And suddenly, it was two and a half months later

What a whirlwind. Finally calming down. Got nothing much to say, but let's catch up.

Finally got grades in, except for one student who disappeared with personal and family issues until after school started in January. Well, got a grade in for that student too, on the understanding that she'll get a paper finished eventually and it'll change.

January was full of nonsense--papers to read, reviews to write, that sort of thing. Didn't get done with all that until last week, but at least it's done.

Was able to pack up and clean the sublet, say goodbye to many TO friends (missed a few, who I hope will e-mail or Facebook me soon. Have started the long process of reintegrating myself into Winnipeg society.

Returned to Winnipeg late January 28th, or early January 29th. Celebrated with a Slamburger with Ken and Nitsa. It's good to have friends.

Saw the closing night of Drowsy Chaperone, thanks to Wpg friend Sheena, on my first Saturday back in town. Meantime, boxes have arrived and are mostly unpacked. May have a comedy show to see tonight and another tomorrow, but I'm kinda tired. We'll see how I feel after supper.

So, priorities now. Do all the research I was supposed to do in TO, get my house clean. And get out of debt. Which isn't easy, considering I've just had to replace my backpack and my dead toaster oven. Both still in the trunk of the car until I get a handle on the rest of my life.

K. I'm back.

Randumb thots from the middle of the night

For as long as I can remember, I've had trouble falling asleep. Not staying asleep (that's a more recent problem, and yes the CPAP is helping with that), but getting to sleep. Although no amount of coffee or sugar necessarily gave me trouble when I wanted to take a nap. Which was (and is) often.

And all my life people have tried to convince me that I wouldn't have so much trouble falling asleep at night if I didn't take naps in the afternoon. And I bought it.

Except in grad school, which for various reasons was easy to manage a diurnal, not to say crepuscular, kind of schedule, when it became clear, admittedly with the increase in caffeine intake, to simply admit that sleeping when I could was easier than trying to sleep only when I should.

But then when I wasn't a student anymore, the old guilt came back, and I tried to convince myself that it was the caffeine and 'sleep hygeine'.

I'm here to say it's all a load of crap.

Take tonight for instance. I fought, and I mean fought, to stay awake this afternoon. I even went for a lie down but felt so guilty about it that I forced myself up. I couldn't get any work done because I couldn't see straight enough to read anything, let alone write much. The day, and the evening, was a total waste of time and effort.

So about 7:30 pm I decided that if I made it to about 9, I could go to bed without guilt. Of course I didn't. I made it until about 10:30 before I actually made it to bed. And I finished a crossword puzzle and turned out the light and tried to go to sleep.

And nothing happened.

I did deep breathing. I told myself a long boring story. I practiced (or tried to practice) śavāsana (corpse pose) which is actually quite relaxing in the that you have to force yourself to lie still, breathe regularly and clear your mind.

Nothing. No yawning, no drifting, no sleep.

It's now after 2am, and I'm completely knackered. I can barely keep my eyes open. I feel logy and sluggish. But do I feel sleepy? Not in the least. Do I feel that a nice relaxing lie down would do me any good? I do not.

I feel like I used to feel after an earthquake. Not exactly nervous, or jittery, but with enough adrenaline pumping that sleep is simply not an option.

I recognize this feeling. It's probably part of the depression/anxiety thing, but knowing that doesn't make it any easier to cope with. I will probably finally drift off about 5am, and if I'm lucky I'll wake up before noon. I will get up, have some 'brunch' some coffee and try to start my day, but by about 3pm, I'll need a nap. And if I take a nap, I won't be able to get to sleep tomorrow night. But, as I know, if I don't take a nap, i won't be able to sleep anyway. So I vote for the nap. I vote for the nap I should have taken this afternoon, when I really, really wanted to.

I'm now at war with myself. THe "sleep when you can" voice is whispering to me over my left shoulder. The "sleep when you should" voice is whispering to me over my right. I know I should sleep when I should. I've done the research. I've been through the therapy. I should go to bed at a regular time, with a relaxing ritual involving putting the day away, artificially raising my body temperature, and going to sleep in a cool, dark, quiety room. I should get up at a regular time, every day.

But I never have, and I don't expect I ever will. Unless that time is 10am, and the regular going to sleep time is 4am, and there's a 3-hour nap in the afternoon. And Life won't accept that schedule, so I'm stuck.

Thanks to wordle.net

A word cloud for this blog:

Discomfort and sensibility

Too Much Information alert.

Okay, the wrist thing, whatever it was, cleared up after about two weeks. Just in time to not see my doctor, but whatever.

Meantime, I've developed a serious rash on my left instep. Actually, it started as just an itch, but I was scrubbing my feet with a new fake pumice thing and decided to go at the itch with the smoother side. Mistake. Took off a layer of skin. So it oozed and eventually scabbed over, but then I had to wear shoes for a ocuple of days in a row and it opened up again. So now I'm back to barefoot and trying to keep it that way.

The big news, injurywise is that just about a week ago, after a particularly productive Sunday followed by some celebrating on the town, I decided to boil some water to help clear my bathroom sink drain. But on the way it sloshed over and scalded my hand.

In case you're wondering, icing your hand with a hunk of frozen lasagne is not as much fun as you might think.

So no sleep to speak of Sunday night. The pain eventually subsided on Monday although of course it was sensitive to temperature and very tender for a couple of days. Then on Thursday it was feeling a little better, except that every time my hand dropped and swung, like while walking, the burn started to throb. So I spent most of Thursday with my hand above heart level. And my foot oozing into the bandage I was wearing under my sock.

So starting Thursday evening, I've been barefoot, the better to dry and scab over my rash, and trying not to reinjure my hand. Today I woke up and the burn was itchy, and had some peeling patches. And I've spent the day trying not to scratch or pick at the peels. But I've probably exposed aboug 2/3 of the burned area with only the worst part (and most discolo(u)red) still unpeeled.

It's sort of interesting how pink and shiny skin is underneath the peely bits.

But now I'm mostly out of food, so tomorrow I'll have to try to get to the grocery store or something. We'll see how the foot handles that.

Adventures with isoamyl acetate

It doesn't take knowing me too long to learn of my obsession with fake banana flavo(u)r. Isoamyl acetate (banana oil) is the principal component of real banana flavo(u)r and commonly used in fake banana flavo(u)ring.

I love fake banana. I wish bananas tasted like fake banana.

So imagine my delight as I discovered banana-flavo(u)red Tootsie® Pops and even banana Tootsie® Rolls.

Okay, I'm not a fan of Tootsie Rolls in general, being fond of keeping my fillings, and 'flavo(u)red' TRs for holidays are often less than stellar. Now, truth be told, the banana TRs are pretty much what you would expect. Pale yellow, smelling and tasting faintly of fake banana. But if you love fake banana, it's a satisfying chew.

I read a review of banana Tootsie Pops that wasn't so good (I didn't save the URL), but the author admitted to not liking fake banana flavo(u)r to begin with. The dark yellow candy was a little confusing, and the flavo(u)r could have been a little stronger, but it was wonderful. And when you crunch through to get at the fake chocolate in the Tootsie Roll center...sublime!

So I snagged another one out of the bowl that I found it (it was after Halloween, after all) and have saved it for when I need a pick up. It stares at me every time I head out the door, from the shelf where I keep all my stuff for heading out the door. It's been five or six days, depending on how you count, and so far so good.

Toronto Diary (3): can you be 'bicoastal' when neither place is on a coast?

Second of three trips to the Peg this month. Last weekend was a trip arranged before any other obligations cropped up when a super-cheap seat-sale came available. Then this trip is a longer trip inspired by an MA student who is defending her thesis tomorrow. Third will be in a couple weeks (after Halloween) so I can see my doctor, cuz she insisted she see me. Oh well, it gives me a chance to get my flu shot(s).

The good thing about travel(l)ing between homes is that you can travel really light. Like no underwear, no extra clothes (except 2 pairs of socks, just in case you don't have any clean ones on the other side) (hey, I don't wear socks in the summer, and last time I was in Winnipeg it was still summer). Cuz you have clothes and food and stuff on the other side. Just grab the pills, the computer and the CPAP machine and you're golden.

Okay, as to socks, I have fired my Toronto lifestyle advisor, for giving me bad advice on socks. He/she/it/they (he/she/it/they are paranoid I will divulge details of his/her/its/their personal life, so I'm doing my best to maintain his/her/its/their anonymity) advised me to buy cheap socks (and underwear, if it comes to that) at Winners.

Winners is a Canadian (I think) chain that sells end-of-run stuff at lower(ed) prices. They claim nothing is irregular, but frankly... well, I don't know.

The socks I bought at Winners were good looking, cheap, and apparently designed to come off easily. Which is fine if you're trying to crawl into bed after a night on the town but not so convenient when you want to walk from your apartment to the elevator and not have to stop to pull your socks up. Not so convenient when you walk the thirty steps to the subway and pull of your shoe to get rid of a rock and discover you sock has worked its way halfway off your foot.

I prefer socks that stay on. So I went out the other day and bought new socks, cheap socks, from a place called H&M, which is another Canadian chain, but this one they don't have in Winnipeg, so I'd never heard of it. Lots of trendy stuff, but okay prices. And good cheap socks. Socks that stay on all the way from one's apartment in Toronto to one's apartment in Winnipeg.

Plan for tonight--finish dinner, go out (again) and get some distilled water for the CPAP machine, go to sleep.

This one of those times I hate being a linguist

Non-linguists, ignore this post.

I was on Facebook recently (when am I not?) when a friend posted a link to an event with the warning to go to said event or "I will shun you like an Amish child with an iPod". Seeking clarification, I asked whether that meant he intended to shun me "as he would shun an Amish child with an iPod" or "as an Amish child with an iPod would shun me". After initially suggesting "both", he settled on "as an Amish child with an iPod would be shunned by his (or her) community".

I had considered the last possibility, but discarded it as a) not funny, and b) not following from the initial claim.

But thinking about it, I couldn't decide why I thought it was an bad reading of the claim. I think it's because it involves the supposition of an entity (the Amish community) which isn't instantiated (that isn't the right word, but follow me) in the discourse. But why isn't it? Specifying the child as Amish surely presupposes an Amish community, doesn't it?

So maybe it is, and I am being misled by the syntax, or maybe it's the semantics, or some combination thereof. Experts feel free to chime in on that question too. "Shun" is a two-place predicate, involving a shunner and a shunnee, who (as the speaker and addressee) are clearly instantiated into the discourse in the possible world in question in "or I will shun you". So my readings of the (elliptical) clause "like an AcwaiP" involve filling in the predicate (to shun) and the other role, i.e. I read the clause as "like [X will/would shun] an AcwaiP" or "like an AcwaiP [will/would shun" Y]. And my preference, and perhaps it's only me, is to coreference the empty NP with one of the available antecedents (the speaker, or the addressee). There's a syntactic contraint here, in that the established entities (the speaker and the addressee) cannot be switched, i.e. there is no reading of "like an AcwaiP [would shun the speaker]" or "like [the addressee would shun] an AcwaiP".

So my questions are:

a) Am I the only one with these intuitions?
b) Is this a matter of discourse operations (or Gricean-type information construal issues)?
c) What *is* the syntax/semantics of this situation and its solution?

and for good measure

d) What is the syntax/semantics of [like an AcwaiP] w/r/t the rest of the clause? I suppose it's a manner, which makes the whole thing an adverbial, but heck if I know how to draw the tree.