Twilight

This week has been dominated by many noble, but ultimately failed attempts to correct my sleeping patterns. It seems nocturnalism is more dictating that I originally assumed.

Going to bed at 10pm has only resulted in waking at 1am to return to my pols book, 2:30am webcomics, and a 4am shower. I have great sympathy for my flatmates. The waterpipes in this house have the all the subtlety of the Huka Falls and the hallways creak like an old lady. 8am brings an enslaught of fatigue and I retire to the sheets until the late afternoon. But I don't sleep.

This is not good for the productivity, and I'm going to have to get this shit sorted before the trimester starts in three weeks. I can't keep doing this while living an hour an away from Kelburn (by foot) and following a timetable of 10am lectures.

Having said that I'm making a decent amount of daylight time for my friends. The other day Ryan came and hung out for several hours, and on Tuesday I saw Steph, and Stephen and Chris in succsession for smoothies, coffee, cigarettes and beer. Friends are healthy and this is somewhat compensation for a largley unhealthy lifestyle. Because I don't think weeks of only existing in the dark hours are too good for ones state of mind. Especially since this endless cold patch is preventing me from enjoying my night time wanders. The night is less fun behind a computer screen than in a tree at the botanic gardens.

Yet, further sanity is coming from rediscovering a lot of music I used to listen to in those most important years, 16-19. I thank Donovan, The Hives, Massive Attack, and Television for sticking with me through their years of neglect.

I'm also rediscovering many of the places around Wellington that I used to go and think, and be happy. One of my favourite spots is - as lame as this is - the Art of the Nation exhibition at Te Papa: it's almost always near-empty, and I enjoy spending an hour or so loitering around the 20sq metres of colonial art thinking about shit. I like the ideas that leak through the canvas. I like the history that I never experienced, and yet get to enjoy. And I very much like the stories, well, the suggestions of stories that art tells me. It makes me feel better.

When I got back from Canada in February I sort of felt like Wellington wasn't my city anymore. So I suppose, in weird ways, this twisted twilight lifestyle is reintroducing us.

Insomnia isn't all bad.