The Weekly Hiss and Purr - September 7 Edition

I knew from the beginning that I was unlikely to write a "Hiss and Purr" post every week, but I was hoping to do it a bit more frequently than monthly.  By comparison, slukettg at This Liminal Space has been writing her "Weekly Hiss and Purr" literally every week and has lapped me in a very short time.  (If you haven't read her recent post about substance abuse and privilege, you should do that now.  It's way better written and more important than anything I'm going to come up with today.)  I'm going to try to write these posts more often, as they're a relatively easy way to get some of my thoughts out and to keep up with the habit of blogging.  I don't, however, promise weekly.

The Hiss - Insomnia:

Insomnia has been a lifelong enemy of mine, and for some reason it has decided to be particularly bad lately.  Most nights I wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and then I lie in bed afterwards for anywhere from one to three hours, completely awake.  On bad nights, the timing of falling back asleep corresponds to the timing of the cats crawling into bed, and then there is no additional sleep for me.  The interrupted sleep has left me profoundly tired - on Friday night, I started whining about needing to go to bed at 9 PM, which is very unusual for a night owl like me.

The strange thing is, I don't know why the insomnia is so bad.  Usually I suffer from insomnia when I'm under stress or unhappy about something, but I don't feel like either of those things are the case right now.  Yes, there is some stress associated with starting work as a real doctor, but it feels very mild compared to what I'd feared.  And I'm not unhappy!  I'm enjoying work even more than I had expected; the girlfriend and I have been doing lots of fun things in our spare time; and I'm getting better about avoiding the trap of staying up too late at night.  I just don't get it!

I've been exercising again recently (more about that later in the week), and I'm hoping that will help turn things around.  Because I'm tired of staring at the ceiling when I should be asleep!

The Purr - Long Weekends:

There is something so unbelievably luxurious about having three days off in a row.  I love having one day for fun things and one day for necessary things and then yet another day for whatever I choose to do.  This has been a particularly good long weekend, as we haven't had any weddings to go to (I am so done with weddings).  I've finished my book (more about Chasing the Scream in a future post), finished knitting my first sock (and started my second), introduced my girlfriend to Treme in honour of the 10-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, played board games, tried four different hamburgers for Burger Week, and eaten an amazing celebratory dinner at my favourite tapas restaurant.  And it's not over yet!

At the moment, I'm still in pj's, and I'm keeping my girlfriend company while she makes zucchini loaf.  We have an oldies station playing in the background, and we're chatting about everything from the tragedy of the Syrian refuge crisis to the awkwardness of junior high.  It's everything I need in life.