Wondrous Apparitions, Provided by Magicians.

Despite the fact that I hauled my sorry arse into bed about 10 p.m. last night, the fabled 7-8 hours of solid sleep still eluded me. This is becoming a trend. It's always something. I wake up because I'm thirsty. I wake up because I have to pee. I wake up because the kids in the next room are fucking. I wake up becaue the kids in the next room are fighting. I wake up because I have nightmares. I wake up because the person in the bed with me rolls over. I wake up because there's a cricket singing Right Next To My Fucking Head. I wake up for no discernible reason at all.

At least, though, I did get rid of the cricket. It's now happily singing under J's bed instead of mine. And, since J and M were yelling about who was bored and whose fault that was at 1-2 a.m. last night (and woke me up, duh), I can't say I mind that the cricket has taken up residence with them all that much.

When I did get to sleep, I had a dream that I had left my job to teach in a pagan school. (They offered to pay me $10 an hour, since I was part of the coven.) I was with the littlest ones (the age group was probably 5-6, they were called The Spiders). I was taking over for triadruid, who had been the Spiders' substitute teacher. I was given a couple of textbooks for my curriculum: one was like the Circle Round songbook or some similarly brightly-colored large-format text. The other had the same picture on the cover as my copy of Pete Carroll's Liber Null and Psychonaut, but the title was "The Darkening of Feminism". I was wondering exactly what it was that I was supposed to teach The Spiders about feminism, or darkening, and there was nobody there to tell me. Ah well.

Feeling extraordinarily well today, despite (or because of) complete inability to sleep for more than an hour at a time last night. I feel that I owe these periods of insomnia to Eris, in some way, if only because whenever they happen, I manage to wake up at 5:23 a.m. Every time. I also wake up (obviously) at other times during the night, but always, always 5:23.

In other news, there was a story this morning on NPR about the self-publishing industry, which would have been of great interest, if it had said anything other than "A lot of people are self-publishing these days, and people in the traditional publishing industry sneer at that", which I already knew. Still, there were some prominent self-publishing names and websites being thrown about that might be worth the attention of Nine Fires. Or would be if Nine Fires were thinking of going the self-publishing route as part of the plan. I no longer know what the plan is, which is probably my own fault.

This was in the post I lost yesterday, and it probably sounded better then than it does now - I'm going to say that, anyway.

Following up on the whole permit/insurance thing, we managed to convince the City of Kansas City, MO, that we would not be parading with any vehicles, carts, horses, marching bands, or other such things. They said, in that case we were a processional, and not a parade, and we didn't need a permit, provided that we would promise to remain on the sidewalk, not deny other people use of the sidewalk, and obey traffic safety laws. We thought this was a good deal, and resolved to use the $30 we had put against the payment of parade permits to a better cause, possibly involving alcohol or pastry.

It's good to know that the City still considers the sidewalks a good venue for peaceable assembly and free expression. I understand that there are some cities who are not so much into letting people walk down the sidewalks en masse anymore.

In other news, I actually got six hours of sleep last night without waking up. Whoo. Go sleeping. As a result, I'm feeling much better today, and am probably not dangerous to myself or others. Or at least, not as dangerous as yesterday.

Like a lot of people, I'm finding it hard to get a good night's sleep lately. I sleep fully six or seven hours a night, but I wake up every 45 minutes or so. It's like the way that flight attendants go on strike - never more than ten minutes at a time, but the ten particular minutes that will screw up the entire flight schedule.

I wonder if productivity drops during wartime due to anxiety and insomnia issues.

Apparently, Representative John Conyers (D-MI), the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee is collecting data on the possibility of bringing articles of impeachment against the President. (Or so I hear, anyway. I haven't seen it on the wires yet, so it may be a hoax.) You can email Mr. Conyers at john.conyers@mail.house.gov with your $.02.

Mr. Conyers is apparently not the first person to consider impeaching the Shrub - back in January, CounterPunch ran a draft resolution for impeachment, containing a pretty hefty list of abuses of power and assaults on the US Constitution.

I think we should bring impeachment proceedings against every president - just keep them a little more on their toes about the nature of the position.