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!

The End of Summer.

It has been a while.  I had a great summer that went by way too quickly.  Mostly, I went hiking, went to Buffalo for my high school reunion, and went hiking some more. Good times.

I really like this blog, so I am going to try and be better about updating it more regularly, getting photos up and keeping better track of my Life.

It’s been all over the news about the fires that are raging in SoCal right now, and the skies have been smokey all the way out here in Northern Colorado. I am intrigued. On my commute home from work this afternoon I was unable to see the mountains, as they were concealed in smoke. A minute or two later, I noticed the gray haze that was generally in the air all around and felt my eyes beginning to sting when I blinked.

Things at work have been busy but good.  Business has picked up this quarter (I hope this is a sign of good things to come), which means those of us who made it through the layoffs late last year and in the early Spring of this year have been hauling butt to maintain the status quo. If I remember my Macroeconomics course at all, I believe this is probably happening all across America right now and is a positive sign for industry.

Activities at the AIDS service organization (ASO) I’ve been volunteering at for the last 3 years have scaled back up, too. Perhaps it’s just the time of year, summers are always more social. I was concerned to hear some disturbing news at a meeting last week, though: HIV infections are on the rise among young, gay men in our county.  This, in my mind, makes me consider if there are similar trends occurring in other youth populations. Amidst the warm glow of our outreach and prevention programs’ successes, we are steadily taking in more newly infected HIV-positive clients than in months past.  There could be many reasons for this, including more people than ever are getting tested and learning their status, but the news itself is startling. HIV/AIDS is still a real and urgent concern in our community and will remain so for a long time to come.

Mike and I just bought our plane tickets to DC to attend my best friend’s baby shower at the end of the month.  I am more than excited.  I have a tremendous amount of joy in knowing that my family is growing.  I can’t wait for Mike, who is my family here in Colorado, to meet my extended family back east.  All of us together will truly feel like home.

I am happy, I am loved, and on lucky days… I am well-rested

Time for bed. Good night all.

Thirsty

I have been daydreaming about diving into the ocean all day, and with good reason: I have seen some of the most beautiful scenery there…

Malibu Beach in California, 2003

And the unforgettable…

Near Lima, Peru, 2005

…Until the next time we meet!

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.

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…)!

Bringing it all together.

Classes officially begin on Monday and I am ready! Over the summer I made the decision to matriculate a course at the Denver campus this semester, so I spent the afternoon today taking a look around and getting a few things sorted. I really like the Student Union and found most of the people I met and talked to very friendly and helpful when I had questions. And I love riding on the train City life is nice.

On the home front there’s been a lot of change, too. Very unfortunately (and almost unbelievably), my landlord and her husband were BOTH laid off from their jobs last week! So, due to that, they’ve decided to keep this house on the market but are now (understandably) looking to rent the entire house to someone in the meantime, having only rented out my room until now (they own and live in another house). This means that I’ll definitely have to move sooner rather than later, as previous circumstances had caused me to believe I could rent just my room through to the end of the year.

It’s all good, though. I’m feelin’ good and not worried

List #4 (is the “new” List #1)

I’ve reached the one year mark on this blog! Yeah

I was looking through my lists and decided it was about time I made another one; but first, remembering List #1 seemed like an appropriate celebration of the blog’s first anniversary.

Now, on to List #4.

Movies coming out this summer that I want to see in the theater:

1. Mr. Bean’s Holiday
2. The Invasion
3. Manda Bala
4. September Dawn
5. The Bourne Ultimatum
6. War
7. The 11th Hour
8. Rush Hour 3

Back to business…sort of.

Ahh. Summertime has done it’s thing again. And, as I dream lazily of hot summer days and long summer nights, a hushed whisper inside reminds me…summer is nearly done.

Regular classes begin in two weeks, and somehow a pile of projects several feet high has landed on my desk at work. The vacation’s almost over; time to get back to the grind.

…Noooo!

Sweet Summer Rain

On my way home from work today, a heavy rain storm began while I was waiting downtown at the bus station. Like most others around me, I rushed under the closest overhang I could find. As I stood beneath the protection of an enormous concrete and metal structure, I looked out onto the street and watched the thick sheets of water fall to the ground. My thoughts drifted to the busy weekend away I’ve just come back from, the pile of work waiting for me on my desk, and the too-small, too-cold, too-gray office I’d left only minutes before.

And just like that, I zipped up my brief case, kicked off my sandals and stepped out into the rain with my face and palms up. It felt warm and smelled fresh, and soaked me to the scalp in about 10 seconds. A few moments later, the sun broke through the clouds and I could see a big rainbow nearby. That felt really good.

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!