Wednesday, August 2, 2000

11:48 p.m. I actually tossed and/or turned last night. Not a lot -- just a single toss, and then I turned over in a worry and I realized that this particular cliché is real -- when you're fussing and fuming, you actually do toss and turn. So ok, my nights have become wrinkled a bit.

And then this afternoon, for the very first time, it was actually too hot to sleep. And there was a fly. As I've said before, with wonder in my voice, there really are no (so few) flies and mosquitoes in California. In reality, there's one or two, of course ... and if it's hot enough and if you're tired enough, as the hero in Highlander used to say: There need be only one.

I once again find myself in the middle of a busy six-lane highway of responsibilities and honking impatient speeding demands and I, once again, wonder how I wandered out here. I'm wondering what happened to the dreamy small tasks that I thought would make up my days as an artist. Where are the moments of joy, reflected in tranquility?

Where, I ask you -- where? Is the tranquility?

I know I'm being cheated out of my rightful hours. They've become fragile and skimpy. They've gone missing in the middle of the day. I distinctly remember losing this afternoon, around 1:30 to 3:30, somewhere between some email exchanges and the daily drift of junk mail.

I've also lost my way. I am in the wrong place and it's the wrong time to try to make the necessary U-turn against traffic that is required, but.

But I will stop layering metaphors onto the Dagwood sandwich that is my day. I really will. It's just that I'm getting very frustrated about things I can't write about -- in this space or any other -- and it makes me wonder all over again why I chose such a difficult, non-rewarding way of life for my life.

But I did make choices. I chose, for example, to watch a little of Dick Cheney's speech this evening. I chose green tea over ginseng just a few minutes ago. Half a cookie instead of two, or three. Life is nothing more than a series of moments in which we are allowed an endless array of choices, right?

Success or failure depends on those choices, doesn't it?

Maybe it doesn't really matter. Maybe you're already a success if you're just plain happy -- or maybe you're a success when you've failed at everything, even failure.

I do know that I'm going to have to figure some important things out if I ever hope to untangle my sleep. I seem to be able to fool my waking self that everything's on schedule and on target and we're moving on up, but my dreaming mind isn't buying it -- not for a minute.

Those missing hours from earlier today? I have a feeling I'm going to find them in the middle of the night tonight.