I am Jill's glassy eyes.

Last night I didn't get more than two and a half hours of sleep at a time; fricking Simon hates that the window unit air conditioner has taken over his favorite window in my room, and woke me up several times banging the door in its latch to get out. (The flipside curse of the blessing of feline independence is its total disregard for human commands. I wanted to kill him.) It wouldn't have mattered so much if I weren't already dog tired, but I was, and still am, and the nightmares when I did manage to grab a few naps throughout the night were hardly conducive to rest. My mind won't shut off, and the only time I feel free of it is in my writing.

(If I didn't have to work, I would be locked in my room writing all day. It's the only thing I can think about with any kind of focus; when I get into that world, that writing space, everything else goes away and I write like something's driving me. It's been so long since I felt the Muse's sting that I'm almost feverish with it -- so often writing is about blood and sweat and tears and strenuous effort, and it's not effortless now, but there's a sort of metaphysical purpose to the effort that keeps me from noticing the strain until I stop writing -- somewhat like the exhilaration from running that overrides the body's expenditure of energy. It's difficult to come back.)

So today I'll be downing huge quantities of nature's sleep substitute, coffee, and propping my eyelids open with toothpicks.

I can't wait to go to Pittsburgh next weekend. There's a Rifftrax movie being simulcast into select theaters all over the place, and I'm taking an extended weekend to go see it, visit with old friends, bebop around my favorite city (I think it's long past time I visited the Carnegie Museum of Natural History -- oo, dinosaur bones! -- and the Carnegie Science Center, too), enjoy being in a place where I have absolutely no responsibilities and take a break from everything that's wearing me out and eating into my rest here.