Tired

Lately, I've been tired.  I don't mean for the past two or three days.  I mean for the past two or three weeks.  I get 7-8 hours' sleep, and I'm going to bed earlier and earlier.  Yet when I'm not working, I'm existing from one nap to the next.  I've also been having some vivid, odd dreams.  Last night I dreamt I was driving across the American southwest, when I ran into my friend Angelle Arata in New Mexico.  (Back when I went to Arizona State, I made that trip on several occasions.  I've got no idea how Angelle got in there.)  I've also been craving beer, though I haven't been drinking a lot, typically 1-3 each night.  While I've always liked beer, usually after the first, I'm moving on to the whiskey.  My tiredness and my beer craving seem related, but I don't know how.

(Also, Nicole has told me that on several occasions she's woken in the middle of the night and looked over at me, only to find our cat Ella sitting on my chest and just staring down at my unconscious face.  I've wondered if she's psychically tapping into my weird dreams.)



I think what's going on is . . . With our new life here in St. John's, we've arrived in a more stable, happy place, and I feel like my body's trying to catch up on all the stress it's carried over the past few years.  The same thing happened right after I got off active duty.  I was thrilled to be done with the Army, but suddenly my body had all these stress-related symptoms.  Later, I realized my body was pushing down the stress when I was on active duty until it could let down.

One thing about being this tired is that we've missed some things.  There was a women's film festival.  I'd wanted to go but missed it.  Every year here they have a big Halloween/Mardi Gras celebration on George Street.  (I know, they've conflated Halloween and Mardi Gras due to the costumes.  Actually, today I explained to a local that Mardi Gras is the day before Ash Wednesday.)  We missed both.  Ah well.

One of the things I've missed is my St. John's slide show.  It's coming, people!  But here are some tidbits about Newfoundland.  Though St. John's is very old, Newfoundland is the last territory to join Canada, in 1949.  It had been a British territory, and there was serious talk about its joining the US.  But Newfoundland isn't a province by itself.  For some reason it's grafted on to Labrador.  Labrador is about the size of Arizona, but has about 50,000 people living there.  It's total wilderness.  So the province is actually "Newfoundland and Labrador."

I know there's been some talk about my recent post, announcing my marriage to Nicole.  So I'd like to share this video with you.  Obviously, it's not of Nicole and me, but I was struck by the eerie similarities between the video and how I proposed to Nicole.