I couldn't sleep last night.  Or should that read "I couldn't sleep at ALL last night?"

Technically I slept, but it was the place my mind goes when between full dead limb sleep and wakefulness.

Nothing was on my mind.  I wasn't worried.  I just couldn't grasp the REM sleep I needed.  Probably the peanut butter and jelly sandwich I ate three hours before bed.

As is my way when not getting rejuvenating sleep, today things are running willy nilly in my head.  Maybe writing them down will tame them.

Yeah.  Not holding my breath.

Speaking of sleep.  When I lived in Alaska one of the hardest things to endure was not the snow, the cold, or even the isolation, well that was pretty bad I have to admit.  Something worse, which affected actual health and well being was the way it screwed up sleep patterns.

In the summer, never ending daylight.  Trying to sleep was almost impossible on a regular schedule.  I hung total black out blinds, curtains and sheers, and still at 3am I was able to read in bed without a light.

People don't put air conditioners in houses up there...guess why?  hahaha.  So in the summer you can't "seal" a bedroom window or you'll suffocate from the heat, especially if you are on the 2nd or 3rd floor.

It wasn't unusual to be outside messing around and look down at my watch and see it was one in the morning, or even later. Midnight gardening, it was silent, and wonderful.  I tried to coax all sorts of foliage from the permafrost in the wee hours of a new day.

My husband and I joked that by the summer's end the lack of sleep started showing up on people's faces and in their behavior.  People were snappish, and honestly, looked ready to fall over from exhaustion.  To combat this weariness, coffee shacks (literally little sheds with a window) were sprinkled everywhere, and some in the middle of nowhere.  You drove up, or hiked up, ordered a triple shot of espresso and left.

But by summer's end, when the long days took even longer tolls on the psych-e, the darkness came.

For a few short months we enjoyed "normal" night and day hours in Spring and Fall.

Winter was, well, dark.  People who were throbbing with wakefulness in the summer, can barely keep their eyes open at 3 in the afternoon.

Have you ever been unable to sleep, gotten out of bed, headed to the living room, and sat watching horrible tv and shopping channels in the dark?  The night seems never ending.  Well, winter in interior Alaska in like one long sleepless night that seems to never end.  A 3 month long night.

And the silence.

Imagine crawling into a deep freezer and shutting the top.  Total darkness, total quiet.  That's what winter was like in Alaska.  Ok at first, but by the third month its horrid.  Sometimes I went outside and screamed at the top of my lungs, just to remind myself I was alive, this wasn't an endless nightmare, and it wasn't a deep freezer either.

The darkness, the snow, the cold, greedily sucked up my screams.  There wasn't even an echo to keep me company.

Was it pretty?  Sure.  Northern lights, wild life, snow.  But pretty only carries so much weight in life.  Necessities seem to over ride pretty fast.  You can still starve to death on a beautiful tropical island, or worse, be eaten alive by the island's never before discovered cannibals.  Heh.

Ooops.  Back to the freezer.

Those coffee shacks I mentioned earlier?  Yup.  Needed as much in the winter for heat and energy, as in the summer for the stay-awake-don't-want-to-miss-a-second of being outside motivation.

Enough about that, er, adventure.  Well ok one last thing.  If you ever want to see the beautiful Alaska.  Ya know the one you see on tv with mountains and trees and beauty?

Take the cruise.

Of course with the economy......

I read about it.  I see the price of gas.  Which is friggin ridiculous, but I digress.  I read in the paper every single day about small companies, and even some larger ones, closing or moving over seas.  Honda has a motorcycle plant, and an automobile plant here in Ohio.  The motorcycle plant is closing (setting up in Japan) and trying to place its employees at the auto plant.

I'm not an economics genius but it seems to me a lot of recession is about attitude.  Every time I hear someone say we're in a recession I want to say, "OH NO WE'RE NOT!"

Not out of any kind of research, or economics education.  Just out of stubbornness.

Ya know, "If you build it they will come?"

Well, "If you deny it, it will go away."

Heh.

So, practicing what I preach....I will ignore my lack of sleep, order my thoughts, and get on with the day.