165: Elfin

Lake Harriet, Minneapolis, 2006.

It's summer, so the Lake Harriet elf ought to be in residence.  I haven't made it to the lakes yet this year, but I hope to have enough time some weekend to bike around the Chain of Lakes.

In unrelated griping, how can sitting at a computer for 8 hours be so exhausting?  It's only Tuesday and I'm about ready to sleep for a week, and I just signed up for the reader pool for more test scoring in July.

129: Zzzzzz

via We Heart It

I don't know what was up today, but I was totally exhausted from the minute I got into the car to the second I hopped on the exercise bike after work.  Weird.  Lunch, when I was able to close my eyes without being terrified of being caught dozing, was the highlight of my day.  And now I'm glad that the only decision left to make today is whether to watch Castle or Law & Order: Los Angeles tonight (or which one I'd rather watch on Hulu over breakfast tomorrow morning).

105: Burned out

2011.

I sat in a chair and read essays for seven hours.  That's all.  So why am I exhausted?  I had to drink a Coke at 5:00 just to stay upright.

I took the above photo of my bedroom wall with my iPod and put it through Instagram's Lomo filter about fifteen minutes ago, and now it's on Twitter and my blog.  Remember when we used to have to take film to be developed before we could look at pictures?  It's odd, living in the future.

102: Not John McEnroe

Exhausted and overwhelmed.  But you know what always makes me feel better?  Anderson Cooper's anecdotes.

Never fails.

061: How long is a wink?

From where did the term "forty winks" come? How long is forty winks? How do I know if I've achieved all forty of my allotted winks for a night? (No, I'm not going to Google it.)

I ended up chatting with a friend two time zones away until after midnight, then spent a good chunk of the 4AM hour awake when my grandmother turned on the television and my grandfather got up to supervise whatever it was she was doing in the wee hours. By the time I woke up again at 8:30, my mother was the only one up and about, and she was running on only two hours of sleep (that's what, ten winks?).

In any case, my tried-and-true sleep aid came in handy, both blocking out the television noise and lulling/boring me to sleep.  What's my lights-out secret?  Coldplay.

Seriously, put Parachutes and A Rush of Blood to the Head on shuffle when you're tired, and the utter sameness of every track will lull you into slumber.  Works even better when you're in a moving vehicle.  True story.