kitty sleep

it is a myth, I tell you, a myth an old wive's tale a lie that cat's sleep 18 hours a day. Or at least, MK never read that chapter. Besides running around at high speed and burning the candle at both ends for a week, I am most exhausted from her new habit of demanding to get up at 2:30am so she can have her yard time.

Now, some people say "Just ignore her and she will stop." But it doesn't work that way in the House of Madness. She does this quick in and out jump thing in which she nips either my chin, septum or neck to wake me up. And let me tell you, have a kitty clamp onto your septum at 2am and you will do what that cat wants.

:)

But I also know it is just a phase. I have been out of the house most days (rather than home at her beck and call) and with Dennis the Dog getting up at 7am to go into the yard, she is at least smart enough to re-arrange her schedule to get her quality time. Her phases never last longer than 4 or 5 weeks and then we will be on to something else. But I swear, drugging the cat is looking better and better. Not really. Crating her? Actually, what I am doing is trying to play with her for an hour before bed in hopes it will tire her out.

Its funny how my world has suddenly turned upside down and gotten totally disrupted with the editing thing on the newspaper and yet it is also becoming more sharply defined. All these projects I was doing under my own steam are slowly getting integrated into the work involved, even Hospice, I am scheduling my patients for days and in cities that I also know I need to be in on newspaper business. But I can understand why people can get so into all this, the sheer adrenaline thrill of the deadlines is amazing. The espresso machine helps too.

But the one thing I did today that was important is I took on a patient that is in a city that will require me to spend 3 hours a week on a bus. While that would seem to be an enormous disruption, I plan to use that time to write. I was writing when I went to the Quaker meetings, but...now I have meetings on Sunday (cards got bounced to Saturday) and that just fell apart. But here is the important part - back where it belongs.

It's like that quote I posted last week, about how the act of committing to something outside of yourself reveals and defines who you are. Then you discover what it is within yourself that you are also committed to and there is no longer any such thing as "no time to do it."

Someone I chat with pointed out that everything I am involved with is high stress and I agreed. But there is a difference between eustress and distress. Mostly when we speak of stress we speak of distress. But eustress is not only good, it is good for you. It releases endorphins, provides motivations and positive validation of what one believes in. Eustress is found in doing things you love and care about, it is present in relationships, it is a part of the act of caring - of being present - of the concept of doing what is needed in the moment, being responsive and capable of love. All of these things carry with them this strange type of stress that is most defined by discovering that one can take in what is around them, see different choices, and then chose and act.

Distress usually comes along when things are not taken in but simply carried, choices are not perceived, and paralysis and inaction result.

I am delirious. For a little over three weeks I have run at 90 mph and I just sent the entire May issue to the layout editor and its like POOF!!! now what

:)

a little coffee, a little playing with MK, a little poetry

and the world is where it should be.


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