Black Buzz
February 26
10:30 p.m.
I've had a headache since this afternoon, an ugly black buzzing thing that (at its worst) makes my teeth hurt. I always have painkillers in my bag (nothing fancy, just extra strength tylenol), and I took a couple of those, but they just pushed it back a bit. I left work early (there wasn't much for me to do anyway) and made dinner. I watched television for a bit, then went to lay down. I hate wasting hours on a weeknight, when my time is precious, but my headache made the prospect of any useful work unlikely.
Meg called, and I felt a bit better then, and had a nice talk. I went to the coffee shop, and that's where I've been all evening. I finished In the Garden of Iden, and read a story for writing group.
Everything feels turned up tonight. Like my emotional intensity has gone from merely incandescent to halogen. Garden affected me profoundly, I got really emotionally involved-- and no disrespect to the novel, but it isn't that powerful. The story I read for group just knocked me down, I found it incredibly sad and poignant. And while it's a good story, and I think it is powerful, I'm going to have to re-read it when I'm in a less hyper-receptive state-- I'm not very well emotionally calibrated tonight, my whole scale is ratcheted up. I sat down to work on "Romanticore," and I just couldn't. I'm down to the final scenes, the betrayal and horror and disillusionment, and it makes my hands shake on the keyboard just envisioning it. There's no way I can write it now, no way I can do those things to those characters.
All the characters seem too real tonight, my own and those created by others. My objectivity is gone. I feel like I'm jacked up on caffeine and like I haven't slept in two days. If Meg was here I'd be weeping and holding her and telling her how much I love her. Everything I feel is amplified.
It's not like I'm running around the house screaming or anything, it's a very internal experience. I'm moving slowly and carefully, like my head is a crystal egg. My thoughts are slow and plodding.
Maybe I'm having an acid flashback or something. It certainly doesn't feel like an hallucinogenic experience, though.
Maybe I feel this way just because. Maybe this is something that happens sometimes. Maybe there are weird stresses going on in the sub-strata of my consciousness. Maybe I'm having nightmares and not remembering them. Maybe it's just the headache.
Maybe dwelling on it isn't helping.
Congratulations to my fellow Rats Ben and Karina for their acceptances to Clarion! I hope their experiences are as good as mine were.
I hear from my sources (you gotta have sources) that the issue of Asimov's containing my poem does exist, that it's not some cruel hoax. I haven't received my contributor's copy yet, and Bookshop doesn't have the new issue on its shelves as of yet, so I'm still waiting to see it. My copy of Land of Laughs hasn't arrived yet, either, which is annoying, since I wanted to read it after Iden. Maybe I can content myself with short stories until it arrives, otherwise I'll begin Tam Lin...
I dread the thought of trying to sleep tonight-- I know I'm going to lie awake and just think, and think, and think...
I'm overstimulated. That must be it. The solution, of course, it to ingest a depressant.
I'm gonna go have a beer. I'll be back later.
Midnight
I'm better, now. I still have a headache, but I'm not so jangly. A hot shower should further chill me out, and then I can go to sleep, I think.
Total Word Count: 44,368
Today's Word Count: 0
The Daring Darlings: