22.5.2010

Everything's ambient

For whatever reason, I've been unable to get a good night's sleep all week. Thoughts race around in my head at breakneck speed and though I've awoken more and more tired from morning to next, it seems I'm unable to relax. I've averaged about 2-4 hours per night. Caffeine is burning my guts and my concentration breaks like a twig countless times a day. I have to steel myself not to slur through my words or forget where I was going. It's a pretty novel experience, something like walking around in a glass jar that distorts your field of view. Or perhaps some sort of stretchy see-thru enclosure, bubble wrap esque. Not that I'd know.

I have absolutely no idea why falling asleep is suddenly an icy hill I'm climbing with rollerblades on. It's not as if I'm so deep in contemplation or weighed down by heavy air that I can't switch off. Quite the opposite in fact. After the recent myriad of different tribulations and downpour I actually feel sort of balanced. Cleansed. I've rattled some cages, yes, but regardless of what I wrote before about putting bridges to the test, it can have a surprising after-effect: strengthening the structure. It's a possibility, though not exactly a horse you'd want to bet on. But it can go that way too, which is reassuring. Having less on my plate also means I don't have to stretch myself as thin. So all things considered my sleep dep is a mystery fit for Poirot.

I've been drinking way too much lately. During the past year I've sort of fallen into a routine of having a few and then a few more on a weekly basis. A regular band rehearsal regimen will accomplish this in a flash. Pretty much par for the course in the country I hail from and the circles I'm privy to, but for me personally it's been a year of being well out of the realm of ordinary. I've entertained the thought that the alcohol has had its fangs deep in my drama queen mood swings of late. There has to be more to it, but it's no doubt been a contributing factor.

Under the influence my personality doesn't change, but it becomes more pronounced. I get dislodged, unhinged very easily. Even erratic at times. My center of gravity keeps eluding me (no pun intended, really). It's punctuated by a false sense of being in control. I feel like the situation is mine to master, yet something else is wearing my skin and directing the flow of words and motion. I don't like waking up to that, nor is it a comforting feeling to wonder if dodging the bullet of some sort of unforeseen excess has been mere luck & chance. It does no favors to one's psyche to deal with this as an afterthought.

I'm not much of a drinker, never have been, and I miss having the opportunity to pass the time in the company of others without a nagging need to pop, hiss and jug. On my part or theirs. Generally I can go for years without a drop, but that also means having next to no social life whatsoever. This is Finland after all. As I've said before I do still feel like a tourist in the realm of normalcy - the ebb and flow of social interaction included - but that also means there are a lot of traps this tourist still wants to get caught in.

I think about crap like this way too much, I know. That's probably a major player in this particular game.

Still, it's wonderful to see the populus transform come summer. Unless you live in Finland, you could never even begin to imagine how much this land of sullen shut-ins and sit-next-to-me-on-the-bus-and-I'll-eat-your-fucking-children mentality changes as summer sets in, like someone flicked a switch. No, really. It's like dropping a dime in a jukebox. As if the whole country is bipolar or schizophrenic. For nine months of the year people act pretty much as the generic cookie cutter stereotype Finns you might've seen or heard about. For the three month spread in between, however, we are the loud, energetic, joyful band of buffoons you normally might glance upon at hockey games. I have a hard time imagining another nation who'd endure such a twist & shake collective personality.