Restless again last night—again, made it to about 9:15; read about six or eight pages—this book is not what I hoped it would be, and turned out the lights at about 9:35. Slept ok from about then to about 11:30—then from about then to about 3:00, then woke up around 4:00, lay around until 5:45, and got up. Had my alarm set for 6:30—so I planned to get up earlier, just not this early. Anxious as all get out last night, forced to have sex, twice, when I didn’t really want to; I just wanted to relax. So, anyhow, I relied on my imagination—didn’t want to turn myself on anymore than I already was unless, for whatever reasons, I tried to get off and couldn’t, but, thankfully, I could, so that was one good thing. But, again, I don’t want to be having sex every day—I want to relax into it more, and let my subconscious do its thing. It’s 7:12 a.m. now, so, will I have four cups of coffee? I’ve had one—but maybe I don’t want to feel strung out, and should switch to tea—and get off all caffeine by 11:30 or 12:00 instead of 1:00. Maybe I’d be less restless that way. But, anyhow, I’m considering quitting at 3:00 today, since I’m about two hours ahead of schedule, and watching more than one show after dinner is beginning to look a little more difficult than I had hoped—given the success, about half the time, that I did have. Naturally, of course, half the time isn’t going to cut it—I need a routine I can follow every night.
Tried drinking a cup of chamomile and passionflower tea after dinner, while watching Blue Bloods,but I’m so used to drinking tea while working, now, that I think it only worked for like the fifteen minus I was sipping on it—and, even then, it seemed to wind me up a little in the long run. So it looks like my best option right now is to watch about three hours of TV before dinner, then about an hour or so of TV after dinner, then go to bed before ten, and get up earlier. Maybe having the food in my stomach will help a little with sleep—when I used to eat desert it seemed to help—and, when I was sleeping, well, on risperidone, I was lights out around 8:30 or 9:00 anyhow—and eating dinner closer to 7:00, so, I figure, I should go back a little to what was working, then. That is, a little more food in my stomach when I go to sleep, and getting up around 6:00 or 6:30—as a habit. So no staying in bed, anymore, until 8:00, even if I can.
Once I’m on a schedule again, a schedule I can actually manage, the anxiety, I expect, will be redirected, I won’t be so strung out, like a hooker coming off of coke, and forced to have sex every single day, sometimes more than once a day, and I’ll be much happier. I consider, too, that the soda pop has less effect when you have food in your stomach—so I’m really considering this idea of quitting around three and going to bed around 8:30 or 9:00 as opposed to 10:00. So getting up around 6:00. That would be nine hours of sleep—and, I don’t know, maybe I don’t need nine hours anymore, so if I wake up at 5:00, that’s eight hours, and I can meditate and pray as I would in a bath from 5:00 to 6:00. Incidentally, I didn’t go and get my clock this morning, and I’m not using it right now, as the constant ticking felt like it was getting a little abusive, and interfering with my ability to relax, at least today, that’s the case. I know when I start to drift while listening to my clock, a lot of the time, anyhow, the ticking shocks me a little, jars me a little—it won’t let me slip away, and I don’t like that. But don’t get me wrong, I still like the structure that listening to my clock provides—just maybe not so often, not so much.
Anyhow, I counted in Craig’s voice this morning but I didn’t say a prayer. Perhaps I should say a short prayer out of habit, anyhow, but, at this time, I only pray if I have something of interest to say—in other words, if I’m just going to repeat the exact same thing as I did yesterday, then I don’t always like to pray. I’ve pretty much given up on reciting Chevy Chase, too, as I find it really boring, now, to the extent that I’m not even motivated to recite it every so often so I don’t forget it. I don’t know if I’ll get back to reciting lines or not, but, I think, if I do, I’ll switch over to Tam Lin—although I don’t expect to be reciting anything indefinitely, anymore—it’s just too boring. Yesterday, if I’m remembering correctly, I actually prayed in Craig’s voice—which, I don’t know if I should have; I wanted to employ Craig’s voice, but the idea of praying to Shakespeare, as opposed to an exclusive heavenly father, or somehow trying to combine the two, seems a little off, or, perhaps, something I would do every now and then, but not something I would do every time. So this morning, over breakfast, in order to employ Craig’s voice, I counted in his voice as opposed to my voice. A long time ago, I counted, throughout the day, in a day to day voice rotation—I thought, maybe I will do more of that now. I still thought my voice should play a role in a way that it didn’t, in the past, when I was sticking to the rotation, but incorporating a rotation, again, at least for part of the day, seemed like it might be a good idea.
So it was 8:00 a.m. and I was finishing my third cup of coffee and feeling some degree of anxiety, anxiety I am trying to avoid—so I thought, maybe I’ll go ahead and switch to tea, which is about half as much caffeine as the coffee, even thought it’s still before 9:00, and avoid that fourth cup of coffee that I was considering. So, technically, I’m only at 180 mg of caffeine right now, and, as long as I stay under 400 mg—I think I’m averaging, now, about 340 mg—that’s three cups of coffee, three bags of Earl Grey, and one Dr. Pepper—and I quit a little earlier, say at 11:00 or 12:00 instead of 1:00, I should find myself in a slightly better place when I eat lunch and paint—around 12:00 or 1:00. Then I’ll switch to chamomile passionflower tea—a depressant, to counteract the caffeine, until about 3:00—and then the soda, on a mostly empty stomach, should hold me over until dinner. I have to admit, I have high hopes for this alteration to my routine—but it remained to be seen whether or not I could still, as I used to do, comfortably watch three and a half hours of TV nonstop. But I’d paid, yesterday, to get commercials removed from my Amazon streaming channel, which was going to help a lot, so, I just need to recover the old me, the me that managed to watch a lot of TV and still be okay when, as the case may be, I can’t do anything else but watch TV, or, in this case, I also don’t want to do anything else but watch TV.
Going the extra mile, Bill said. Squeeze out every last drop, Ursula said. Didn’t I believe, deep down, that I could find a routine that would work for me, that would leave me as satisfied with myself as I was, as a young man, when I was drinking and smoking, as calm as I was when I was taking the Lexapro and 6 mg of risperidone, and with the confidence that comes with the physical ability to have sex, and the attraction that one does, and should feel, for those we might imagine to be our partners? With the happiness and confidence that comes from not stopping up the toilet anymore, not being constipated anymore, being able to eat a snack for lunch and maintain my weight—and not grinding my teeth so much? Yes, I did believe that—and while, as I documented, yesterday, I must continue to tolerate some degree of perpetual motion, and becoming, and even anxiety, I felt that I was on the cusp of something great—a routine that, eventually, would lead to an ultimate sense of satisfaction and positive feelings about myself, both as a person and as an artist, a man that was born a little anxious, but that, along with that, was bound to do great things.