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Journal Entry: July 31, 2008

Tuesday night, T– volunteered to help with an event at church, so I stayed home to take care of AB. I made up her dinner, and then D– showed up with some dinner for me — a turkey sandwich from Jersey Mike’s. Awesome.

T– got home around 8:30 and put AB to bed, and D– and I started up a game of Civ. We finished our previous game (U. N. victory before we had a chance to go to war with Hannibal). I set up our second game wrong, so even though we had an amazing starting map (flowing with milk and honey, as it were), we ditched it to fix the broken settings with a new game.

We were up until after midnight playing. Ugh.

Yesterday I left work early to go to an MRI. It went really well. We spent maybe 10 minutes in waiting rooms, and then the tech came to get me (he wouldn’t let T– come along). He took down all my symptoms, and then put me in the machine for twenty minutes.

I was pretty doped up on my medicine all day yesterday, so it was easy enough to lie still for twenty minutes. At one point, while I was inside the machine, I started idly wondering what it would be like to be claustrophobic, and then I started imagining it, and then I could see so clearly how a claustrophobic person would react to that awful tube, and I just almost worked myself into a panic attack. I managed to remember that I’m not actually claustrophobic, though, and talked myself back out of it.

Afterward, we met D– and K– and N– and my little sister’s family at Qdoba for dinner. It was pretty good, in a Moe’s kind of way. We were there until almost 7:30, then D– brought me home and we played Civ until 10. This new game is going very well. I trashed the English, and now D–‘s going to take over the Holy Roman Empire. And after that, the world.

We watched the pilot of a show called Mad Men while T– was at church, and it’s pretty good. More drama than I usually watch, but good. Once T– got home we switched to Boston Legal and that ran until bedtime.

T– also made some new curtains for our bedroom yesterday, and they look really nice. It brings some color to the room. I’m impressed how much of a difference they made.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

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Journal Entry: July 29, 2008

I was able to get home from work yesterday — the car started just fine — and when I got home I spent some time playing with AB because I could. We both had some cereal for a snack.

Then D– showed up at some point, and we got a couple pizzas from Mazzio’s for dinner (because they have a special on Monday nights), and we watched Boston Legal and ate pizza and played Civ. D– and I resumed our game from Sunday, and we played it until nearly midnight. The Incas are annihilated and the Vikings would’ve been, but at the last minute they became vassals of Hammurabi, who is too big for us to attack at the moment. It will happen, just not yet.

We’re well on our way to grabbing a Domination victory anyway, just for sheer landmass. We own four continents now, and Hammurabi and Charlemagne are sharing just one (not much bigger than any of our four. I don’t think we have too much to worry about, even if he is ahead of us tech-wise.

Yeah, seriously, that’s all I did. It was a fun night. I’m hoping we can finish the game tonight, and maybe start another one.

We did get the leak in our foundation fixed today. Some guys came out and put in new water lines through the attic. I’m hoping that will fix our air conditioning problems, too, but that’s pretty iffy. We’ll see in a day or two.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

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Journal Entry: July 28, 2008

It’s been almost a week since I wrote last, but not a lot has happened in that time.

Tuesday night went pretty much like I predicted it would. I lay on the floor and we watched TV. Wednesday I went to work all day, then afterward we didn’t have our regular Wednesday night dinner because, frankly, we have to eat at home some time. T– grilled up burgers and dogs, and D– joined us.

Oh, during the day on Wednesday, T– had the same problem with the Saturn, and it has happened twice more since then — if you drive it anywhere, it stops working until it’s had about an hour to cool down.

Thursday I took off work, and we took the Saturn up to Wal-Mart to have them check the battery. It was under warranty, so I figured they would make good and certain the battery was bad before fixing it (and if it wasn’t bad, they could give us a hint what was wrong). I figured wrong. They replaced it with a new battery, I drove it home, and then out of curiosity I tried starting it up and it wouldn’t even turn over. An hour later, though, it started fine.

I also had my doctor’s appointment Thursday, which mostly consisted of me sitting in an empty exam room waiting for someone to show up. The doctor looked me over, ruled out some kinda scary things, and mostly agreed that it was probably a pinched nerve in my spine and a pulled muscle in my leg. He sent me for an XRay which, he said, didn’t really indicate anything (and he said that was a bad thing), so they scheduled me for an MRI. In the meantime, he said, I shouldn’t do anything that could make things worse. Basically, I’m supposed to do as little as possible. Over the weekend, I pretty much obeyed the doctor’s orders.

He also gave me prescriptions for a painkiller (Lortab) and a muscle relaxant and anti-inflammatory (Soma). Between the two, they make me feel drunk all the time. Not the good sort of drunk, either. The queasy, light-headed, anxious sort of drunk. Ugh.

Anyway. Thursday was T–‘s birthday. I gave her a card Thursday morning, and then stayed home to hang out with her all day (which mostly consisted of sleeping in, going to the doctor, then crashing on the couch when the Lortab kicked in), and then we went out to Texas Roadhouse with D– and K– and N– for dinner. Afterward we got dessert at Maggie Moo’s, and took it home to watch the rest of Batteries Not Included. It was fun, and I think everyone had a great time.

Friday morning I woke up early, and felt really weird. It was either the medication or the large ice cream I’d had just before going to bed or (more likely) a combination of the two, but I was sick. I didn’t realize how sick until I got to work, though. Oh, and I was driving the Saturn, because T– had some errands to run during the morning. So I got out of my car, threw up in the parking lot, and then had no way to get home until the car cooled down. Nice.

It was an unpleasant morning at work, then I ran home and crawled into bed. I got up to give T– a kiss goodbye before she headed to Wichita, then crashed again. Around 5:00 D– called and woke me up, and I was feeling better by then.

But, yeah, T– went to Wichita over the weekend to celebrate her birthday with family. I’d meant to go, too, but we decided with my back problems that the five hours of driving and two nights on a crappy bed wouldn’t do me any good. T– was worried about leaving me home alone, though, so she asked D– to keep an eye on me while she was gone.

So he picked me up around 5:00 on Friday afternoon and we went over to his place to watch some Boston Legal while I played Civ on my laptop and he worked on B–‘s dead computer. That was pretty much the model for the weekend. Friday night we also watched Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which was pretty good in a Big Lebowski or Zero Effect sort of way.

Around 11:00 I went home and went to bed. Then D– called around 10:00 Saturday morning and woke me up. He brought Taco Bueno for lunch, and while we ate he grabbed some more episodes of Boston Legal and installed Civ on his laptop, then we went over to his place and watched Iron Eagle (which was terrible, in exactly the same way that The Last Starfighter is terrible), and then we watched some Boston Legal while I played Civ on the laptop and D– worked on B–‘s computer.

N– called sometime in the afternoon and invited us to dinner at Othello’s up in Edmond, so we headed that way around 6:45, and after dinner we went over to their place to watch Wargames, which was only left out of our 80’s Movies Review because we’d all seen it. It was fun watching it again, though. D– dropped me off at home afterward, and I stayed up to markup another chapter of Heather’s novel before I went to bed.

Then Sunday morning K– and N– picked me up for church (remember I was left with the Saturn, and it’s misbehaving). Ben Affleck led singing, which was pretty exciting, but other than that it was a normal Sunday service. Afterward they drove me up to Schlotzky’s to meet my little sister and her family for lunch, but K– and N– couldn’t hang around because K–‘s mom was coming into town, and they needed to meet her. (D– didn’t join us because he thinks Schlotzky’s is “gross.”)

So, I had a pleasant lunch with my sister. They just got back from a week in New Mexico, and had lots of stories to tell between the two of them. Jeff also mentioned that he has a lot more experience to offer to help me improve my Sleeping Kings story, which means he’s willing to read through it at least one more time, which is a pretty big compliment in itself. I’m grateful for that.

When they dropped me off at home, I called D– to check in, and he came to pick me up and we went over to his place to, yeah, watch Boston Legal and play Civ. This time he loaded it up too (as B–‘s computer was running hours-long diagnostics tests), and we played some multiplayer Civ for the first time in many years. It was incredibly fun, and the next ten hours flew by.

We did watch Strange Brew while we played, and it was awful. Truly, truly terrible. I don’t recommend it at all. Then we tried to watch The Beastmaster because I remembered liking it in high school, but…ye gods. All the other movies we watched that weekend shine like beacons of perfect cinematography compared with The Beastmaster. It was wretched. It was filth.

Oh! He had also started The Unforgiven while I was at lunch, so I got to see the second half of it after he picked me up. Yet again, terrible movie. The dialog is atrocious, and the plot is boring. Don’t watch it. Yuck.

Still, the movies were all just background, really. D– played the Germans and I played the Russians and we started out on this catastrophically small island together, but by the end of the day we had two more continents under our dominion and we’re about to prosecute a successful war against the allied Incas and Vikings, with the full backing of our good friend Hammurabi.

I could have stayed up all night playing, but T– called around 9:00 to say she was heading home, and I wanted to be there when she got in, so D– took me home and I did some dishes and generally cleaned up the place while I waited for her to get in. It was nearly midnight before I got to bed.

Then this morning I slept late, which made me late for work, but I got to play with AB a little because of it, so I’m not too upset. I brought the Saturn to work, but it should have had plenty of time to cool off by now, so I don’t expect any problems getting home.

I feel like I’ve got my medications under control now, and they’re definitely helping with the pain. My back is nowhere near as bad as it was a week ago. I have an MRI scheduled for Wednesday at 3:30, so I’ll be able to tell you more after that.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

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Journal Entry: July 22, 2008

Believe it or not, I really try to limit the amount of complaining I do on this blog, particularly for ongoing things like back pain and insomnia. Yeah, I mean that, it could actually be worse….

Today, I’ve got no choice, though, because most of my last 24 hours have been determined by back pain. I mentioned doing a lot of housework on Sunday. Part of my reason for doing that was that after three or four weeks of “taking it easy” in the hopes my back would get better, I had seen no improvement. So, I figured, maybe what I needed was to exercise my back more — stretch it out and work out the kinks. So I took care of a lot of little things around the house that had gone undone while I was taking it easy.

By the end of the day Sunday, I was in excruciating pain. Far worse than I had been before. I decided while walking miles through Wal-Mart Sunday night that, fine, I would actually meet with a chiropractor.

So yesterday I scheduled an appointment for after work, went in and got XRays taken and had a preliminary adjustment, and then went home and spent the evening trying not to shout obscenities any time I moved. T– made up some chicken fried rice for dinner (which was delicious) and we watched some Boston Legal, and I went to bed relatively early. In the meantime, I iced my back every couple hours and did all kinds of weird stretches, as recommended by my chiropractor.

Then, this morning, I woke up and couldn’t move. For weeks I’ve been in pain, but it only really hurt when I would move — going from sitting to standing (or vice versa) or folding myself into a car seat. Once I was positioned, it didn’t hurt until I tried to move again. As of this morning, though, that is no longer true. I hurt all the time. Excedrin makes no noticeable difference (nor does the cold pack, but my chiropractor insists it’s helpful). I’m just gritting my teeth constantly and still groaning every time I move.

So I called work and told them I couldn’t make it in this morning, and then T– called my chiropractor to move my afternoon appointment up (to noon), and then I called my regular doctor and scheduled a visit for Thursday (because I couldn’t get in sooner). He wouldn’t prescribe me painkillers over the phone, the bastard.

Anyway, went to the chiropractor at noon, and T– took AB to go grocery shopping at a nearby CVS, so that we could meet afterward at the pizza hut on the corner near there. How convenient! Then I could drive on to work (because the chiropractor is close to my work) and T– could drive home.

Only, as I was leaving the chiropractor T– called to tell me that her car wouldn’t start. Ugh. I picked her up at CVS, drove across the street to Pizza Hut, and had her call AAA while AB and I enjoyed the pizza buffet. Don’t tel K–, but the jumper cables we bought last time I had a car that wouldn’t start are currently sitting on a shelf in the garage. They never made it into our trunks. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Anyway, AAA said it would be an hour (and, in case you haven’t been watching the news, it’s over 100 degrees outside these days).

Bah. That was not a very happy lunch hour.

Afterward, I took T– back to CVS to raise the hood on the Saturn (with a forty minute wait still ahead), and she went ahead and tried to start it, and it roared right up. Thank the lord for small miracles. So she was able to take AB home, and I headed on up to work to salvage a few hours of leave time — I can be in excruciating pain here as easily as I can be in excruciating pain at home, right?

Given my location, it made more sense to just drive south on Meridian than to go back east to get on the highway, so I did that, an two miles down I came upon Reno, and discovered a bunch of my favorite restaurants there! On the Border and Earl’s were the two most important, because that intersection is only 3-4 miles from my work, and I’ve sometimes gone 10-12 miles over my lunch break to get to the next nearest of those two restaurants! I had no idea. So, there you go — another small point of happiness in my day. I think I shouted “No way!” to no one, when I saw the OtB.

Now I’m at work, folded into my desk chair, trying not to move at all. It hurts. I’ll go home in a few hours and just lay flat on the floor for the whole evening, while Boston Legal plays over my head. Hopefully Thursday he’ll give me something to feel better. And I’ll be spending half an hour four days a week visiting the chiropractor, for the next four to six months (plus whatever physical therapy the real doctor assigns me).

Wish me luck. I’ll let you know if anything gets better.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

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Journal Entry: July 21, 2008

Thursday night, T– went to a church picnic with K– and N– (footage is available on her blog). I wasn’t feeling up to pretending to be friendly with churchfolk, so I opted out. Instead, D– and I grabbed a pizza from Falcone’s, and took it over to B– and E–‘s place.

You know, I really need to spend more time with them. We had a great evening. D– worked on B–‘s computer, I borrowed a couple of books from E–, and we watched Shakes the Clown. That was my first time seeing it. Just…bizarre. Hilarious, but bizarre.

Amazingly, B– failed to get us all smashed this time, so we made it home at a reasonable time without too much drunkenness. I think it was about 10:30 when I got in.

Friday was my RDO. I slept in, then spent the morning working on a writing project (and chatting with my little sister about her book-in-progress). Then in the afternoon I mostly lazed around the living room. T– did the same. We went to On the Border for lunch, and probably went out for dinner, but I don’t remember where. Friday evening just sort of melted by. We finished off Arrested Development, though.

Then, around 10:00, D– showed up and he and I went to see Get Smart. It was everything I hoped it would be. I also rushed home and added Get Smart: The Complete Original Series to the top of my queu on Blockbuster. It appears to come all on one disc. I’m baffled.

Saturday morning T– woke me up at the unthinkable hour of 8:30 so she could go shopping with N–. I watched AB for most of the morning, then D– called and asked if we wanted to go to the bagel place for lunch, and naturally we agreed. I have something against letting T– use our kitchen. I dunno. Right afterward we dropped AB off with the babysitter at our place, then we went up to the mall and got in line for The Dark Knight.

While D– and I held out spot, T– went shopping in the mall and got our niece a birthday present. Then, forty minutes in or so, K– and N– joined us, and a few minutes after that they opened the doors. The movie was pretty much fantastic. An artistic vision. It was dark — you’ll be amazed how much so — but the story was well told.

It was longer than any of us expected, too. We got out of the theater right at 5:00, and we had dinner plans with the Vickis — friends of ours from high school, plus their husbands. We went back to the house and T– got started grilling while I ran to the store for some last minute groceries. By the time I got back, the guests were well installed in our house.

We ate, we talked much and browsed nearly all of T–‘s scrapbooks. Then D– showed up (around 10:00, once again), and we talked some more, then we turned on the Wii and bowled some and golfed some and then we spent twenty minutes browsing YouTube. We finished up with some Christopher Walken from SNL, and it was after midnight by the time they left (and they had a drive back to Tulsa still ahead of them, the poor souls).

Over-socialized and late-to-bed, I slept in and skipped church Sunday morning. D– called and asked about lunch and he and I ended up picking up Taco Bueno for everyone. Afterward he went home for a nap, AB went down for a nap, and T– got on her computer to take care of some work stuff. Free to spend my time however I pleased, I decided (for some reason) to work on my To Do list.

I hung a picture in my office (an old drawing of a red fox that I’ve had forever, that T– had framed for me as a gift), replaced a burnt-out lightbulb outside the front door, cleared out some overgrown shrubs in a flowerbed, sawed some dead limbs out of the swinging tree in our back yard, moved some of AB’s baby stuff into storage in the attic, cleaned up my office workspace, and then enlisted T–‘s help and we hosed down the woodwork on the front of the house and gave it a thorough scrubbing. That last was an amazingly successful project. The house looks a lot better than it has since we moved in.

That list of chores took up all of Sunday afternoon. When AB got up from her nap, we took her with us to Wal-Mart to take care of some business there (shopping for a nephew’s birthday present, and getting a new key to the Tulsa house), and then we picked up some dinner from Popeye’s on the way home. That was an awful experience. They overcharged us, made us place our entire order twice, made us wait twenty minutes for our food, and then gave us the wrong food and none of the drinks we’d paid for. Ugh. Then T– tried to call the customer service number on the receipt, to place a complaint, and found it out of order.

The chicken was good enough, though, and afterward we watched Hot Rod (which I enjoyed more than T– did), and then got to bed at a reasonable hour.

There’s my weekend. We may have some developments on the Tulsa house (nothing to open champagne bottles over, but good news nonetheless), but I’ll wait until I’m clearer on the details before sharing that.

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Journal Entry: July 17, 2008

Last night, we met D– and K– and N– at Jason’s Deli for dinner. I had just the salad, which was a pretty poor choice on my part.

Afterward, T– took AB to church, and D– and I grabbed snowcones on the way back to the house. Then we watched Family Guy until T– got home, and then we watched Arrested Development until AB went to bed (and D– went home), and then we watched Boston Legal until we went to bed.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

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Journal Entry: July 16, 2008

My back hurts, and I’m tired all the time.

I try not to spend all my time on this blog complaining, but that’s a one-two punch right there that can really get a fella down. Ugh.

Last night I got home from work and we went to the gym. The weights area was crowded and, as I said, my back was hurting, so I just skipped that and did the cardio. T– suggested that we do the elliptical machines, since they might be easier on the back (and she was very, very wrong). I found myself falling back into my old pace, though, which is a pretty grueling one. I was impressed to learn I can still keep that up, and in fact my heart rate never got into the red (where it used to stay for 25 of the 30-minute workout). So that was good.

Afterward, I dropped her off at home so she could mow the lawn, and I took AB up to the mall to pick up another month’s worth of protein shake mix, and while I was out I dropped off a check and picked up some dinner. Then we watched Arrested Development until AB went to bed, and then some Boston Legal until we went to bed.

There was an episode all about “On Civil Disobedience” by Thoreau, but they never actually made any reference to it, which thoroughly dumbfounded me. I don’t know if they really did come up with the concept on their own, and are ignorant of the text, or if there are some glaring flaws in his philosophy that they didn’t want to subject themselves to. It was strange, though, seeing such an explicit allusion in a show that almost always names its sources, and then getting only a reference to some anti-Communist piece during Allan’s closing.

I definitely need to reread “Civil Disobedience,” though. It was good material.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

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Journal Entry: July 15, 2008

Last night, I got home from work and fell asleep on the couch, even with AB running up to me and screaming in my face every three or four minutes. Sometime around 6:00 she did that, and I noticed it was late enough we probably weren’t going to the gym, so I got up and moved to the office and slept another hour.

So T– took care of AB all evening, and she had dinner ready for me when I finally got up — a new pasta dish, that was pretty good. We watched Arrested Development during dinner, then when AB went to bed, T– ran up to Homeland to do some shopping, and I worked on some documents. After she got back, we watched several episodes of Boston Legal, and when we finally went to bed around 11:40, neither one of us could get to sleep. It was a fitful night.

It’s now been a week since I last went to the gym. We’re planning to go tonight, though.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

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Journal Entry: July 14, 2008

I had a busy weekend.

Friday after work, I stopped in to get a haircut, and my stylist told me she’d been pushing our Tulsa house. She said, by coincidence, she’d encountered five or six people in the last couple months planning to move to Tulsa, and she’d told them all, “I have the perfect house for you!” She hasn’t seen it, knows nothing about it, but she’s been trying to sell it for us. I told her she was doing a better job promoting the house than our realtor.

Afterward D– joined us for dinner at Poblano’s (because Texas Roadhouse kept hanging up on us), and then we all met K– and N– at the Cold Stone Creamery in the mall for some ice cream, then we headed back to our place and watched Adventures in Babysitting — my first pick in our 80s Movies Review.

It went over pretty well. K– was no impressed, going into it, and I never really got a good opinion from him afterward, but for the rest of us, I think it was everything we remembered it being. I enjoyed it, anyway.

That made for a relatively late night. Then Saturday T– and I watched some Boston Legal, D– came over in the afternoon to play some HeroScape, and of course Saturday night we went to see Jim Gaffigan perform at the Rose State Performing Arts Center. Beforehand, we met Toby and Gwyn at Old Chicago and had some delicious (if hurried) pizza. Then Jim was funnier than I really expected, with mostly new material, and it was quite an experience seeing it in person. I basically didn’t stop laughing for about an hour and a half. Good stuff.

Sunday morning I didn’t feel like dealing with society, so I stayed home while T– went to church. There was a pot luck fellowship afterward, which T– and K– and N– planned to attend for lunch, so I called D– up around 11:00 and he and I ran down to Freddy’s to eat. We were back at the house being lazy when T– got home. She put AB down for a nap, and then we spent the early afternoon watching Arrested Development. Then D– and I made a run for snowcones, and we picked up his copy of Hellboy while we were out, and we spent the rest of the afternoon watching that.

As soon as the credits rolled, T– and I ran out the door to get to evening services on time (or, as it turned out, five minutes late). They’re doing a video series on Sunday nights put on by the minister T– liked so much in Tulsa, and they said there was going to be a staffed nursery, so it seemed like a really good idea. When we got there, we found the nursery unstaffed (probably because no kids had shown up in time), so we took AB in with us, but that didn’t last long. I volunteered to watch her, and took her back to the nursery, so I spent most of the next hour watching her play and fetching toys off high shelves at her insistence. Man, that baby can’t really speak yet, but she can jab a finger with true eloquence.

After church, K– and N– came over for chili dogs, and we found D– still on our couch, so we fed him too. We turned on an Arrested Development, middle of season two, and watched that while we ate. K– and N–, who have never watched the series, were not impressed. The rest of us rolled, though, and after K– and N– went home we watched six more episodes, discussing after each how much better or worse that one might have been to show them.

I got to bed around 10:40, and got to sleep some time around 1:00, although I probably spent some time snoring before then.

Then this morning I drove the Saturn to work, because T– had business in Tulsa and we knew the Saturn was having some problems with its tires. Specifically tread separation, and I didn’t want to see T– stranded on the side of the interstate.

You never want to drive on separating treads, but tires aren’t exactly cheap, either, so I probably would have let her drive around town with those tires for another week or two, if I hadn’t driven the car today. I had no idea it was so bad. It was like driving down a rough dirt road, with all the bouncing and jostling. Ugh. So I took my lunch break and ran up to Wal-Mart for a new tire — and learned I needed two, and they showed me the splits on the tires they’d taken off. I was lucky to make it into work this morning without having to change a tire.

So, bah, that’s basically the same problem on both of our cars, within a two week window. I could live without that sort of thing.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

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Journal Entry: July 11, 2008

No, I did not go to the gym last night. But it wasn’t the sloth that prevailed. It was gluttony.

Actually, D– often picks up Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner for us on Thursday nights, and last night he said he really didn’t feel like waiting until 7:30 for dinner, so he asked if we would be willing to skip the gym. As I said even in my post, I didn’t really feel like going, so it was an easy enough sacrifice to make.

T– built us a new HeroScape map yesterday, but we didn’t have a chance to try it out. I got home from work and immediately got started testing out my new universal remote. I’d done a little bit of the programming at work yesterday, so it only took me about twenty minutes to get it controlling the TiVo and the XBox (which, between the two, cover 99% of our entertainment system use). I spent most of the rest of the night fiddling with it, but the main functionality was there (and awesome) within about half an hour.

Then we ate dinner and watched Arrested Development for a couple hours, and D– said he needed to get home right around the time I was headed to bed, thus the lack of HeroScape. I’m sure we’ll get in some good games over the weekend though.

Once he was gone, T– and I watched Boston Legal until bedtime.

I’ve mentioned some problems getting to sleep over the last week. Well, T– picked up some over-the-counter sleeping pills for me yesterday, and I tried my first one last night. Per the instructions, I took one about half an hour before going to bed (in this case, about 9:40). A little after ten I headed to bed, but I didn’t feel the least bit sleepy. I finally started drifting off around 11:30, but I kept waking up. That went on until 1-ish, and then the sleeping pill really kicked in. I mean, I could certainly feel it working when my alarm went off at 6:00, and 6:09, and 6:18, and 7:00, and 7:09, and again around 8:00.

Ugh. No, that’s not looking like a solution for me. My morning was worse than usual, and my night was no better.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.