Fighting the Inevitable

Inspirational song: Jump (Van Halen)

I think when you find yourself thinking it's nap time at 8:30 at night, it's time to admit to yourself that maybe you're just tired and you need an early bed. I have been letting my schedule run later and later, and it is now completely out of hand. Last night I crawled in bed after 2, which is average lately, and I read until after 3. Exhausted, I turned out the light, and tried to sleep, but couldn't. Somewhere around 4 I answered an email from the man, and he asked me what the hell I was doing still awake. It's time to reset my sleep cycles. I had gotten greedy about wanting to stay up for email attention, but I'm going to start working my way back to reality now.

I wished I had a waterproof camera tonight. I was invited to swim after playing mah jongg, and the warm water was a welcome relief after playing for a long time, sitting on wooden chairs. The mah jongg master's dog is in great conflict with herself. She is terrified of getting all the way in the pool, where her feet don't touch the stairs, but she has a favorite ball, a hollow skeleton of a sphere, made of squishy rubber. When she sees the ball, she is desperate to get to it, but only up to a point. After an entire summer of training, she will put all four feet on the top stair, and she will dig at the water in an effort to drag the ball to her face, but there is nothing and no one to get her to get an inch farther into that water. She'd have the ball in her mouth, and the master would pull and pull all around the edge of the pool. I held my breath and watched the entire time, thinking that this would be the moment she jumped in after the ball. It never happened. Her self-control was so impressive.

While I wrote just now, I kept hearing a chirping sound. Eventually it occurred to me that it was full dark outside, and that wasn't a bird or a squirrel making that noise. I was just able to make out that there was a grasshopper (locust, cricket, whatever) on the window above my head, whose body was heaving each time it chirped. Two or three chirps after I located it, it jumped away from the window, and that was its undoing. My living room is brightly lit, and the glare on the window is strong, but I can still make out Carlotta, six inches away from the glass. She is eating well tonight, just as soon as she finishes killing the grasshopper who will never jump again. He's fighting it, though.