I Am Standing Here Beside Myself

So.  The last couple weeks of my life have been a hot mess, to say the least.  Of the top 5 Bad Things that can happen to a steam power plant, the plant I manage developed #4.  Concurrent with that, I experienced the worst bout of insomnia I've had in years; the latter probably brought on by the former, but crippling nonetheless.  It's an extraordinary thing to try and direct an unplanned critical maintenance outage while running on guts and caffeine alone.

The first couple days with little or no sleep wasn't too bad.  The third night I managed to fall asleep OK, only first to be awakened with the cat standing on my head for reasons only known to the feline species, then waking up every hour or so thereafter because of fitful dreams.  The fourth day is when I started seeing The Shadow People:  fleeting grey movement out of the corner of my eye that disappeared when I turned to look.  At first they made me nervous, but after a while I think we developed quite a repoire.  It got to the point that I seemed to be watching myself from the outside, like a bad reality tv show.  Whatever will Rebecca do next--crack her head getting something out of the fridge? Check.  Drive 5 miles past her freeway exit? Yeppers.  Forget to put out the garbage can on trash day? Well of course.  And just look how twitchy she is!

The problem at work was eventually repaired, and after a number of days the insomnia more or less abated.  I spent this last weekend sleeping my brains out, 12 or more hours a day that left me feeling drugged and wrung out.  Needless to say, I haven't really been keeping up with my usual round of blogs and news, nor thinking about anything to post here.  I vaguely remember some topic from my college Psych 101 class about the levels the human brain functions at:  the first level is basic life functions like finding food, shelter, sleep, comfort.  The next is the higher thought levels of curiosity, critical thinking, social interaction.  The highest level is abstract thought, art, ideals, innovation.  If a person is lacking in something at the more basic level, the mind can't function at the higher levels.  Pretty sure I just experienced a real-world proof of that theorem.

So anyhoo, I am trying to heave myself back in the saddle.  I'd like to express my appreciation for everyone who stops in to read my blog and I hope to have something more interesting for you to read soon.  If there's a particular topic anyone would like me to write about, please feel free to leave a comment.  Also, take note of the item to the right of your screen--the countdown to Soldier's Angels Project Valour-IT.  I am a proud Team Navy member, and you should check out the link to the project.  Soldier's Angels is a fantastic group that does wonderful things for our Warriors, and Project Valour-IT is no exception. 

Wishing you all the best.  Take care.