The Frayed Ends Of Sanity

Things haven't been going well lately. I'm beginning to think I have a sleep disorder. Pick one: Narcolepsy, or Sleep Apnea. I am consistently tired. I can't focus for any considerable length of time, I can't stay motivated, I have absolutely no energy, and I spend my days in a hazy fog that borders on delirium.

I have been wanting to write a few more entries to this blog, but when I sit down to write, I find that I have about as much energy to write little more than a paragraph, and I am the kind of person who likes to develop develop his arguments. After reading what I had written, I erase it and do something else.

I have a very sedentary job. I spend the entire day in front of the computer, but it's doing work that is not terribly exciting (data entry and report writing). Since my employment, I have been less active. When I first took the job in 2001, I was playing gigs on weekends, which required a lot of heavy lifting (those amps and speakers aren't light), so I was getting some exercise during the week. Last summer, I decided to take up jogging, but that idea was eighty-sixed when my knees seized up on the first jog, and I couldn't walk for ten days afterwards. So much for getting in shape.

I do not have low blood pressure. In fact I usually check it about once a month. I am always 120 / 80. Perfect score every time. I however think, that sitting for extended periods is weakening my heart, and I am getting poor circulation.

For the remainder of this week, I am going to take a break at 10:00 and 3:00, go outside for a jog around the block, get some fresh air, and see if my condition improves. In addition, I think I might have to revolt and bring music into work. My boss hates music being played in the office. He considers it a distraction, so for the last three years I have had to listen to the incessant buzz of fluorescent lights. That's enough to drive anyone insane.

I have said to myself a number of times how much I despise my job. Perhaps it's not the job I despise, but the environment. The job is in my educational field, and I used to like it, but something has to change.

But there is something else wrong. Fatigue has always been a problem with me, especially in the mornings even my Kindergarten teacher wrote in my report card "MC Fro does not deal well with mornings". Some things don't change even after some twenty-five years. I have fallen asleep standing up. I have also fallen asleep while driving -- more than once. It has been a miracle that both me and my car survived.

I cannot drink coffee - it makes me ill. I end up drinking about two or three cups per year, and then I am reminded why I do not drink it in the first place. I drink copious amounts of cola in a day -- probably nearing a liter per day. By body has grown accustomed to the daily dose of caffeine, and instead of it giving me a swift kick in the rear, it does little to help my alertness. In fact, if I do not get my daily dose of cola, it's headache city.

Please don't ask me about other stimulants or amphetamines. I don't even go near the stuff. I like to sleep on a regular basis. I'm just sleeping at the wrong times.

In other news... Yesterday, I played my most successful game of NetHack. I was playing a wizard character who couldn't seem to do anything wrong (at least at the beginning). Unfortunately, my kitty starved to death before I entered the Gnomish Mines. Using Force Bolt liberally, I managed to get my character "Zappy" to Gnometown. But then I was stupid, and I annoyed the priest. The next thing I knew I was surrounded by wolves and patrolmen. I had very little mana left, and I died rather quickly. Note to self: Don't annoy the Priest!

Take Two of These and Call Me In The Morning - By The Way, Here's A Whole Pile of Work That Must Get Done!

I am still feeling miserable. I managed to stay home from work yesterday, but that doesn't mean that the work didn't show up at my front door. After laying down for a few hours, my boss shows up at my door with some "urgent" work. So this was an opportunity to put my new office suite OpenOffice, to the test.

My initial experience with OpenOffice was that the interface closely resembled Micro$oft Office. What I was really interested in, was how compatible the two were.

I imported a Word file, and an Excel file. The Excel file converted to OpenOffice seamlessly. There were only minor issues with some fonts, but the file appeared normal once ported back to a PC version of M$ Office. The Word file converted less accurately, namely with respect to the drawing tools. Arrowheads were improperly sized, and the graphics were generally harder to manipulate in OpenOffice. This could be potentially fixed in an upcoming release of OOo.

One other problem I had centered around the highlighted text feature. I normally use this to highlight words and phrases that will require editing. I highlighted some text in OpenOffice, but once opened on M$ Office, the highlighted text would not "un-highlight". This was solved the old-fashioned way, by deleting the highlighted text, and manually re-typing it.

Overall, OpenOffice has passed the first test. I have yet to see how it will work with inserted images such as photos.

I managed to put in a half-day at work today, but I left for the afternoon as I am in desperate need of some rest. I have a late night due to Grease rehearsal, and I can't miss tonight as I missed Sunday's practice. If I don't get enough rest, I'm going to end up being completely useless tomorrow -- and there are late nights ahead for me the rest of the week.

On another note, I have been watching my traffic on this site. October has broken all the records for site visits on this site. Traffic is continuing to climb; perhaps November will be even more successful!

* Ah-Choo! *

Thanks to overexerting myself and getting very little sleep the last number of weeks, I have managed to catch myself a cold. This is the first time I have been sick in over two years (I'm not counting acts of self-indulgence). I took the afternoon off work, and I should be getting some rest instead of playing on my computer.

Not only is this a sick day, but I am considering this day off work a mental health day. I feel like I have been going slowly insane for a number of weeks now. I am in a desperate need of a break, and a full nights' sleep.

I think it would be an adventure to spend a little time in a mental institution. I would consider it a demented party game, when the men in white show up at my door, strap me in a strait jacket and haul me into the back of an ambulance. I'd have a heyday bouncing off the padded walls, muttering some post-apocalyptic gibberish to the observers whom hide behind two-way mirrors, while they all write "clearly insane" in their notebooks. I'm sure they'd give me injections of some unknown substance; "vitamins" they would call them, that would instead sedate me or make me impotent. They would take away my whiskey and cigarettes, and I would probably raise hell with the nursing staff, begging for a fix. I would go even more crazy, not having access to a computer, likely trying to make an email client out of a calculator and coconuts. And those therapy sessions, every one I'd feel like I'd be giving the sermon on the mount, telling everyone else that it is in fact, they who are truly insane, and I'm here to cure them -- only to be thrown into isolation without dinner or cigarettes. I'm sure after a while both the nursing staff and I would grow tired of my little game, but at least I would have a carefree holiday for a couple months.

I am sure this would be a fun game in this day and age, but I would not have wanted to be committed to an insane asylum in the 1950's. The treatment of mental patients for much of history was an exercise in human cruelty. These nightmarish practices still haunt people today, to the point where many people will deny the fact they have a mental problem for fear of what treatment they would receive at such an institution. Electro-shock therapy, and lobotomies were common practices not so long ago, practices considered more like butchery than therapy. By today's standards, these therapies resemble the torture practices of the Spanish Inquisition.

I'd better lay down before I start writing about some other depressing topic. While I recover from this nasty cold, you may all send cards, flowers or money.