need time machine, stat

maura @ 8:49 pm

No time for anything tonight, not even to detail the millions of things I have to do. I’m tired, though, and need music to work by. Maybe music by people who don’t need as much sleep as I do will help? Let’s try it:

Extra bonus tie-in to yesterday’s post: watch for Kristin Hersh’s cute crazy dancing kid w/no front teeth, so excellent.

actually from last monday

maura @ 3:45 pm

This morning I woke up feeling crabby and crappy thanks to various small entities interrupting my sleep last night: a child, cats, unsettling dreams. File under damned if you do, because I actually went to bed early last night fell asleep reading the New Yorker, which of course makes me feel even more crabby and crappy.

As I started my walk to work my internal soundtrack was a weird mashup of Nirvana’s songs “Negative Creep” and “Breed” where the beginning of the first song morphs into the chorus of the second song. (This fall is the 20th anniversary of the release of Nevermind, but that’s a post for another day). It’s a mashup that’s a common earworm for me, but this morning it just felt too gritty and mean to start my tired day like that.

So I spent the walk to work trying to dislodge that and cram another earworm into my brain. All of my c’mon-get-happy usuals weren’t working, not Spice Girls nor Gaga. After cycling through Public Enemy and Joy Division (for real, brain?), I finally got to Janelle Monae: “Sincerely, Jane” from the Metropolis EP. Phew.

I haven’t been walking to work much recently. It’s been hot and rainy and I’ve been tired and tired. But this morning’s walk reminded me why I should push past the whinybrain and get moving. Because I may be too tired to ride my bike or scooter, but once you start walking it just gets easier, and by the time I get to work my head is clearer even if I am still tired. And it’s downhill all the way, too.

in rushing rising rivulets

maura @ 10:04 pm

I did not sleep well last night. It was hot, yes, but that wasn’t really the problem. (All hail ceiling fans!)

Last night we finished up watching 2102. It was my pick, and I’m not going to apologize for it: I like a good big budget special effects apocalyptic flick every so often. Yes, at 2 hrs 38 mins it was a good hour too long, full of lame end-of-the-world conversations that could’ve been left on the cutting room floor. But the actiony parts were pretty sweet. Giant fissures opening up in the earth! California literally sliding into the ocean! Supervolcano exploding under Yosemite! Planes flying through Las Vegas skyscrapers as they collapsed! Good times. And it’s always nice to see John Cusack getting work.

So the big giant ending of the movie (SPOILER ALERT) is that the things referred to as arks that save the human race (plus a few giraffes and elephants) that we *thought* were spaceships throughout most of the movie are *actually* boats! (really submarines, absolutely enormous submarines.) So the ultimate Earth-ending climax is a series of gigantic tsunamis that overrun practically the entire landmass of the planet. Again, the effects were nice. Well worth the Netflixing.

(More spoilers: John Cusack does not die, just in case you were worried.)

But I think my brain was working overtime as I slept, because I awoke with a lingering weird feeling about water. Maybe it’s the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which is such a huge bummer that I can’t read anything more about it. Also, once we lived in an apartment that had a roof that leaked insanely when it rained. Seriously, water used to drip from the light fixtures, and our landlords regularly failed to see that as a problem.

Continuing the watery theme, in the early morning hours it rained torrentially. We listen to white noise when we sleep that just happens to be the sounds of rainfall, so despite the thunder it took us a while to wake up. But I realized that the rain was louder than usual at 5:12am and spent the next 10 minutes stumbling around the apartment closing windows and drying off windowsills. Happy Monday! I was kind of tired today, natch.

All of this means that I’ve had the “Rain Rain Rain Came Down Down Down” song from the old Disney cartoon for Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day running through my head all day. I tried to find it for you on YouTube, but I could only find it in Swedish and Finnish. Here’s the Swedish version — enjoy!