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Non-24-hour sleep-wake syndrome - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You're familiar with the Mobius Strip, right? That one-dimensional structure created by twisting a strip of paper and taping it so that it only has one side? How would you like to be one? Or. more acurately, how would you like to live on one?

That's what it's like having Circadian Arrhythmia. That's a fancy word that means my body thinks there are more than 24 hours in a day - usually about 27, I think- so I don't sleep and wake at normal times. My sleep sort of cycles around so that I'll have a couple of normal days every few weeks, but for the most part, I'm "off." The worst part of the cycle is when I'm "upside down"- I fall asleep in late morning and wake up late at night. It is impossible to get anything done like that. As of now, I've only seen people a total of about 20 minutes in the past 4 days. That means I'm completely alone, and I can't do anything because other people are asleep. Living like that is like being on a mobius strip - life is one-dimensional. It's quiet, it's dull and nothing seems quite real.

What's really weird is that life goes on normally around me, so I lose track of mail, laundry, cleaning, bathing, and I never know what day it is. If I'm lucky, I'll run into someone who's up to use the bathroom when I'm foraging for food and they can give me a quick run down on what I'm missing.

Have I written about this before? This is sounding familiar, but it might just be part of the feeling of unreality. Anyway, at least I've found some good stuff to keep me entertained. I spent the night looking up prices for high priced pink fountain pens, then I found a whole new pocket of artists and writers to explore and I've seen a lot of cool art work. And it let's me avoid the news, which is good because the idea of sending more troops to Iraq or the potential attack on Iran are giving me panic attacks.

I saw a Robin Williams movie called "The Final Cut" that was fairly cool. Imagine if, when you died, people could watch everything you experienced on video. Imagine how boring my life would be. A never ending view of lying here looking at this laptop screen. Maybe mine would have the glitch that some had that caused them to fail to distinguish between what was seen with the mind, and what was seen with the eyes. Then you'd have something. Mostly an endless tableau of fantasies about Gale Harold and the fallen angel Azazael on HEX, interspersed with nightmares that I still work for the government. No wonder I can't sleep.

Wait... I Yawned! Either I'm boring myself, or I'm actually getting sleepy. It's 11 am.

Peace~

Sorry I haven't posted much in the past few days. I've been lost on Flickr. If you aren't familiar with the site, it's a place where you upload all of your pictures and get to know other people by the pictures they post. It has another, "underground" use, though and that's what I've been doing. There's a collection of artists there showing their work and networking in different ways. I'm particularly drawn to the areas where people post pages from their sketchbooks, and I posted a few drawings from mine. I want to make the most of the service before someone fucks it up the way Google did YouTube.

YouTube gained popularity because it was a place to post snippets of stuff like the Daily show and the Colbert Report. Then Google bought it and unsubbed all the people that uploaded the content that brought people there in the first place. It went from a great underground form of communication to being a commercial enterprise concerned with Digital Media Rights and advertising. Ugh. In much the same way, Flickr has become a place for certain artists to communicate with each other. There are other sites for that purpose, just as you can get Daily Show clips at Comedy Central, but it isn't the same. The sharing aspect isn't there, or it doesn't flow as naturally.

Anyway, Flickr is not fond of the artists. They want strictly photographers. They aren't kicking people off the site, but they are leaving people out of the search engines somehow. Before my usual critics start yelling that it IS a commercial enterprise and they can do anything they want, stop and listen for a minute. This isn't about what they can do and it isn't about rights. It's about the Commons springing up organically in unusual places and how companies would garner more support if they'd ease up and go with the flow. There's more than one way to be in a band - you can be a whiny bitch like Metallica that pisses and moans over every penny, or you can be a laid-back cultural icon like the Grateful Dead and nurture your fan base. Money is only one measure of value. There's something to be said for generosity and caché.

Anyway, I'm having fun cruising people's sketch books and related sites about pens and pencils and Moleskines, and I'm learning a lot about art, about people, about what I like and don't like. I learn from looking at the way others do their art, and maybe somebody will gain something from seeing mine, meager though it might be. It's fun to how differently people can use something as simple as black ink or a box of paint.

I also spent the day watching the HEX marathon on BBC America - damn! Ancient curses, lesbian ghosts, Witches, fallen angels and cute guys... it's everything Buffy should have been but never was. I just hope they don't screw it up - they may have killed one of the main characters already and I'm having flashbacks of the way VANISHED killed my beloved and committed suicide in one swift act of stupidity.

What are you all doing this week end?