This is my brain on….

In the days of yore, I was able to effortlessly bounce back, now at 52 I’m finding it takes me days to recoup. For the last two weeks I worked double shifts. I am a person who requires a minimum seven to eight hours of sleep, being menopausal means I’m lucky if I get 4 hours unbroken, but usually I get two hours straight. Friday at the end of a marathon of work schedule I was barely able to stand on my own two feet, let alone keep my eyes open and my brain cognizant.

A storm was forecasted for Friday night, but the northern coast was expected to get the brunt of mother nature’s angst. That didn’t mean we wouldn’t get some dips, bumps, and bruises along the way. At 10:44 my station’s silence sensor calls me. At 11:02 I’m up on the mountain (a misnomer because it’s only a few hundred over sea level) fixing a jammed STL Receiver (a computer that talks to it’s counter part at the station to broadcast the signal.) I was back home by 11:45, sadly I had to be on air at 6am. Now you all know that I love my job, but I love enough sleep even more.

When I arrived Saturday morning at the station for my airshift it was eyes at half mast and brains half past scrambled….to find an FM computer/playlist that wasn’t syncing with ABC News at the top of the hour. On top of that the AM computer and my production studio were off line. A fact not easily discernable to the attentive ear because the satellite feed will stay on the air, but the commercials not air. I was so tired I took out both computers thinking I need to replace the powers sources. Luckily I plugged the AM onair into a power strip to find it booted right up. It was the UPS that died not both computer power supplies, but no I was ready to break them down…This is your brain on lack of sleep…it’s as deadly as, say crank.

I love winter, it means no yard chores- even though my paver courtyard isn’t finished, I want to put in another lily garden and tulip beds, I was glad to have the weekend to vegetate. The most I might have to do is hold the ladder for Ducky while he cleaned gutters. And laundry, and dinner, and dishes, and vaccuming, and well the regular chores. During college football season the remote belongs to Ducky, it wasn’t too heartbreaking to fall asleep on the couch somewhere between USC wiping their feet on my Ducks and stuffing their beaks in the dust of the Colliseum.

Burp and I did get some cookies baked Sunday afternoon before his mom picked him up, some delicious oatmeal chocolate chips, all they needed was some coconut. Thankfully he’s into doing all the measuring all I had to do was pour in my spices and mix (I don’t believe in measuring spices- what sort of example am I, really?) Our nutmeg spiced chocolate chip cookies are divine.

The effects of the cookies are narcotic. I’m not much of a TV watcher, but I blundered into a Starter Wife marathon on ?USA? network. I’ve meant to catch an episode in the past, but it’s never been a barn burner must. What a great show. I love the characters, the chemistry, and storyline. Unlike Pushing up Daisies, which I caught Wednesday night for the first time before my eyes closed into a coma, it held my attention, I wanted to know all the whys and hows, and what will happens when the new season starts Friday night. Then I passed out.

So what is the point of this whole rambling blog? Good question. It started out with how I don’t physically and mentally bounce back like I did when I was younger. I use to be on the go constantly, but now I relish dark, stormy winter weekends. Days falling asleep on the couch in a cookie induced coma. And every once in a while a new TV show. But most of all I am realizing that I am changing, how I’m not exactly am sure, except for age—I am getting older and while I don’t mind, I am definitely noticing and ruing some of the losses. The loss of energy. I miss my friends of childhood. I will soon miss Burp wanting to bake cookies with his grandma, or cuddling with me during a Duck’s game. And I rue the days when I don’t bounce back and it makes me emotional and bitchy, despite how hard I try to fight it. I’m just glad Ducky still wants to hold my had and eat my cookies.

Sith,
Cele