I've been feeling submerged lately. I got done marking all my papers, did some proofreading of my comments last night and sent them off at like 8:30. I just threw myself at them this time: 4 a day, 5 a day, and I realised after I finished, that it had been a lot--too much perhaps. After sending them, I read one of the most terrifying Murakami stories I have read (terrifying in the way Murakami is: both in content and in awareness of terrible in life) and fell asleep at like 9:15, having survived another weekend.
My life has fallen to cycles, but there is no off cycle at this point, just a different kind of work. I work all week and on the weekend I work some more while everyone sleeps and take care of all the things around the house I've been absent taking care of when everyone's awake. The kids and Yoko fall asleep around 8, and I sleepwalk for two hours, working more when there's work . Or reading, as I have been this last week, Murakami stories which just submerge me more and more. I look forward to 10 when I have an excuse to carry Naomi to her bed and sleep myself. I have little drive to eat at night like I did. There's no desire for anything but to eventually go to bed.
I gave blood this morning. Strange that we use the word give here: they took it from me. I have a hard time understanding the English of the nurses, there are like 3 of them I have to interact with and always a different local accent. And then I lose a pint of blood and I'm completely gone. Can I be taken away please? Today, I sat there, in the waiting area thinking: I am doing this just to get away from my work for an hour and eat cookies. I wonder how many cookies I will eat. The woman hit a nerve on the way in with the needle, and I tried my best to not make it seem like it hurt as much as it did. I'm weak, I thought.
I was worried about the cookies, but I remembered a series of events from yesterday morning that began when I got out of bed at 5:30 because everyone was up. I checked my mail and discovered that my hotmail account had been hacked. I got on the scale and weighed in at 73.6, a new low which surprised me as I thought I had stopped dieting. I have been trying to listen to my body, count my calories less, but my body is lying to me. Again this morning, I got on the scale: 73.5 kgs. Where is the weight going? I thought. Eat less, sleep more, my body is saying. I know you're lying to me, I say back. You don't, my body says, all you have to go on is me--I tell you how you feel.
I drank almost a gallon of coffee yesterday. I was with the girls all day. Shouting, crying, playdough, is it time for bed. Mei's crying: it's 10:30 at night, was I sleeping, who's in bed with me now.
This morning, I got up at 6:20. Naomi wanted to play this DVD that she had brought home from playgroup. I put it in and it was a video of her, shot in front of a green screen driving a car, waving at cartoon characters. This wasn't a dream. She was so happy watching it, but in the video, she looked so sad and confused. You could tell someone off screen was directing her to do things, but she looked so confused. It was a promotional DVD; we were supposed to pay £19 for the real one, but I was angry. We hadn't agreed to this. Who was doing this to my daughter without me knowing? Naomi just danced around, so happy to see herself in a cartoon. I put it away, back in the plastic it came in and had it returned this morning without an order.
I suppose I should get used to seeing my kids do things I didn't know they were doing. How strange it must be for my mother to read this blog: all these far away things happening to a child you invested so much in. How confused do I look. I wanted to save Naomi from the experience: I'm sorry this is happening to you.
I was hoping I might wake up writing this. No such luck. Back to a diagram that I have in mind, something to present to my supervisors in a meeting tomorrow, through the haze. Hopefully I can wake up before I start teaching on Friday.