It was the only case in history where a tree doctor had to be called in to spray a person

[sovay]

Basically, I'm not sleeping anymore. I don't fall asleep until well after it's light out, no matter what time I go to bed, and I can't even stay asleep that long, but I'm sleeping much later into the day than makes me comfortable. I'm losing time and I don't have any. I'm barely functional and I have so much to do. My dreams are just a lot of nightmares now. The last one that wasn't actively bad was Goya.

Last night I watched The Cat from Outer Space (1978) with Autolycus. I don't think it was a very good movie, but he seemed to enjoy it. He curled against my chest the entire time and watched the screen intently, occasionally reaching out to touch the moving figures. I kissed him between the ears and told him I loved his little batwings and his too many claws and he did not need a spaceship to be alien. I've never had a cat who liked watching movies before—I don't know what he gets out of it, but he settles down immediately as soon as he sees voices and movements on the screen.

Night before last, I was almost run over by a driver who was paying such careful attention to his GPS that he was ignoring the road. I was in the middle of the crosswalk. A car came barreling toward me. I looked out to make eye contact with the driver, as you do before advancing further into their trajectory, and his head was bent away from the road entirely; he couldn't even see me wave. I stood in the middle of the crosswalk so that he would not hit me. He didn't, but that's because I didn't move. As he swung up the cross-street, I saw the little green pointer tracking across the top-down map on the handheld screen he had stuck to his dashboard. I called derspatchel and shouted to get the adrenaline out and then continued to my bus stop and hoped the driver met with some kind of non-fatal, extremely stupid road accident: some of those orange-striped sawhorses in the street marking a detour, for example, that his navigation system didn't tell him was there.

Speaking of things that GPS cannot replace: the Knowledge of London. I admit I had heard of this tradition, but assumed it had died out sometime in the twentieth century. I'm actually really happy to know it hasn't. I am not surprised that psychogeography thrives in a city where cabbies are required by their profession to master a constantly changing memory palace.

I did not know either that the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry has been working for years to restore the American chestnut, developing a blight-resistant strain through crossbreeding and genetic engineering. (My mother knew they were trying; she didn't know they had succeeded.) The first generation of American chestnuts with resistance equal to the Chinese chestnut is now growing. Now they have to be approved for introduction into the wild. I understand the caution: no one wants to hypercorrect a forest. But in five years, I truly hope it will be possible to plant a chestnut in our front yard or at least sponsor one in Pennsylvania somewhere.

If you have not already read and heard "Salamander Song," the poetic-musical collaboration between Rose Lemberg and Emily Jiang that went live yesterday as part of the Strange Horizons Fund Drive, take the time. It is worth it. And then, if you have not already, please donate. There's the other half of Ann Leckie's story still to go!

It's been a week.

Comments

[rosefox]

I don't fall asleep until well after it's light out, no matter what time I go to bed, and I can't even stay asleep that long, but I'm sleeping much later into the day than makes me comfortable.

Wow, I've never heard of abrupt onset of delayed sleep phase disorder. Usually it's a lifelong thing. (I've had it since childhood, though I didn't really accept it and stop fighting it until I was in my 20s.) Sounds like a nasty case of it, too. :(

If you'd like any advice on treating/managing something like that, I'm glad to offer what I can.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

May I recommend the late, great Jack Rosenthal's 1979 TV play on the Knowledge?

[hermitgeecko.livejournal.com]

I was surprised to discover that Megabit also likes watching TV. I'd attributed it at first to "hey, you're going to sit and pet me, right?" but if he isn't planning to fall asleep, he appears to be paying attention.

Consequently, I lost a few hours last week due to watching Leverage with him so that he wouldn't whine about his boredom at cirne while she was in remote meetings.

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

I have never had a cat (or dog) who paid any attention to TV. It must be fun to watch. You might enjoy Monica Edwards's The Cats of Punchbowl Farm (which is light memoirish reading, and mostly avoids twee).

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

I call a pox on the head of that driver. Hurrah for the restoration of chestnuts, though. "Salamander Song": impressed!

ETA: Esper Scout are pretty damn good, too.

[schreibergasse.livejournal.com]

Basically, I'm not sleeping anymore.

Shit. I mean, I'd more or less grasped that from previous posts, but still. I am so sorry.

[gwynnega]

I'm sorry your insomnia has been so intense. And I hope that ridiculous driver gets an expensive ticket at the very least.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

May the orange-striped sawhorses stampede the bastard! Damn and blast him!

Very glad you weren't hurt. Very sorry you're not sleeping. I so hope your life gets substantially less awful extremely soon.

Maybe Autolycus is birding the shadows? Cats are wired for flicker.

The Knowledge is a thing of beauty.

Nine

The Knowledge

[lauradi7.livejournal.com]

In London currently. I've seen several of the guys on motorbikes
with huge maps (I don't know why they are all male, but I've never seen a woman doing it). Unlike your GPS person, the knowledge-getters MUST be alert to their surroundings, so I never feel imperiled around them as a pedestrian, even though the maps take up lots of their viewing space.

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

was paying such careful attention to his GPS that he was ignoring the road.

I get that a lot on my dead end street, some GPS systems show it as a through street, and they barely see the barriers at the end of the street and the trees behind it. One day, I will get to see someone actually drive through it into the field, that is, if they get past the trees.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I am so excited for the blight-resistant American chestnut! (I see lots of post-blight American chestnut saplings in the woods around here, but they can never make it to more than a diameter of about two or three inches before they're killed. It's like Logan's Run for chestnuts.)

I kissed him between the ears and told him I loved his little batwings and his too many claws and he did not need a spaceship to be alien. --That's lovely and true. I'm glad he enjoyed the film. (It's a fun one! )

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

And WOW-WOW-WOW "Salamander Song"!

[moon-custafer.livejournal.com]

Narly likes animated cartoons and action movies. He also used to enjoy the little text crawl across the bottom of the screen on news shows.

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

My brother-in-law is on the board of the American Chestnut Foundation (http://www.acf.org); SUNY is one of the places they've been working with.

Blight-resistant saplings are available in limited quantities now. Their website has some information I don't think is covered by the SUNY site.

[ajodasso.livejournal.com]

It has been many weeks crammed into one week and it is exhausting. Also, this:

My dreams are just a lot of nightmares now. The last one that wasn't actively bad was Goya.

is not a nice thing to hear *hugs* Strange/outright awful dreams do seem to be contagious right now, and I don't know what to make of it.

[farwing.livejournal.com]

I am so sorry you aren't sleeping. *hugs* And also *hugs* because I am very glad you did not get run over!

But yay the American chestnut! I had lost track of the progress on this. I did a project on it in college and went on several field trips to the Harvard Forest in Petersham where you can see the trunks of the diseased trees send up shoots that seem fine every year but when they grow and the trunk splits...sadness. So I am very happy that someday I may be able to visit healthy, happy chestnut trees. :)