Fear the Crab

I managed to finish the Great Aloha Run without collapsing into a fluid pile of twitching muscles and blistered feet. The official time recorded was 1:51:37, which averages into a 13:43 mile. I placed 9453 overall out of over 27,000+ entrants, 5528/10903 in my gender group, and 644/1125 in my age bracket.
Continued ~

I’m still painting miniatures, albeit is a slow and almost painful process. I don’t know how some people find the time or inspiration to churn out entire armies of these things in just a couple of weeks, as it takes me about as long to finish one model.

One big reason could be that I can’t decide on a single color scheme. I managed to finish a significant chunk of Space Marines a couple of years ago, but since then I decided to go with a marine sub-group called the Space Wolves. Basically they’re like Vikings. In space. And all of last year was spent painting up a pretty significant force, at least enough to play a small quick game. Unfortunately, afterward I got pretty tired of it. The colors didn’t really do it for me anymore, and I couldn’t get behind the idea of repeating it for every subsequent model.
Continued ~

I fucking hate insomnia.

I know I’m tired. I only had 4 hours of sleep last night. I can feel it in my head, and my body is lethargic and slow. But when I close my eyes I see daylight. I thought I read somewhere that someone referred to an idiot’s sight, but I can’t remember where and I don’t even know if it’s real. It’s that vision in the closed eye that sees things clear as crystal water, but in my case it’s just a bright haze that nothing can shut out. Blackout curtains, eye shades, pillow over the face, nothing helps keep that damn light from filling my mind.

The bed isn’t comfortable. I can’t find the right spot, the right position, to just relax. It’s hot under the covers, so I kick them off. Now it’s too cold. My shirt pulls, my collar chokes. My shorts feel like they can’t decide between giving me a wedgie or castrating my balls, so they do both. The pillow feels like a rock, and no matter how I lie it feels like my neck is made of concrete.

I hear every damn noise in a 20-mile radius. There seems to be a large dog in every backyard up and down my street, and the little rats yapping away in the valley sound like they’re right outside my window. I hear some kid screaming somewhere; I can’t tell if it’s in pleasure or pain, but I derive no relaxation from either thought. It sounds like everybody has a car or moped with an illegal muffler, blaring, whining and rumbling for seemingly infinite stretches of road.

I can’t stop thinking about every inconsequential thing. Most of what I think is unimportant trivial matters; what am I wearing to work tomorrow, what I will eat. They are fleeting thoughts, but as each shifts to oblivion it is replaced with another. Through it all I can only think of why I can’t sleep, and of course there is no answer.

I’ve tried to mentally will my body to relax, focusing first on my core, spreading out to my limbs. I can feel it working, similar to a meditative state. Unfortunately I can’t seem to ignore the outside world. Somewhere a dog has started barking again. Another modified car roars through the suburbs. Each blast of noise gets me really pissed off, even though I know in the deepest recesses of my brain, that it’s stupid to get mad at and there’s no real reason for it. I have a feeling the next day is going to suck. Seriously.