what happens when i can’t sleep (or List #11).

Tonight is the second night in a row I have been unable to fall asleep. Neither yawn nor eye-rub has passed my way. Not even a quiet whimper.

(While I type this, I periodically look over at my partner…who has been enjoying the benefits of REM sleep for over an hour now…and feel jealous. It’s all good, though: he just mumbled something about muffin pans and chocolate pudding, so I’m sure to have a good laugh in the morning when I tease him about it and he can’t remember a thing).

To be honest, sleeplessness happens to me a lot…well, sometimes. I am somewhat of a night crawler, preferring late nights to early mornings, and mornings and I have had a dysfunctional relationship from the beginning. On most nights I can usually fake it, but not tonight. And not last night, either. I blame the ginko biloba I started taking on Friday.  I thought it would help me stay focused and have less-cranky mornings.  Now, while staying up all night in college almost always guaranteed I would be wide awake when morning happened, after 30 that little trick stopped working so well (in fact, staying up all night in my 30′s has proven to almost always guarantee extreme crankiness and the very real possibility of missing mornings all together).  Oh, the irony.

So, since I can’t sleep, I will plot adventures, instead.

1. Feeding the Wanderlust. I have been feeling anxious to wander. This time around, however, my mind is stuck on Ireland. I just want to go. Now.  Pubs, rolling hills, country towns and the Irish brogue are calling my name. All I can think about is not if, but when and how. (Disclaimer: the last time I felt a similar urge to travel I ended up spending 2 weeks holed up in a tiny bungalow along a fisherman’s beach in the Thai province of Chiang Mai… it was a glorious trip but my initial aim was for Brazil.)
2. Spelunking. Now that the weather has warmed up, I’m planning on hitting a few caves this summer.  I’ve spent a couple hours compiling a spreadsheet of all the national monuments (yes, I bought one of the NM passport books…), categorized by monument type. The Lava Beds in CA and the Oregon Caves look like lots of fun, and getting greater exposure to the west coast is a bonus.  Other caving adventures are being planned…
3. Books…yeah.  The cycle is never ending with this one, I’m afraid.  At the top of my book list this month is The Salmon of Doubt by Doug Adams.  I bought it in 2002 very shortly after it was released but never got around to reading it.  Guns, Germs and Steel is up next after that, possibly The Dresden Files series after that.
4. Movies. I’m planning to check out a few of the outdoor cinema shows this summer.  It combines a couple of my favorite things, evening picnics and films, and I think it’s a great summer tradition to be a part of since it happens all around the world.  Between Denver and Boulder, I will have several chances to see Goonies on the big screen again, as well a few other “oldie but goodies”…that is, if the rain lets up this month sometime.  If not, I’m also looking forward to seeing  The Last Airbender and Predators in the theaters.

Okay.  Seeing how it is going on 2 o’clock in the morning, I believe I am now officially obligated to lie in bed with the lights off and my eyes closed.  I do have to be at work later this morning, after all.  G’night!

Da… Bills.

The Buffalo Bills just lost to the New England Patriots on national broadcast television. Again I say, Monday Night Football is *not* the venue for pulling embarrassing stunts in the last minute of the 4th quarter that lose the game. I mean, come on guys.  Being from Buffalo makes me a Bills fan automatically, but this relationship is starting to feel one-sided.

Saturday Funnies

A Softer World

Spending the day out with friends today and catching up with my latest addiction, the Metamor City podcast by Chris Lester.

Just a *teeny* plug: I began listening almost a year ago, Life got busy, and I stopped for a while.  Now that I’ve returned to the podcast I anticipate hearing the next chapter of the story more and more.  The writing is extremely engaging, imaginative and prolific.  I’ve been listening to them in 3-4 episode blocks (while driving, at work or just working arond the house) and I’m ready for more of the good stuff.  Kudos to Chris Lester (and his amazing cast of voice actors) for developing such a delightful experience…even if I am on a year’s delay

Getting Inside My Head

Fun stuff:  About a week ago I participated in a rather lengthy and extensive personality test for a management training course I’m taking.  The current section of the course is teaching students to assess their management style, with the intention of helping us individually tailor our training. Part of the assessment is to determine which side of our brains we rely on most when we reason, form arguments and communicate our thoughts and feelings – the left or right.

Not knowing very much about how side-dominance affects personality, I just assumed that being a biogeek meant I was left-sided.  Also, I write with my right hand.  But, according to the tests, I overwhelmingly exhibited right-side dominance in most of the subject areas.  Huh.

When I asked questions to increase my understanding, the professor was quick to dismiss the myth that mental aptitude in science and math are strictly a left-sided thing.  “It’s a stereotype,” he said.  “Both sides are responsible for numerical analysis and scientific understanding.”  Oh, okay.  So, what things for me rang more true as a right-brainer, rather than left?  Well, this (admittedly rather unscientific) blurb from a quiz/article I found on the web summarizes several of the points my class discussed:

Right brain dominant individuals are more visual and intuitive. They are better at summarizing multiple points, picking up on what’s not said, visualizing things, and making things up. They can lack attention to detail, directness, organization, and the ability to explain their ideas verbally, leaving them unable to communicate effectively.

I can definitely say that I fall under this description more often than not.  This is in comparison to Left-brain dominant people, who tend to be:

…more orderly, literal, articulate, and to the point. They are good at understanding directions and anything that is explicit and logical. They can have trouble comprehending emotions and abstract concepts, they can feel lost when things are not clear, doubting anything that is not stated and proven.

Also, despite loving science and math, I’ve always been dubbed as being “atypical” by my peers: rather than pursue science for the logic of it, I am compelled by what I see as the art behind the science, and it’s expressed in a number of complex and abstract ways.  This view of the world has led to tremendous comfort moving in and out of several not-so-scientific hobbies and social circles.  I use science as an example because of my industry, but I guess the reverse can be said for those who work in the liberal arts.

So, does all this mean that I’m going to quit the engineering industry and run out to join an artist’s colony?  No.  My passions are still in tact and in order, and the brain uses both the right and left sides to perform the millions of tasks required of it on a daily basis.  However, it does mean that I have a clearer picture of how I think, feel and communicate as an individual, and working to better understanding oneself is the second-most noble of pursuits.  What Life requires is balance, and knowing my natural tendencies will help me be more effective while working in a leadership role and in acheiving my personal goals.

Colorful

Cam and I went to Cave of the Winds in Manitou Springs last weekend.  It was awesome.  The photos I took while inside the caves turned out pretty awful, but the surrounding (above ground) landscape offered a few choice pics.

Cam really enjoys caving, and learning what he knew about cave geology was an added bonus to the experience.  Hopefully we will visit others sooner rather than later.

My head has been in the clouds.

I got to go on my first company helicopter ride a couple of weeks ago! It was a lot of fun, and the view was gorgeous. So yeah, this is why I haven’t posted on here in a while, I’ve been too busy taking in the scenery

Having fun yet?

I can’t believe it’s December already, which means that next time I poke my head up it’ll be 2008

I walked in the December holiday parade this past weekend! It was SO much fun and lots of people in the community came out to show their support and have a good time. To make it even more exciting, my group marched behind a local Chinese drum group that showed off amazing drumming skills and a HUGE, colorful 20′ long paper dragon! SaaaWEET!

The temp outside actually got up to 65 degrees today! The sky was beautiful at sunset.

Trick or Treat

S’mores and Sushi

Last night I had a wonderful time visiting with my friends Kris and Laurel at their home up in Nederland. Along with friends Eric and Sandra, we had a sushi party (my favorites were the California rolls, unagi, poki and some darn good sake!). Might I add: Sandra made the poki, which was so good I ventured out and ate my first bite of raw tuna…yumm! After we stuffed ourselves silly we headed over to the new community theater’s opening night event to watch Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It was so much fun! And despite a great evening already, my favorite part of the night had to be after the movie, when we all came back to the house to roast marshmallows over an open-pit fire in the backyard. That took me back a couple of decades

Next time, we have to come up with more ghost stories (and exploding rocks hand-picked from the local dump doused in greek fire…)!

Another Place, Another Time

I went to the Colorado Renaissance Festival yesterday and had a charming experience. I hadn’t been to this kind of festival before, but the trip was warranted when a friend of mine decided to have her wedding there (which happens often, I later found out). Fortunately, I had enough time to wander around and take in the lovely scene before the park closed for the day. The weather was really hot, but I hardly noticed with all the excitement happening around me! There were ladies in long, full skirts, knights in full armor, street peddlers, elephants, wood and water faeries, and loud, booming canons that caught my undivided attention on several occasions. I had a lot of fun, and posted a few of my own photos here.

In a couple of days I leave for a more traditional wedding in Buffalo. I’m afraid it just won’t be the same without flutes and lyres.

Blessed be!