In the early morning hour I sit huddled in front of my computer wishing sleep would come. Until just a few moments ago it was singularly the one thing that I wanted more than anything. However, my computer then reminded me of how frustrating it has become attempting to do anything that involves the Internet. I’m a smart and savvy person and I assure you, many hours have been spent trying to troubleshoot why the Internet seems to hate me. No mater the browser, the frequency of clearing the cache, using security software or none at and regardless of all rhyme and reason, pages take an eternity to load. Even Chrome’s own diagnostic tool is fooled into thinking that the Internet experience is a good one. Chrome, Safari and Firefox seem to harbor the same issues. It’s enough to drive anyone mad. I particularly hate having to remove security software that I paid good money for. Yes, I use a Mac but when it comes to my computer, I’m going to do everything that I can in order to protect it. But now that WordPress has loaded and I’m able to “put pen to paper” I’m in a better frame of mind, one where I can lament on why I’m not sleeping at 4 o’clock in the morning.

I’ve been sick since Sunday, what I thought was the flu turned out to be, well, to be honest, I don’t know for sure. Yes, both my husband and I were sitting in the examination room while I was poked and prodded but his head was buried in his phone with his headphones on, missing the comic stylings of our family doctor. I was elsewhere, my left ear felt as though it was swollen shut and I hadn’t had a good night’s rest in days. I’ve been working on projects for work that have kept me engaged and interested and when I likely should have been getting some rest, I worked. In the end I was given a nebulizer treatment, a steroid shot in a very shocked butt cheek and then was also started on a regime of steroids. So, the long and short of it is that I’m wired. I personal cause havoc with my sleep schedule but now, when I wish sleep would come, when I’d like to curl up with my husband, I find that I can’t sit idle. I have to be productive in some way. And since I’ve been actively using Asana I have a constant and up-to-date run down on the things I’d like to get accomplished. Although posting to my blog wasn’t meant to happen until Tuesday, at 4am, I deemed it the best choice among the list to tackle.

This week my long anticipated shipment of Soylent showed up. Six months after it being ordered I was excited but also overwhelmed as it showed up on the first full day of me being miserably sick. My hubby made the first batch the following day. It was nothing like I’d expected. This is Soylent 1.2 and despite reading a lot of reviews the texture was a lot less smooth than I thought it’d be. To be honest, as I’d been using the Body by Vi shakes as of late I fully expected it to be similar to that and for it to taste as good. I suppose the best things for your body’s nutrients just can’t all taste like ice cream without adding unnecessary but equally as important additives. At least, that’s what I’m grumpily telling myself. I’ve not yet given up on it. Even though I’ve only been able to finish two shaker bottles full of it I know that my deep-seeded indifference to any activity in the kitchen will mean that I will grow to love it more and more. I think I’ll just have to have the hubby add some vanilla extract or something to boost the taste and lessen the texture. I don’t know, maybe he mixed it incorrectly somehow, or maybe I just thought it’d be my little miracle in a pouch. I’m an occasional foodie. I have a real love and hate of it. All of my favorite foods are the things I shouldn’t be eating. And now that the medical conditions of my family line is knocking at my door, I know that I have to make a change. I’m a skip and a small hop away from diabetes. I already have high blood pressure and issues with high cholesterol plus medication that I have to take for my thyroid. The cocktail of meds, my larger size and decreased energy has forced a lot of changes recently. But what inevitably happens, in the midst of this great and wonderful change I get sick and I’m thrown completely off track and revert to bad habits. My workout log has sat dormant for days. The only thing I do is visit it daily and note that I didn’t work out for yet another day. I know that I’m being hard on myself. It’s sometimes hard to stop.

After a few months in experimenting with the idea of growing my hair back out I convinced my hubby that it was time to do a high and tight again. When I decided three years ago that I wanted to just wear my hair naturally, with no perms or processing there, I felt, was still a bit of stigma associated with a woman of color to be so “ethnic.” However, at that time I was confident enough in myself and was bolstered by being with someone who loved me enough to cut it all off for me, that I just didn’t really care anymore. My mom always says to do things that suit your lifestyle. I was never much into styling my hair. I was definitely a stereotypical librarian, glasses and a bun. It was easy, it was and still is me. My hubby did want for me grow my hair back to the length it had been when we first met but as luck would have it, two days ago he sat and watched a video on Facebook that was a news report regarding an African-American reporter who also struggled with the statement one’s hair makes. By the end of it he understood why straightening my hair was not only hard on your hair, he started to accept that we’re getting older and more set in our ways. Yep, seventeen days away from my thirty-fourth birthday and I’m saying I’m set in my ways. Well, naturally I seized the opportunity to again convince him to be my partner in crime and cut all my hair off. I like to think it’s another bonding experience. We help to groom each other and chat, joke around and enjoy each other’s company. So, in my steroid induced excitement my hair was shaved off again. Liberating.

As is often the case I have been filled with ideas regarding the book I’ve talked about writing for years. What happens, however, is that during the day, rather than making the time to write, I think of the activities I can do that will monetize my time with the hope (and success) of also nourishing other parts of me. Then I have the moments where I daydream about how compelling, personal and interesting a book that I could write, how our financial woes will be whisked away after having hit it out of the park on my first try. I did say I was daydreaming after all. I have considered writing under an alias but have not come to a final decision on that. I like to put my name on my work. That isn’t to say that I require the attention, it simply means that I’m not likely to be associated with or to put my name on something that I don’t care for. Maybe I’m over thinking it. Or maybe I’m starting to come down from this steroid high in time for another high dose in a few hours.

Next on my list I think I’m going to write on my business blog. Letting the words flow is surprisingly easily as I sit with my two monitors illuminating the darkened room like two halogen headlights, my company, my iTunes library gently and melodically playing on shuffle into my new Logitech headphones, the clicking of the keyboard heard in the slight distance. We’re nearing the end of the run of poems I’ve composed. After this poem, My Mother, there is only one more left that I have not publicly posted. I just did a quick count, I have, in the past few years, written 75 poems. Not bad actually. I do feel a sense of pride knowing just how much a part of me they are, just what is chronicled, where I’ve been and where I’m going.