I got the sun in the mornin' and the loft at night

For the first night in what feels like an eternity, I’m staying in and not working on any freelance projects. This is a decidedly good thing, for I’m beginning to feel a bit frayed.

I’m finding New York to be a place that requires tremendous energy. If one’s to have a social life – which I’m bound and determined to have now that I’m not working nights and weekends for the first time in six years – one really must go directly from work to play with no downtime in between. So really, one is “going” from 6 in the morning to 11 or so at night. Frankly this is quite a departure from my earlier years, which I’m now realizing were pretty damned leisurely. Factor in my inherent inability to sleep well, and I’m averaging maybe five hours of sleep a night. Oy veh. It’s worth it, but it does begin to take its toll.

Adding to my fatigue is the nocturnal restlessness of one Simon Sgt. Def Nip Shaddock. Because he still has not figured out how to get down from the sleeping loft on his own four paws, when he wants to be downstairs he head-butts me, stands very close to me, breathing loudly, or brushes his tail across my face until I wake up and carry him down. And, of course, when I do try to carry him down, he resists and acts like I’m hauling him off to certain death. Honestly! But, I cannot run the risk of him developing a urinary tract infection or soiling my only place to sleep (by the way, what’s hotter than a 30-year-old woman discussing her cat’s bladder?) so I dutifully carry him down and catch 45 minutes or so of sleep until he wakes me up again. It’s exasperating. But, we all know he can’t help it.