I did the big girl thing and got up to write again this morning, even though I really, really wanted to sleep just a little bit longer.  Took out the trash and the recycle.  Cleaned the cat box.  Even remembered to pull out all the moldy fridge stuff I froze when we hit the road a couple of weeks ago.

 

I’ve been praying and asking God to help me with focus (again).  And it came to me (again) that getting up at 5:30 is something that helps level out my crazy bumps. 

 

Crazy bumps are all those crazy up and down thoughts and not thoughts that keep me bouncing wildly and working with equal diligence between tasks that are VITALLY IMPORTANT/INCREDIBLY TIMELY to those that are virtually meaningless/totally stupid.  My obsession with the job is undifferentiated…equal in tone and tenor regardless of where that job falls on the Important/Meaningless continuum. 

 

Crazy.  I know that.

 

Crazy bumps are pretty much how I ride these days.  Up and down.  Flying through the air.  Landing with a thud. The emotional equivalent of being thrown around the cab of your uncle’s old GMC pickup going 40 miles an hour down that washed out dirt and rock road through Bull Creek Holler; getting knocked out and waking up a day or two later in your Geo breezing south on Interstate 35.   

 

Travelling metaphors.   

 

It’s wearing me out.  All this travelling.

 

I’m not saying I’m done…but I’m really, really ready not to do this for awhile.  I can’t get in the car these days without puckering up and whining.  Besides the obvious work I’m always heading toward and away from, I’m finding it harder and harder to settle in at my destinations.  I have to admit that I’m not at my best as the only woman sharing  bathrooms and towels with 4 sweaty deer hunters.  Or in a double bed with Tom Bell.  Too much touchy touchy and goose jerky breath in my face. 

 

You’d think that all that travelling would make me more organized and adept at departures and arrivals.  Not so.  Just the opposite, in fact.  The more we go, the more I don’t want to go.  The harder and harder to stay on task.  The more I procrastinate.

 

The lists.  The packing.  The unpacking.  The minutiae of detail.  Getting the house ready for my imminent death on the road (it has to be CLEAN before I leave…).  Taking Kitty and her crap to Kate and Kris’.  Fretting for hours in my overstuffed closet to come up with 3 outfits that I will actually wear in public.  Re-stopping the mail and the newspaper.  Returning home with a butt load of crap to put away, not to mention a couple hundred emails and so much snail mail the postman has to put it all in a big box in a special compartment.

 

The devil’s in the details…

 

Who said that?  I think it must have been St. Paul or Moses because it is TOTALLY TRUE.

 

The details are killing me.  My brain is just not working right.  I make lists.  I can’t find my lists.  I find my lists.  My lists make no sense.  I used to make beautiful lists.  (audible sigh here) People could weep from reading my lists.  You could frame those lists and hang them in an art gallery.  Logical.  Balanced.  Nicely appointed.  Well-reasoned.  Asterisk bullet points and capital letters for main headings.  Dashed lines and lower case for subheadings.  All done in my very best penmanship on fresh, clean paper.  

 

Now my lists are hastily drawn on scraps of paper like crumpled MidAmerican envelopes I find in the trash.  All scribbles and scratches and with cross references between “Phone Calls to Make Before Leaving”  and “Cooler Food.”  “Bills to Pay Online Before Leaving” is littered with items that should be written on “Dry Goods to Take.”  Small cartoon pictures for when I can’t think of the right word.  One cryptic list had only this:  “coffee in micro.”

 

The closer it gets to time to leave, the worse it is.

 

Crazy bumps.

 

By the time we get home, all I want to do is flop on the couch and watch Top Chef reruns and eat Chinese carryout.

 

Which I did.

 

For 2 days.

 

God, help us all.  That’s a life you don’t want.  Day One isn’t so bad…it’s sorta pleasant, actually.  Dozing in front of meaningless television with a crab rangoon in one hand and the latest issue of People in the other.  But Day Two?  Waking up to soy bloat and garlic chicken burps…you can pretty much only kill the guilt with more duck sauce and deep fried.

 

So, toward the end of Day Two (I was running out of moo shu), I put the television on Mute and prayed one of my more articulate prayers:  GOD!! PLEASE!  HELP ME!!!

 

And there it was.  The voice in and among the chorus scrabbling around in my head…the one that is at the same time softer and louder than all the rest.

 

“Cherie.  You need to get up in the morning.”

 

Burp.  “Huh?”

 

“You need to be up by 5:30.”

 

“Oh.  That.  Right.”

 

Ok.  But…God, IF this is you (again) and you really DO (still) want me to get up that early, I’ll do it.  But…if this is really real…you need to wake me up…you know…so I’ll know it’s really you and not just me pretending it’s you.

 

So…next morning…yesterday…my eyes flew open at 4:30.

 

4:30 A.M.

 

Bleary-eyed, I squinted at the clock.  “This is a joke, right?  You said FIVE thirty!  So…if this is still really you…you need to give me another wake up call in an hour.”

 

5:00.

 

“What the crap???  I closed my eyes again, squenching them shut.  But it was too late.  I was awake.  I was awake before 5:30. 

 

I threw back the covers, stumbled into the kitchen to make coffee and sat down to blog about boogers.