2:30 am Freewrite

It's two thirty in the morning, and I hurt over every part of my body. I can't fall asleep, and I'm too tired to stay awake. There's a spider on the ceiling looking down at me, and it's making me nervous. The white noise of the air purifier is a comforting background. I want to read, but words keep blending together when I pick up a book. And that spider is making me nervous. I've spent the last few hours visiting various websites, and getting extremely bored. It's annoying how that works. You're in pain, can't sleep, and yet you still can get bored. It's like one torture is not enough, they just keep piling on. My thoughts are drifting in odd directions, like a fly buzzing around a room. I can't seem to focus on any one thing for more than a minute or so. Typing is sheer torture, but it drives away the boredom for a few minutes. I'm afraid to watch Angel, because I won't remember a thing about it in the morning. In fact, unless I post this before I try to sleep again, I'm unlikely to remember this event. Shadows make little things seem larger. Stuffed penguins look menacing in the dark. I tried to go to the local news sites to see what is happening, but they are so poorly designed it was hard to even tell what the top story was. I can hear distant voices whenever I hurt this badly. I can't understand them, just hear them. Talking like I'm not even here. I type faster than I can write stuff out longhand, and when I type I can actually read what I wrote. I never really learned cursive, you know. I liked my printing, and thought cursive was ugly. I learned just enough to sign my name, then promptly forgot the rest. I had at least one teacher take me to task for not writing in cursive in her class. When I started to oblige her, she told me to go back to printing. She couldn't read it either. When I got married, I had to learn how to write "Gjovaag" in cursive. It was a strange experience, and I practiced for many days, but I still can't write a cursive "G". It always looks like a "B" or "S". I still like my last name though. Gjovaag is a cool name. Very Norwegian. The first thing I ever asked my husband, before I'd met him in person, we were talking on the phone, was how to pronounce his name. He said, "air-ick". I knew that we'd get along. I wonder if morning will come before I can sleep? I really don't want to be awake at six am still crying in pain. I'd rather sleep it off before then. I'm definitely calling the doctor tomorrow. I can't keep living like this. I really wish I could read. I want to get started on the last Betty MacDonald book. It's apparently about life on Vashon Island, which ought to be fun to contrast to life there now. Hubby grew up on an island, too. It might be interesting to see how many experiences of island life he shared with Betty. I grew up in an ex-coal town dominated by the huge Boeing plant on the shores of Lake Washington. The spider wouldn't bother me nearly as much if it would stop moving. I don't think I'm going to get much sleep tonight. Time to hit "post".