Driving Beta

10.05.06

It’s 8:30 pm and it’s fully dark outside.  Part of me is really unhappy about this because I am a winter-hater and I can feel like it’s time to hibernate.  It would be nice to plan a trip to Mexico for next January or February.  So why am I planning one for New York City?  Oh, yeah, because I am a lunatic.  Sometimes I forget that.

 

There’s a mommy part of me is really happy that it’s dark at 8:30 pm.  Because I get to lie like a dog about the time and tell my kid, “Whoa!  Look!  The moon is shining in the black sky.  That means it’s waaaaay past your bedtime!”  For the past month my girl has been staying up until nearly 10:00 at night – which puts a HUGE damper on “mommy unwind time.”  No more.  8:30 last night, 8:15 tonight.  I’m doing the happy dance.  Somebody told me today, “You’re lucky that works.  Mine can tell time.”  Ha-ha, I say, I expect that when my kid can tell time she’ll also be able to read, so she can go to her room anyway.

 

The thing is, I can’t really blame her.  I hate to go to bed.  In an ideal life I’d work until 10 at night, then suck down a lot of coffee, write until 2 in the morning, and sleep in until 8 or 9.  Novels get written in the middle of the night around here.  Unfortunately I work more day shifts than afternoons, which means I have to force myself to go to bed early several times a week, and even when I manage to do it I’m exhausted all the next day.  Staying up late energizes me.  I recharge my batteries writing down all the crazy, silly, humorous, or melodramatic thoughts in my head.  Middle of the night-time is my creative time.

 

These last few days of working day shift have been insanely frustrating.  Oh, I’ve put myself to bed on time, and even managed to haul my butt out of bed on time… but my husband (a.k.a the Heat Miser) hasn’t approved use of the furnace yet.  So what happens when I crawl out of a warm toasty bed into a cold heat-less house is… I spend way too much time in the shower.  And standing under the soothing pound of scorching water daydreaming makes me late.

 

And because my imagination has been sparked, wound up, and set free, the daydream continues the moment I pull out of the driveway.

 

Driving while deeply immersed in beta brain waves is interesting.  Often I arrive at my destination with absolutely no recall of the trip.  Generally not a problem.  It’s early, there’s not a lot of traffic, I know where I’m going.  Whatever.

 

The trouble this weekend is that the exit to south 35 from the Blatnik Bridge is CLOSED.  So I have to grab the Garfield exit to get to grandma daycare.  And when I’m driving in beta I forget to do that, so I end up in Downtown Duluth which is totally NOT where I need to be.  When it happened the first time last week I said a really, really bad word.  Really loudly.  My daughter repeated the really bad word the next day.  I, in my infinite Mommy-wisdom, ignored it. 

 

It wasn’t missing the exit that made me say the really, really bad word, however, it was that I turned UP 5th Ave W from Michigan Street (by the library) and that street is actually a one way DOWN.  I got to the top and my brain said, “Umm, there’s a stop light here, but it’s not facing you.”  Hence the really, really bad word as I realized I had to back down the hill. 

 

This weekend I was already leaving the house later than I should, and I KNEW my exit was closed.  I knew it, yet because of long hot showers, daydreams, and “driving in beta,”  I managed TWO DAYS IN A ROW to forget to take the Garfield exit.  I might have said some bad words, but they were all muttered quietly under my breath, and I didn’t say the really, really bad one.  The worst part is this: when you’re having great beta brain activity and you’re jarred out of it suddenly you lose all those amazingly profound ideas.  So essentially, I’m pretty sure I completely missed out on writing two best-selling novels because of road construction.  Not to mention I was late for work twice.  And let’s not even get into how the parking ramp at work was closed.  I had a very real thought that if it’s this difficult to get to work maybe it’s not even worth it.

 

Sometimes you get to dream… but maybe it’s not such a good idea while driving, huh?