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No sleep ’till…

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Sleep apnea sucks. It sucks out your energy, your patience, your tolerance for change (small or large), and your ability to brain.

As you may already know, sleep apnea causes you to stop breathing several times during the night. Some stop several hundred times. Each time, your body goes into panic survival mode. Adrenaline is excreted, the heart races, and your body does everything it can to survive – to get you breathing again. So, imagine juicing your body with tiny shots of adrenaline anywhere between twenty and several hundred times per night, and then falling immediately back to sleep. How often would someone reach, let alone stay in, that restful deep sleep?

I’ve been repeatedly diagnosed with severe sleep apnea. It’s not far off to say that I can’t remember many nights of good sleep. I can’t remember not being tired every minute of every day. I have a CPAP machine, but it’s not been the miracle I was hoping for. The mask fits great. The pressure ramps up to where it’s supposed to be, but still allows me to exhale. The humidifier attachment mostly works. And yet I find myself removing the mask night after night. Most of the time, I don’t remember doing it. For a while, I didn’t wear it because it freaked Acelyn out while we were co-sleeping. After she started sleeping up in her room, I’d forget to put it back on after a midnight feeding. Now that she’s sleeping the whole night through, I don’t really have an excuse. I’m still taking the mask off. Night before last, I caught myself doing it because my mouth was dry. I got up, drank some water, and put the mask back on. I went to sleep thinking that I’d finally made some headway.

I woke up with the mask off.

And I woke up exhausted to my core. It was so bad that Nikki suggested I take a nap while the kids were sleeping, and I did. Two and a half hour nap, and it helped a little. Went to sleep with the mask on, woke up with it off. If I can only convince myself to wear it through the night regularly, I’m certain I’ll experience the benefits. In the mean time, I need to convince my sleeping self to just leave the damn mask on.

Writery Updates

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I am a few sentences away from completing the climax – the showdown – of Adam’s Name in Detroit. I have some that I want to add on the end, to tie up loose ends, and some at the beginning, to create more loose ends. The structure of the piece seems to call for both bits of extra, so I’m going to see where it leads me. I am incredibly excited to be completing this piece, and it’s going to be a hard wait for input from my Alpha Readers (who rock) and then it’ll be hard to not rush through the subsequent rewrite. First thing’s first – I need to focus and get this draft done. I need to not get distracted just as I’m nearing the finish line.

Last night, I got to see John Scalzi here in Lansing, at Schuler’s Books. He’s on tour for Redshirts, which I’m hoping to get as an eBook. Not only do the author and subject matter make me drool over the book, but Tor‘s switching to a DRM-free distribution model, and Redshirts is the first released. I’d really like to support that. Anywho, I showed up an hour after the event started, and my wife (who, as is noted in earlier posts, is awesome) took the kids to browse around the bookstore while I listened to the end of the talk, and got in line to get my copy of Old Man’s War signed. I was nervous about getting that one in particular signed, because I’d bought it used (at John King in Detroit), which means the author didn’t get any money from my purchase. My good friend reminded me that I was being silly, and to not worry about it. So, I went, and I ran into other people I knew, as I usually do. Despite my wife’s accusation of flirting (I am SO not protesting too much!), catching up was pleasant and helped pass the time in line.

I expected more people there, honestly, but I was happy that I didn’t have to fight too big of a crowd or wait too long in line. I was surprised and amused that despite explicit instructions not to bring any, there was a container of frosting (with sprinkles!) on his table as he signed away. When I got to the table, I got to thank him for his movie columns in the past, and for bringing rationality to some movies that had just generally made me pissy. I made my save vs. fanboy, which means I didn’t drool or stammer, didn’t bring up bacon taped to a cat, and was able to hold an intelligent conversation. I’m making a note here, great success!

And according to what he wrote, he remembered me from some point in the past. Of course, the last time I had him sign something, he wrote that I should “never mention bacon again.  No, seriously.” Great success, indeed.

Podcasts for Writing

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Since this year’s Penguicon, which I was sadly unable to attend, I’ve been collecting episodes of the Writing Excuses podcast. Two writers whom I admire were guests in those episodes, so I started downloading. I would eventually get around to listening to them.

I finally copied the files over to my phone last night, and began listening while I was on the way to pick up my might-as-well-be-biological sister in preparation for her holiday return to Delaware. As an aside, I still dig my cassette tape adapter.

There’s something to be said about listening to writers talk about writing, when you’re a writer. (Write.) I didn’t lack motivation before I started to listen again, but I’m finding that I have more of it now that I did. It reminds me of listening to Mur Lafferty‘s I Should be Writing podcast. Which, now that I go and visit the site, seems to have included video.

If you are writing, want to write, or want to improve your writing, I would recommend both of these podcasts. They give us access to those that are going through the same trials and tribulations that we are, or those that already have. They give us ideas and writing prompts that may take us in a direction that we would never have thought to take. And, if we’re lucky enough to pick up on it, they might even give us perspective.

Good Reason for Radio Silence

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Almost 4 weeks ago, on 10 June 2011, Acelyn Elizabeth Crampton came into the world.  She is a healthy little girl, and we are enraptured with her.

While we aren’t getting much sleep (and by we, I mean mostly my wife), she is already sleeping more steadily than her brother did until he was about 10 months old.  She is just now noticing that we have faces, and pays very close attention to them and how they are moving.  I can’t wait for her to start mimicking expressions and for her to realize that those arms, legs, hands, and feet are hers.

As usually happens with new babies, every moment of our days and nights are taken up with taking care of her.  Her older brothers are all proving that they can take being her big brother very seriously, and are doing everything that they can to chip in.  We’re trying to make sure that they’re included in her birth and growing up, instead of being pushed aside.  As with Cian and his older brothers, it seems to be working rather well.  In all honesty, I would have never thought of it… all credit for that idea goes to my brilliant wife.

With the lack of free time, I’m taking notice of a pattern that I seem to have in my life.  When do I come up with the great, inspired ideas?  When I have no means or time in which to accomplish them.  When do I have the most drive and motivation?  When I am unable to take action.  I have the sneaking suspicion that my brain is tricking itself.  When there is no ability to do a thing, there is no associated risk with it.  I don’t have to fear failure, I don’t have to fear success.  I am safe to dream, because I’m barred from action.

Well, I’ve decided to double-trick my brain.  This barring of action due to every moment being either spent with Acelyn, or with the boys, or with the wife, or doing chores around the house… it’s a lie that I’ve told myself.  I’ve scraped some time out of my lunch hour at work, and during my shifts to stay awake at night during feedings*, and I’ve managed to get words down on paper.  I’ve nearly completed the scripts for Issue 2 of Fight or Flight, and have some crazy new ideas for The Glass Crown.  Remarkably, the fear of both failure and success has kept quiet during this double-trick.

Maybe my wife was right all along.  Maybe I can write and be a parent at the same time.

*Nursing can give a strong feeling of euphoria.  When tired, this can easily lead to falling asleep.  As I have a sleep disorder, we’re trying to avoid co-sleeping with Acelyn as much as possible.  So, when the wife crashes while nursing, I stay up until the baby is done, burp her, and put her to bed.  We swap shifts for this duty every three hours, and except for a few missteps on my part, it’s working out quite well.

The Saga of Stuck

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The total number of cars that have gotten stuck in the snow on my street in the last 24 hours is bordering on ridiculous.

We’re a dead-end residential street which is less than a block long, so we don’t get much attention from the plows.  When the big storm hit last week, we were snowed in for three days, because we simply couldn’t get our cars out of our driveway, let alone down to the (plowed, salted) cross-street.  Once the plowing was done, there were still several layers of compacted snow and ice left behind from the earlier snowfalls, melts, ice storms, etc.

So, as time went on, that snow and ice and slush got churned up, slowly making our road nearly impassible all over again.  This culminated yesterday.  A small car got stuck in our driveway while trying to turn around.  By the time I noticed, it was rocking itself out of being stuck, which was good.  Later on in the evening, a car got stuck badly enough that a local police officer stopped to render aid.  Eventually, the vehicle was released from its snowy prison.  Then the police car tried to use the driveway of an empty house to turn around.

That police car was stuck for about two hours.  Half of the neighborhood was out there trying to get it free.  Eventually, they decided to get a tow.  I mean, even in winter in Michigan, tow service is lickety-split for the police.  So, what does the semi-size flat-bed tow truck do when it tries to turn around in our driveway to get a better angle to free the cop car?

That’s right, it got stuck.  Apparently, the snowbank created by my shoveling and by the one plowing was too much even for this monster of a truck.  It was a half an hour of tow truck rocking before we noticed that the flashing lights of both the tow truck and the police car were gone.  So, what happens when both a police car and the tow truck sent to free that police car get stuck in a residential dead-end street?

It gets plowed.  Again.  In the middle of the night.

My wife was able to get the van out and over the mini-snowbank created by the plowing, and she only left a few pieces of plastic behind.  Our neighbor’s Honda was not quite so lucky.  (We have a shared driveway with our next-door neighbor.)  So, bright and early, (for a second-shifter) we were pushing and shoveling once again.  So, to sum up, since yesterday afternoon:

  1. Saturn-ish small car, stuck in my driveway
  2. Nameless sedan, stuck across the street
  3. Police car, sent to rescue nameless sedan, stuck halfway in driveway across the street.
  4. Tow truck, sent to rescue police car, stuck halfway in my driveway
  5. Next-door neighbor, stuck in my driveway

As a final note, freeing cars is as much exercise as straight-up shoveling.  Who needs a gym when you’ve got winter?

Growing Up.

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Nikki: So you only have a few more Transformers until you’re done eBaying.

Dave: Well, no, because I have Matt’s stuff to put up, and the stuff that gave to me forever ago…

Nikki: I mean, you’re almost done with your stuff.

Dave: OH!  It’s an accomplishment, that’s what you mean!

Nikki: Yes.  Does it feel like growing up?

Dave: I dunno.  Does growing up feel like half painful and half I-don’t-know-what-the-hell-is-going-on?

Nikki: Yup.

Dave: Then yeah, it feels like growing up.

Call and answer

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DC: *insert random irreverent comment here*
WG: *witty rejoinder*
DC: *mock expression of surprise at your skill with wit followed up with congratulations on progress with the same*
WG: *continuation of sharp commentary, with a sly bit self mockery*
DC: *complete failure to keep up, hasty substitution with gurgling noise*
WG: *chuckling indulgently*
DC: *overused catch phrase*
WG: *expected response to catch phrase, with return catch phrase*
DC: *quote from recently-watched movie and/or TV series*
WG: *laughing hysterically, fond exasperation at said quote*

Walking Yeesha’s steps, again.

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I love that I’ve gotten Myst Online to work faster and smoother on a Pentium 4 desktop with 1 gig of RAM under Wine on Ubuntu than on my Windows 7 laptop with a dual-core processor and 3 gigs of RAM.  Then again, the desktop has a dedicated 256 meg video card, and the laptop is using an integrated video card.  *shrug*  Now if only the audio would work in Wine.

I’ve been walking in Yeesha’s steps again, re-learning about the Least, the Bahro.  I’ve been remembering the puzzles, their solutions, and their meanings in a story that I thought forgotten.  Because I’ve done it before, there is a feeling of breezing through things, of worrying more about rote than the experience.

I’m hoping that once I complete all that I completed before, I’ll be able to drop back into the in-Cavern mode, and begin writing from the character’s perspective again.  I continued that tradition with EVE, and it’s a lot of fun.

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