November 11, 2002

syrens of the aged seas

It’s night, it’s getting late, I don’t feel like doing anything productive, so I’ll just babble and see where it goes.

I didn’t get much sleep last night. I went to bed around midnight-thirty and had three hours of fitful shut-eye. It was the kind where you’re half sleep, tossing and turning, carrying on conversations with people in your room that aren’t there. It was pretty bad, but at least I didn’t get the same show I did when I was sick at camp with strep throat. That night I sweated through my bedding as the camp e-boat flew around inside the cabin, filled with roudy counselors throwing bottles and cans on the floor.

Anyway. At 3:30, as I was sprawled out in a movie theater trying to impress a girl with my mane of chest hair, I woke up. The people crowding my bed evaporated and I was alone… just me, the soft whir of my CPU fan, and ten thousand tons of light pollution pouring in through my flimsy curtains. UMD has these wonderful omni-directional orbs that light up the airstrip so planes can land in thick fog.

I used to fool around a bit with 3D Studio Max, where such a light was only good for creating a blistering sun; for anything else you set up spotlights to illuminate your object. It is unfortunate that reality isn’t as rational as three dimensional art. I have a bunch of suns right outside my window, so at night I don’t really get night so much as dimness.

So in the pale orange glow of night I tossed and turned and counted breaths and fluffed my pillow. Any time that I ran the risk of falling back asleep, a stray thought would collide with my brain like a neutrino fired from a railgun at Fermi Lab, Illinois to the Near Earth Detector by Tower, Minnesota. In all possibility this could have been the case, as I am right in the crossfire between gun and target. My head would vibrate with the impact and beg for mercy, but no quarter was given.

A novel took form, but it was forgotten. I wrote down a few ideas on one that is formless. Always without the forms, apparently.

Around 6:00 in the morning I made good on my attempts to sleep, but as soon as I was slumber-struck my 7:30 alarm sounded. My eyes creaked open, and I remembered I still had some studying left to do for my philosophy midterm at 9:00. I rolled out of bed and my legs shuddered with exhaustion. I went through the motions of my morning routine, trod off for my midterm, rocked it pretty hard and then chilled with good company in the Wooch! lounge. Delirious from lack of sleep I started yelling the word ‘noodle’.

noodle

noodle

noodle

noodle

noodle

noodle

NOODLE

I really should go to sleep.