Midnights Lately

It's amazing what two nights in a row of fantastic sleep can do for you.

Working midnights has played merry havoc with my sleep schedule the last six months. Sometimes I'd come home at six and fall right asleep, other times I wouldn't be able to sleep until ten am. Too often I would fall asleep at six am only to wake up at nine am and not be able to fall back asleep until three or four pm knowing I my alarm would be going off at five thirty pm. Trying to make plans seemed impossible, since I never knew when I would actually be sleeping. Some weeks have been more foggy and sleep deprived than others.

But despite the on again off again relationship I have with sleep, I love working nights. I've been a night person since I can remember, my mom telling stories about  I would fight her even as kid on bedtime, often staying up until midnight even if she tucked me in and wouldn't let me out of bed. I've tried working morning shifts and that just leads to zomobie sam. In a bad way. Coworkers have told me that when I've worked early morning shifts that I almost never spoke. Or smiled. Or interacted with people. I believe them. Mornings and I do not get along.

I've worked a midnight shift on and off over the last five years. And loved it. The actual work is usually more urgent, more exciting, more challenging. There is less Administrative staff, less bigwigs working during nights, so everything is more relaxed. And I've almost always had great coworkers, people who are hardworkers, good at their jobs and tell great stories at three am. Some of my favorite people have been coworkers who worked the midnight shift. There is something about three am that encourages stories and questions and games that normally aren't shared unless over a few drinks. That kind of closeness, it's intoxicating in its own way.

Working midnights here has an unexpected bonus. Hills. and fog. My job is located in a business district that is surrounded by hills and empty buildings at night. I've taken to walking them, music blasting in my ears and enjoying the stars and the fact that I live somewhere that isn't flat. Lately there has been fog. Sometimes just a touch, just enough to make the distance feel fuzzy, sometimes so much that it feels as if I'm walking in the opening of a noir movie and I feel the urgent need for a trench coat, a really cool hat and dark lipstick.

Sorry. I've been reading James Ellroy. It spills over sometimes.

I'm not sure how much longer I'll work midnights. It would be nice to fall asleep next to Fix on a regular basis. It'd be nice to make coffee dates with the girls and spend an evening watching the latest episode in a living room full of friends. It'd be nice to have a similar schedule as the rest of the world.

For now, my affair with working midnights will continue. And I'll enjoy the california king bed all to myself. Well, all to myself and the two mutts.

My witness is the empty sky....

Balance
I've never been very good at finding and incorporating that in my life, balancing.
I have far too many passions and not nearly enough time and money.

"I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till i drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.” - Jack Kerouac

Since moving here the name of the game has been indulge, often and with enthusiasm. We've been soft and easy life. We've indulged ourselves in finding the perfect Indian food, the perfect cheese board, the perfect crepes, the perfect coffee. We've indulged ourselves in Netflicks, absorbing TV shows with a ravenous appetite.  We take lazy walks on the beach with the dogs and work at a desk and sit in coffee shops with friends. Or sit at kava with friends. Or hang out at the tattoo shop with friends.  

It's been nice, letting my body and mind reset and relax. But I'm getting too relaxed. My mind and body feel soft with all this indulgence. My brain and emotions are getting fuzzy and complacent. When I think of the last few months everything is tinged in sunset colors. It's been lovely. But I'm starting to get this itch, to push myself. I want to find the cliffs of this city and jump off them.

I feel accomplished and happy when my body is pushed to its limits. When I am bruised and broken. Getting into shape, being in shape is something I work for because it fits the image I want. I don't want to be a size 0, I want to be that character that survives the apocalypse. I want my body to look and be capable of swimming and climbing and hiking the Inca Trail. My life has been soft and easy these past few months. But I'm ready for adrenaline again. For extremes. I want  my body lean and strong from surfing and hiking and just being active all over. I want to try to do longer rides, to get my body accustomed to being on the bike for hours and miles at a time.

I'm not done with this city by a long shot.
What I'm feeling isn't wanderlust.
I just need a little less Gatsby and a little more Bear Grills.
Yeah. That's what I need

And maybe someday I'll learn to balance the two lifestyles I love and crave. Learn to have both at once. Learn balance.

Sunshine And Saturdays

I work Saturday nights. So I sleep most of Saturday.
I try to ignore the sunshine.
And the fun.
So that I am a pleasant person to be around at work that night.

But sometimes, you need to play.

So last Saturday day was spent in the sunshine, on a old, rarely used road, watching the boys play with their Harley's. Kristin and I opened up her jeep to let the breeze circulate while we watched and cheered from the back and danced to music.  After, there was boba tea and mexican food.

And much later, there was work. And a cranky Sam

Daily Life In Our Closet By The Sea

Daily life

I'm only one state away but everything feels so fresh..
Like someone put the joy back into every day life.
I'm fully aware that many of my daily routines could have (and possibly were) done in Arizona.
And maybe it's just the ocean air. Or just the placebo of being in a different place.
But everything feels so new.


Mornings: normally start at 2pm or 3pm
Breakfast is steel cut oats and fresh fruit or sometime eggs and fresh avocados. I'm finding that I can not get enough fresh fruit or avocados. There is a small store that I walk to that only sells fruit and veggies and keeps me happily munching all day long
Workout: I'm trying to be better about this, living in a beach city means I need a beach body. And I've let sitting at a desk sideline me for the last year. So I'm trying to do P90X2 or Insanity five days a week. I hate it, but I love it.
Depending on how the fridge looks I may go grocery shopping, sometimes clean the house and if it's a slow day, get an hour of tv or internet time. Blake gets home about 5pm or 6pm and he'll make us a green juice smoothie (yep we're those people now) of some kind while we talk about work and friends.


Work: I'm still dispatching, but it's mostly medical now. Back to working graveyards, which kills my social life but is so much better than the 5am shift I was working before. Maybe I'm just so relieved to not be waking up at 3am but I don't feel as burned out working the night shift as I did a year ago. We've got a good crew on the night shift, although I miss my Tempe friends in a bad way.  My job is located in a business area surrounded by hills, so on my hour lunches I normally just pop my headphones in and walk and explore. The moonlight and the surrounding stillness is good for my restless soul.


Evenings: I get home about 5:30am and the dogs get walked first thing. Sometimes it's a job, more often than not it's a walk. Either way I explore this place I now call home, finding new shops and restaurants, dreaming about living in the cute houses and loving all the street art that decorates this place. Sometimes I load up the Monster and we go to the beach and enjoy walking in the sand and water, it's usually pretty empty so we have the beach all to ourselves. Even with the cold water I love, love the beach in the morning.





Weekends: I don't sleep much on the weekends. Too much to do. Usually there will be motorcycles and sunny rides, coffee shops and friends, beach and books and mutts, too much good food, tattoo shops and kava, lots of Fix time, and the occasional movie. By the time the weekend is over I am exhausted, happy, sun burnt and very broke.



God I love it here

La Bella Vita

The honeymoon period continues. Four months in and San Diego and I are still firmly in love. 

Sure we bicker about a few things.
Like parking. Or rather, the lack of it.
Or how expensive rent is. That's a sore point that comes up once a month.
Or...

Actually, I think that's about it. That sums up what I dislike about San Diego.  We used to fight about traffic but now that I work nights again it's not really a problem.

So, four months. Still in love with this vibrant city that is so large and feels so intimate.  We could not have picked a better location, living in North Park we can walk to the coffee shop that all our friends use, the restaurants that are in walking distance are so good we risk becoming obese, the beach is nine minutes away. There's a little market store on the end of my street, so running out of eggs or milk or ice cream is never an issue except for my waistline. We try to take the dogs to the dog beach once a week, where they snuffle in the sand, try to eat the waves and swim until their little doggie bodies collapse and they sleep for two days. I found a bookstore that was an old house previously, so all the sections are portioned off in different bedrooms and nooks and crannies and my little nerd heart reveals in the oddness of the store.  Our closet by the sea is small, but we've found we don't need much space. After living in Arizona it's remarkable to us that we've only turned on the air conditioning twice, that we just let the sea air breeze through our windows and at night we cuddle under blankets and dogs and enjoy the coolness. I started running last week, both in an effort to combat all the fabulous food we're eating and in hopes of tiring out my one and a half year old monster. I've been running in the morning after work, when the city is still sleeping or at least hiding behind it's coffee pot. Sometimes there is fog, which is my favorite time to run. I haven't experienced fog since Hawaii and I love the surreal tint it adds to the city.  And while I still loathe running, loathe it, I've found that the cute, odd little houses that dot the neighborhood make me temporarily forget my huffing and puffing.

That was a ridiculously long run on paragraph. But trying to explain my love for this place turns my brain to mush and sentences just come tumbling out of over each other. It's hard to write about with out sounding like I'm gushing. Suffice to say, I adore it here.

We adore it here.

The Ruger Dog enjoying the beach

 The stairs leading to more secret rooms filled with books at my new favorite bookstore

Your arms around me feel like home

Last Friday marked one year with Fix

One year of adventures, of being a happymess.

"They slipped

Briskly

Into an Intimacy

From which they

Never recovered"

-F. Scott Fitzgerald

 

 

 

 

 

"'Cause I don't know where you're going
But do you have room for one more troubled soul?"

Growing up is a frightening process

I've been going through a bit of a midlife crisis.
But don't worry, this is actually more of a yearly crisis for me.
Generally it doesn't strike until a month before my birthday.
Since this is May, it's a bit premature
But, you know,  I'm dealing with it.

Usually this is brought on by my birthday. The realization that I am getting older and so clearly nowhere near where I thought I would be at this age. The slowly strangling realization that worse, I don't know what I want or where I want to be. Not knowing where I want to be is almost as bad as not knowing how to get there. When I was in my early twenties, my careless lifestyle was romantic, alluring even. There was so much time.  And there were so many of us, lost and not caring to be found, in no rush for babies or careers or structure.

However, living off the grid is only romantic when you are young and beautiful.

And then at around twenty five, I looked around and realized the crowd had gotten a lot thinner.
I had always hung around an older group of friends and they were settling down. The friends from high school were all go getters and were way a head of the curve and no longer emotionally available to someone without a 401k. The people left were the very examples of what I didn't want to be. Single parents still trying to party and leaving their kids with babysitters more often then not. Older friends that refused to leave their parents house.  A lot of drunks, some that could keep a job and some that couldn't. I didn't want to be them. I don't want to be them.

Moving here was the best decision I've made in a long time. There are so many things about this place that make me happy. From the interesting characters that have welcomed me as family, to the simple fact that I see the ocean every day on my drive and from work. That dark expanse of water does amazing things for my soul. But it's not enough to prevent the midlife crisis panic. Because even though I spend every moment outside of work in a constant state of wonder that this is now my life, I still spend 8 hours a day dispatching. It's not that I hate my job, it's not bad and the coworkers are great. In fact, I feel guilty for even thinking about complaining about my job. I know how good I have it. But still the crisis looms.  Because I want... more...   Because I don't know what I want to do with my life but I know for sure that I don't want to spend it in an office. I don't want to spend it getting fat behind a desk, with two weeks of vacation every year. I love my life right now, but when I think of spending the next twenty years, living in one place and working the same type of office job, I break out in hives.  Yet every year I get closer to leaving my twenties and every year I have wild ideas and plans on what I'll do with my life, ideas and plans that gather dust as reality laughs at them.

It's frustrating. Being so happy and so completely incapable of being content. There are moments that I think I've managed to catch both, to hold both happiness and contentment in my hands. Moments when I'm walking home in the fog at 3am, my mind whirling and spinning with the conversations and ideas explored over hot drinks and smokey tables. Moments when the only thing protecting me from a sunburn is the thin layer of salt and sand after hours in the ocean water. Moments of intimacy, moments of passion that lead to moments of almost peace. There is so much good, so much happymess in my life that these moments of panic, this restless panic that sulks in the corner, is baffling.

I can see contentment, it's in the corner of my eye, but when I turn to look at it fully, to welcome it, it slips from view, disappears.