This post isn't particularly useful, "if you don't want to waste your time") can skip it.

Sometimes my mind fibrillates. This has roughly the same effect on my thought processes as ventricular fibrillation does on your circulatory system, except with less intensity and without the "sudden death within minutes" bit. It's more like a temporary inability to do anything useful because the mind flits between too many things at once and can't stop (but at the same time is conscious of and frustrated by this flailing. Alas, they do not sell brain-AEDs.

This one was very mild, but it bubbled close enough to the surface that I figured a venting might not be bad. I went wandering and blasted my ears out walking by a concert in the park nearby, turned cartwheels and rolls in the field until my arms got tired and started collapsing underneath me, and lay back in the grass and blew away the bugs that tried to land on my face. Did some other stuff too. And I went for a "cussing run," which is where I race along saying all the stupid self-doubting insults rummaging around in my head to get them out of my system*. Only this time I was out of shape so it was more "run, curse, gasp, walk. Run, curse, gasp, walk. Curse walking. Curse while walking. Repeat."

*for a while.

Managed to get that wordless fibrillation under control enough to walk into the house fairly normal two hours later and attack some potato salad, then sort of languidly poke at the piano (though not with any sense of seriousness or musicality), read some math and electronics books and IEEE transactions on education papers, then yammer a lot in writing (case in point: this). Really, I'm just waiting for everyone else in the house to go to sleep so I can seep out a little. Just have to do it before my mom leaves for eucharistic adoration in the wee hours of the morning so I don't catch an earful.

I'm always fascinated at how I can write about things here that I have a hard time talking to people about face to face. Having a mediating artifact buffer gives me the ability to be more honest and forthright and raw because I can vent* without feeling overly guilty about taking up someone else's time (since you can all just skip this post and come back when there's more usefulness in the feed.) See? Blathering uselessly here means I don't have to do it as much in real life.

*inasmuch as this is venting. It's still very controlled. Higher intensities involve the inability to cease locomotion. I have been lucky enough to have a series of roommates who are deep sleepers, because I thrash when I'm restless. Sometimes, if I'm really restless, I completely rearrange my room... which only works if I have a single. (EricVW, circa 3am: "Wait... wasn't your bed on that... other... wall? And lofted?" Me: "Yeah, I couldn't sleep and I had a screwdriver.")

I'm also grinning because I know that there's a good chance that at least one or two people reading this post will be sitting across a table from me as they read it, and I'm amused at the differences between the Mel they're reading from now and the one runnng around (hopefully doing Useful Things) several feet away. (Hi.) I much prefer the other, occasionally-competent, far-less-venty Mel other people sometimes see me as, but Venty Ranty Ineffective Mel sometimes needs to run around as a counterpoint. Part of why I love being up in the middle of the night is that the night is my time, but I'm not missing anything.

I'm tired, but not exhausted enough to sleep. I'd hoped running around for two hours would drain enough energy out of me to knock me out, but that's not the case. I'll try that anyway. Thrash around for a while. Pass out. Hopefully wake up and do Productive Things. Stuff.

Or maybe I'll read more Horowitz and Hill. Or another article from the journal in front of me. Or find Greg's letter in the swamp that the table has turned into. Feh. Will post this. Then turn off computer. Then decide. Eventually sleep.