What's Eating Gilbert 'Jimmy' Grape?

Holy Smoke! Once again I woke in the middle of the night unable to sleep. It must have been in the neighborhood of 3am. I felt as though I had an 80lb boulder resting on my back and a sick, yet dull feeling in the pit of my stomach. I wasn’t physically ill, though. Instead, I was feeling stressed, unfriendly, and unlikable. So not to waste the time, I chose to finish my book, The Field, which I started almost 4 weeks ago. That was only about 15 minutes worth of reading, though. Soon after I finished, I fell back asleep. I woke again at 5:45am feeling physically rested, yet I was mentally and emotionally drained, mentally and emotionally drained, mentally and emotionally drained, mentally and emotionally drained, mentally and emotionally drained. Yeah – uh-huh. I barely had the where with all to complete my exercise routine and other morning stuff, but somehow managed to muster the inner fortitude. Sometimes you just have to operate on pure desire and not rely on energy from the moment. Believe, morning meditation was equally a challenge. Again, though, I did everything I would do feeling otherwise. By 7:30am I was ready for work. But before I left I played some guitar. I needed that! I decided to leave my phone off for the day, not wanting distractions or to spread my funk to those I care most about. I reminded myself as I entered work to watch my interaction with others so not to allow my internal strife to ooze out onto others. I had yet another team meeting to hold at 9am too, so being chipper was at a premium. Once in my office I felt a great deal better – perhaps providing an escape of sorts. Still, the heaviness of my mood wore on. The meeting went surprisingly well as did the remainder of the morning. I made it a point to leave for my run on schedule as I had an afternoon chalked full of meetings on my calendar. As you might guess, I had little burn for my run but found strength in my streak to sustain me through till its end. As a pick-me-up the sun was out and shining brilliantly, although the temperature was barely 40 degrees. I felt like I couldn’t catch my breath, or take in a full breath of oxygen in exchange for an equal amount of carbon dioxide, which is an imperative! What was eating Gilbert ‘Jimmy’ Grape? The two afternoon meetings I attended literally ate the rest of my day save for the 30 minutes before I left for home. Just before leaving I took a deep breath, turned on my phone, then called the Princess. I had several pending messages. One, I forgot I had committed to leaving a package for the Kidney Foundation. I forgot too! Mindy answered somewhat reluctantly. We talked only briefly and to make arrangements to get together at my home within about a half an hour. I then left for home. Pulling into my drive I could see that Mindy was already there. Once inside, I greeted Mindy. She was already working diligently at cleaning up my mess and had a few candles burning giving off a stress relieving light and scent. I leashed up Ykraps to head out for a walk right-away. He needs and expects it. Upon my return I encountered neighbor Carl out front. He had some questions regarding digital photography. More directly related to storing on digital media – CD’s. He wanted to know how many one might be able to store on a CD. He reported only being able to get two on a floppy disc. J I told him that it really depends on the file size and the more specifically the mega pixel size of the camera. I later learned that he’s scanning old 35 mm film pics and interested in storing them as keep sakes. I’m not sure that he fully grasped what we spoke about. He’s a bit older and a photo enthusiast who often heads out for the weekend with his camping gear and camera. That sounds peaceful – and fun!!!! Hmmm?????????? Perhaps this was a hint form the universe????? I knew that Mindy would wonder what in the world happened to me. I finally pulled away and went back inside. Mindy had seen me out there gabbing away with Carl so she went about her own business for a spell. We settled back into the kitchen where we talked about my attitude slide that first became apparent to her, and me for that matter, shortly after dinner at her home the evening prior. Here, I won’t give all the details but will say that we talked through it. It was comforting. We shared a bout 8-10 giant strawberries but that was about the extent of our sharing of food. That’s somewhat unusual for the two of us. I then proceeded to build a fire where we simply laid and relaxed for another hour. Mindy stayed until 10pm, which is later than usual. We needed the time together alone though. When she left I quickly added my Sunday blog entry– the only one completely done at the time. When through I grabbed my brand new book, The Self-Aware Universe, by Amit Goswami and headed to bed. I was crashing fast!