Brace for impact and get the she’s-a-bad-girls a-ready: I can’t sleep at night without meds, and it pisses me off.

There are a number of things in my life which have made me admit that there’s better living through modern chemistry. (I should say here that any and all herbal remedies are about better living through classical chemistry, so hush up. It’s all about tinkering with that cascade of molecules in your brain; I would be psyched to drink a tea . . . if it worked. What, you think I haven’t tried it? Glad it works for you, you lucky thing.)

In my natural, untampered-with brain state, I can eventually indeed fall asleep by about 4 a.m.: I just don’t stay that way. I awake often, and spend long stretches either in that almost-asleep&dreaming state, or chasing the critter I call the “3 a.m. squirrel” (regardless of time of arrival), who nibbles you awake and runs about in your head, largely sowing a path of destruction.

After a while, I tell myself and El Rodento that the time-honored advice of just getting up is what’s happening, and I do; most often I get some writing done. My head and face are tingly, my muscles are throbbing, my eyes are dry–and everything else screams in unison that less than six hours=not enough sleep–

–but it doesn’t matter. I’ll stay up for at least an hour, and then by the time I can go back to bed, I’ve got maybe an hour before the alarm lets me out of hell, so I can wake up and (in this non-drug scenario) hide in a dark room trying not to puke from the migraine.

Thus the medication. Ah, modern chemistry . . .

My being pissed-off isn’t because Drugs Are Bad. Golly gee, everybody is supposed to be able to SLEEP, right? Easy as falling off that log you’re sawing. I feel like I’ve failed a course.

Even with meds, nothing is certain. I had an unusually brisk romp with the 3 a.m. squirrel this morning, concerning a somewhat complicated and highly detailed scenario starring a yet-unborn kitten and a subsequent trip to the ER. (Not directly involving said kitten–as I said, it was complicated.) I think things will go better if I scruff myself and get up as soon as the beady-eyed little buck-toothed fiend shows up. I do in fact have writing to do. The squirrel gives decent dictation.

Poor kitten. I’m sure it won’t do anything of the sort.

Please note that the kitten as such does not exist. The 3 a.m. squirrel, on the other hand, is chewing it a little kitten basket out of worthless Civil War banknotes.

OK, so far neither the kidlet nor myself has found a job, and I’m doing angst about it. Last night it took the form of waking up at 3 a.m. and obsessing about all the tragedy both real and projected I could dredge up. (It’s the “3 a.m. squirrel” because it runs round and round in your brain.) I called it quits when one scenario started with the kitten I’m planning to get this Christmas, and ended with my trying to scam the ER out of some opthalmic antibiotic ointment. I’m leaving the several intervening steps out of it, because we try to run a family blog here. Just note that again, said kitten is currently a twinkle in some tomcat’s eye right now, and we’ll move on.

It’s probably as well that the storyfying part of my brain is kicked on high, because Dark Crimson Corners is officially off my desk until it goes pro (heh; see angst) and Max is well underway. I’ve been underwhelmed by my plot idea for this, partly because Max told me I had to come up with one and I’m unfortunately my protagonists’ bitch whether I have one ready or not. But after a couple of months of flailing around in backstory, I’m finally getting good to go, and it looks like it’ll be ok-so-far. The thing that’s been hardest to shut off is the fear of Too Longness–DCC ended up 320K, I think–after cuts. I’m going to do my damnedest to ignore it while I write, and edit down later.

Meanwhile, the Achilles continues to heal (sorry), meaning I can now interact with the sweaty beauties of the Canterbrigian summer. (As opposed to the Jamaican Planiferous summers of the previous three years, which were merely sweaty.) My couch potato-hood lasted long enough for me to watch the entirety of Buffy on Netflix; it’s kind of embarrassing how comparatively little writing I got done that month+. I made a New Year’s resolution to update this blog once a week; this obviously hasn’t panned out, ’cause I’s lazy. And this catch-up doesn’t count, so I suppose it’s on to Plinky, which is the writing equivalent of that workout you have to add on because of Aunt Inez’ carrot cake at the family reunion. Hidey ho!

Breaking up is hard to do, but getting into a new relationship is a lot, lot harder.

So fifteen years ago I started talking to this guy called T.D. Riverly. He used to come into the library I babysat late at night, and I got to know him. Sort of. I knew about his main traumas, and what it was like to be him. We stayed in touch during the seven-year hiatus between At Harvard I and At Harvard II, and during the end of my dissertation, we started getting closer.

Finally, he watched over my shoulder as two crazy kids ran away from a crossbow-wielding mob, and he stepped out of his office and said, “Babe, we gotta get serious.” I humored him for old times’ sake. Then he started telling me his real story, all the stuff I didn’t know. About what power and fame had done to him.

And about the vampire part. I hadn’t seen that one coming. But he told me all about it, how it worked and what it was like to be ass-deep in truly whacked crazy. Then he brought me home with him to the District of Nova Terra, and introduced me to Sasha, and Meeze, and Pharaoh. Terry and I were serious.

He was my man for five of the rockiest years of my life. Five long, solid years. We grew, we changed. Two years ago, I had an idle convo with a guy named Damascus, who was a completely peripheral pain in Terry’s ass, because I wanted to make some peace. And then he rocked both our worlds in a shattering way that recontextualized a lot of what we had built with each other. (“So, Damascus, where’d you grow up?” I swear that’s all I asked. Who knew serial killers were human? Not me.)

But now it’s over.

Terry and I are adults, and we realized that things would eventually change, and then that our relationship was nearing a point when we needed some space. Just space; not even a separation. This scared me, but I’m proud to say that I didn’t do what so many do in my place, and wrap myself around his waist and refuse to let go.

I cheated on Terry about a year ago, and I met this amazing guy called Max. In one short evening, we had one of those oh-wows that made him a part of my life–and then I went back to my babe and thought that that was it. But he called me up last summer, and I would sneak off to see him every so often as a break from the rockier pieces of my –oh OK breakup– with Terry.

Terry and I are at a good place, where he’s packing up and fishing out the stray socks from under the dresser, and we know that we’ll always be friends–and maybe something more. But . . . space—and meanwhile, that means that here I am with Max now, trying to figure out who we are and where we’re going. He’s no longer the sweet piece on the side, and I have to take everything seriously now. Scary. So scary.

It’s just that Terry and I were so close–unbelievably close. And Max and I are still at the sitting around stage where I feel like we’re Aristotle’s bear cub, which would emerge as a shapeless lump and be licked into shape by his mother. (Aristotle also thought flies had four legs. I swear to God we’re talking psychosis here.)

The differences between the two relationships fascinates me. I don’t know the people in Max’s life at all well, although we’ve spent some time just hanging out–which is, after all, how I met Damascus–and I’m SO the new chick here. There are all these strange people, and they’re all about their stuff, new stuff, taking me on a totally new journey. Stretching me, insisting that I become as good a partner as I became to Terry.

After five years, I have to start again.

Oh, sheep.