, Vegan or Primal
  
• My Favorite Shows on Television...or how David Duchovney & Jesus are likely Good in Bed
  
• The Hawaiian Islands and Washington D.C.’s sand-paper circle-jerk about Health Care
  
• My Buddha has Termites...A Lesson in Infinite Joy
• The One-Date-Wonders!
• I had to learn SIGN LANGUAGE when I moved to Los Angeles
• Guys can make a game out of anything
• Hello? The power of CONNECTING and how technology has changed things
  
• Popping the question is better than porn!
• Bravo, Stephen Colbert & Co! and your Olympic Vancouverage
• Songwriting is like SEX
• Born To Run by Christopher McDougall - Inspiring a inspiring all of us to be more in the FLOW
• A moment of silence for all the plastic surgery ca...
• Ricky Gervais should be the new Simon on American Idol
• Muscle SURPRISE! The key to physical, mental & emotional fitness
• I think my boyfriend's a snake...
• Release... Sweat & Power
• MY FAVORITE THINGS! - Vibram's Five Fingers
• Dick Morris... How do you sleep at night?
• Rusty DePass, Gorillas, and Obama, oh my!
• Michael Jackson - Troubled Genius

New Music
&
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at
Katie Strand Music

• Please Don't Leave Me
• Going To California
  
• Come Back
• Home

Tiredness - Varieties of and unforeseen side-effects

Though I wrote this blog a while ago, this is it's first appearance on blogger and I only edited a few things. Please do let me know your thoughts on tiredness and sleep...or your thoughts on how my younger self used to express her thoughts. All comments are welcome.

Variety is usually good. At least as far as I'm concerned. But have you noticed that tiredness is different depending on what has made you tired?

Right now I'm tired because I'm over-worked (70 hrs a week right now), and underpaid (how much would be enough for 70 hours a week? =not sure there is enough - maybe if I really LOVED my job). Don't get me wrong, I like my job. Which is more than many people can say...but this blog is not about this job.

This blog is supposed to be about the different varieties of being tired.

Have you noticed that feeling tired from playing too much feels so good? Like when you were a kid in the summertime and you were out playing from sunrise to sunset and you come home, eat, and just basically pass out. I loved that feeling of playing hard and sleeping so soundly a bear could come tearing through your bedroom and you'd probably just roll over.

But there are different kinds of tired. The aformentioned, and others as well. There's tired with a headache (brought on from too much computer use or crying babies -of which I have none of my own but have been around enough - babies that is). Tired from traveling- which might be one of the worst because then, to add insult to injury, you have to sleep in a foreign bed or travel more to get to the foreign bed. Yuck. And then there's tired from insomnia from an over-active brain when obsessing about something or just working on a problem way too hard. (Because, really, who ever solved a problem constructively by over-thinking?) That might be worse than traveling-tired. Am I discovering lower-levels of tiredness? This is not a good sign.

One more: Tired from staying up so late with friends who make you laugh so much, your sides and cheeks hurt, and your whole body is tired from the strain of laughing more in a few short hours than you did during the entire Bush administration (laughing was banned during the Bush administration - it was ruled unpatriotic by the patriot act).

So tired leads to sleep. But you know how sometimes you make yourself stay up past being tired to get something done (like work for me right now) and then you realize much to your own dismay that you've pushed yourself past being tired and you can't sleep. I hate when that happens!

So goodnight. And sometimes, even when the tired is induced from a favorable activity (another example: thanksgiving dinner), it can help with a rant, or potentially give you better dreams, or at the very least, give you something to blog about.

Lastly, apologies for being over-parenthetlcal. Recently-discovered side-effect of being overly-tired. Also, over-use of hyphens-another side-effect.

More Interesting Katie Strand World Posts

• Tiredness - Varieties of and unforeseen side-effects
• Foreplay is overrated
• Food should be As God Intended or Why isn't everything we eat organic?
  
• Yelling - One of the Highest Forms of Compassion
  
• The Cove - Louie Psihoyos' Oscar speech & a guide on how to create change...
• My Favorite Things...Arrabiata Recipe - Fresh, Organic, Vegan or Primal
  
• My Favorite Shows on Television...or how David Duchovney & Jesus are likely Good in Bed
  
• The Hawaiian Islands and Washington D.C.’s sand-paper circle-jerk about Health Care
  
• My Buddha has Termites...A Lesson in Infinite Joy
• The One-Date-Wonders!
• I had to learn SIGN LANGUAGE when I moved to Los Angeles
• Guys can make a game out of anything
• Hello? The power of CONNECTING and how technology has changed things
  
• Popping the question is better than porn!
• Bravo, Stephen Colbert & Co! and your Olympic Vancouverage
• Songwriting is like SEX
• Born To Run by Christopher McDougall - Inspiring a inspiring all of us to be more in the FLOW
• A moment of silence for all the plastic surgery ca...
• Ricky Gervais should be the new Simon on American Idol
• Muscle SURPRISE! The key to physical, mental & emotional fitness
• I think my boyfriend's a snake...
• Release... Sweat & Power
• MY FAVORITE THINGS! - Vibram's Five Fingers
• Dick Morris... How do you sleep at night?
• Rusty DePass, Gorillas, and Obama, oh my!
• Michael Jackson - Troubled Genius

New Music
&
Posts
at
Katie Strand Music

• Please Don't Leave Me
• Going To California
  
• Come Back
• Home