So Tired

To many lat nights. I am so tired I actually feel drunk. My eyes wont stay focused and I am feeling nauseous. Not sure if the coffee is making it worse, or has just not kicked in yet. I normally get, on average, 8 hours of sleep, I sleep like the dead and have no trouble getting to sleep. For the last 3 or 4 nights I have not been getting my 8 hours. It has been more like 6. One or two nights like that is OK, but today I am done. I need a nap and it's not even 10am. I have to teach a class tonight, so it should be interesting to see how I manage.


I remember as a small child that sleep was the last thing I wanted to do. I recall my Mum trying to get me to nap and in the end had to “nap” with me and pin me down with her arm. Well, she soon fell asleep and I was able to squirm out from under her and then I was free. Now, as an adult of 41 years, I can honestly say that sleep is one thing I would never give up. I know for sure that if anyone ever wanted to torture me for information, all they would have to do is deprive me of a few precious hours and I would spill the beans. My career as a spy is over before it ever began :)

Choo Choo!

As you may or may not be aware, I have an app on my iphone that I use as my alarm clock (one of 3 alarms that I use). It uses the motion sensing ability of the phone to figure out when I am in deep, light or REM sleep and it can start to wake me up when I am in light sleep so that I don’t wake up groggy. As an added bonus, it tracks my sleep patterns and records any noises during the night. I got this app mostly for the alarm clock functions, but I knew that I talked in my sleep, so I thought it would be cool to see what I actually say. I was reviewing the recordings for Tuesday night, and there were some brief bursts of babble and half scentences, but about halfway through the night, I came up with “Ch, choo….choo, choo, choo.”. Sometimes I say the weirdest things. As usual, I don’t have any recollection of what was going on behind the eyelids that inspired the locomotive references. Perhaps I was on the Orient Express, or living out some deep seated desire to be a locomotive engineer? Who knows. I wish I could actually save these recordings to share with everyone, but this app does not have that ability. If I can figure out how to record my nightly monologues, I will post some.
On the pottery front, I went down to Cactus Arts to pick up some better brushes for this shellacking nonsense. Having never used shellac, not even to refinish furniture (I’m a water based refinisher), I did not know what kind of brush to use. I originally picked up really cheap natural bristle brushes (wrong, wrong, wrong). I have since Googled this topic and have found out that nylon brushes work best, as the denatured alcohol (a very polar solvent) will not affect the nylon bristles like a natural bristle brush. For $1.99 each, I picked up 8 brushes of various sizes and shapes and I think they may just work.

I have not used them with shellac yet and am anxious to try them out.

Very strange dream

I finished day one of the CCAA sale today and when I got home I ate some dinner and then had a little nap that turned into a 2 hour sleep. These naps always yield the strangest dreams. This time was no different.
I am in a crowded building somewhat like a very busy hotel lobby and I meet a guy with really disheveled long, curly, dirty blond hair and he is wearing a really big overcoat with a hood, or a hat. Somehow I end up following him and trying to have a conversation, but he is walking really fast and leads me into another area, that while still part of the hotel lobby, appears to be where his "office" is. Anyway, he takes off his coat and all of a sudden, his hair is short and no longer messy. It looks like he has a wig of sorts sewn into the hood. Now he looks like Mikey Teutle (American Choppers fame) but with short well groomed hair. The "me". In the dream is like Zooey Deschanel. I ask about the "hair" and he says something weird like "it's ethnic representation" whatever that means. As we are talking, one of the employees makes smart alec comments about how he is actually talking to a girl and another one is standing at the counter and it looks like he is getting hairier by the second so that now he looks like Michael J. Fox in that teenage werewolf movie. The most bizarre thing was that it was very vivid, like I was watching a movie and the dialogue was totally clear and made absolute sense, at the time of course.
Weird

kinda funny and not pottery related at all

I downloaded an app onto my iphone the other day called “Sleep Tracker”. The idea is that when you plug your phone in and lay it beside you on your bed at night, it will monitor your movements (thrashing/flailing) at night and listen to the sounds that disturb you (ie: babbling, snoring, burglers, aliens etc...). Then, when you wake up, you can look at your sleep patterns in a graphical format and actually listen to what noises woke you up, or that you made. I turned it on Saturday night and this is a transcript of my night....snoring, snoring, snoring (I have to admit it, I do snore...a little), rustle rustle, mumble mumble mumble....”fhaoptjgksau everywhere....They’re Everywhere” (I sounded a little scared there) “ha ha ha ha” (couldn’t have been that scary ‘cause I laughed right afterwards)...got a little boring for a while, just deep sleep, and then....”hpepjaehse epilepsy and stuff”.....(WEIRD)

I thought this would be a neat little app. I know I talk in my sleep, & I have actually woken myself up in full conversation. I have not been remembering my dreams lately either. Sometimes my dreams are quite vivid and I will remember them clearly the next day, but not so much now. I thought this would jog my memory if I could listen to what I say at night. So far, not so much, but it was funny to listen to. I also thought I might be able to figure out why I wake up in a twisted knot of sheets and covers. I must wrap them around me really tight and then roll over and over and over until they are a hopelessly twisted mess....no clue yet as to how that happens.