can't sleep

so i drank a couple of mountain dews earlier today (bad idea). now i can't sleep. i'm trying to kill time jumping from one website to another, writing random crap, and being an all around e-hooligan... the kids are asleep, lynn is asleep... the only sound (well, it's a pretty big sound) is the rain pouring, streaming outside... a friend of mine agreed with me recently that the sound of night rain when you are in bed is one of the most beautiful (i don't think that was the word, maybe "coolest"; "beautiful" sounds gay, especially with guys) sounds there is. even, or particularly, when the storm is really powerful... i suppose it has something to do with contrasts. you don't appreciate how warm and cozy you are until you can actually hear the alternative...

sometimes i feel like i am dying inside. sometimes i feel like i wouldn't mind dying. not that i am sad or anything. far from it. i am so happy to have lived my life, my children are wonderful, my wife is wonderful. it's just... it's hard to describe... sometimes i feel like i've used up all my luck. does that make sense? that there's a truck or a cancer gene with my name on it. it's been held in check all these years, the truck got caught in traffic, the cancer gene somehow was suppressed (probably with overdoses of caffeine). but i sense, i imagine, it is coming.

i try to live my life as though every day were my last (yeah, yeah, i wrote that stupid entry a while ago; reversal of sayings and all that)... that's not to say that i don't waste time, because i do. A LOT OF IT. like right now. but what is wasting time, exactly? i try to be responsible, but to be honest, there are times when i just have to respect my limitations. a part of me likes to get addicted to things, likes to become mindless. and, so long as it's not overly terrible, i just let it do its thing. why not? they say in zen that the best way to control a cow is to allow it to graze free in the pasture. no fences. when you feel something, when you feel nothing, you just let yourself drift and be. that's the theory, anyway. so far it's working. or not.

...

i remember a couple things about when i was a kid. i remember that, no matter where i went, cats always drew to me like a magnet. i mean, they really drew to me. like they would purr and rub themselves against my legs... kinda weird.

i also remember that, if i lay on my back with my belly towards the sky, if i even turned over towards the sky, i would feel this strange disorienting sensation as though i were being pulled upwards, almost like i was going to fall into the empty bowl above...

...

it's frustrating, but i'm becoming a devout structuralist. if only i could have been reincarnated as a rolfer, i wouldn't feel this - religious pain. wouldn't feel so sacrilegious, like i'm committing blasphemy. i am an acupuncturist. energy and all that... but jeez, i'm so much more effective at analyzing problems based on structure and attempting to lengthen myofascial lines...

i've felt this frustration before... there are so many times when i want to help people, when i KNOW i could help people... but i am bound by context. in this context, i am a teacher of a specific subject; in that context, i do acupuncture (not spiritual psychological bs). it's just not proper for me to do certain things for certain people at certain times. it's a matter of- boundaries, respect.

if i didn't have a family, if i didn't have any ties to anyone, and if i weren't so damned self-reserved, sometimes i think i actually could be like kwai chang and bleed myself dry to the world. sometimes i believe i have no self-respect, no sense of self-worth... (SOMETIMES???) i only develop myself like a tool must be sharpened, so that it plays some role, so that it makes a difference. i want that, to make a difference. at times, i need that. i don't care about tomorrow, so long as i do something good today. make sense?

...

that dying-inside feeling, sometimes i think it results because something goes numb within. or the "inspiration" runs dry. i know i can run on empty for miles. i am doing it right now, with this stupid blog entry. but that's the point. that's what it feels like lately. i am grasping at straws, i am listening to music, listening to the news, watching the o-limp-(d)ics, going on facebook, blah blah blah, etc. and it is all going in, but nothing is coming out. something in me is just "unimpressed." again, it's not like i'm unhappy... it's just- there's nothing in me that has anything in particular to say. nothing formed... an empty constipated feeling. straining and straining but nothing comes, because nothing is in me.

... and i don't mean it to sound like i'm apathetic, or that i don't appreciate my life. i am again so happy to have kids, to be with my wife... but...

but.

oh well, chock it up to just another mid-life crisis. i have one roughly once a year, if not more.

or maybe it's just caffeine overdose, or boredom-induced ruminations.

... please ignore this ramble, and get some sleep. as i will try to!