When Ideas Come

Thursday morning around 3, a group of men decided to play some loud dance music as they walked past our house, talking and laughing loudly.  I was in that groggy place where I couldn't quite put together the steps needed to throw on a robe and go remind them that some people were sleeping.  I can only assume they are returning students in town early for some reason.  I'd made an effort to go to bed and sleep early, so their timing wasn't so great as they woke me at the five hour mark, which is when I can wake up and then feel like I've had enough sleep, but not really.

In the past I think I would have stared at the ceiling, angrily trying to fall asleep. But I after reading about folks in earlier century who supposedly slept in two parts during the night, I told myself to try to think about characters in a short story I'm trying to write and that it was OK to stay in bed thinking.  This pretty much worked in that I fell back into a kind of half-sleep... but I didn't wake up with any character or setting or plot insights.  

[Oh wax!  That's what the story characters need! It's resistant to sulfuric acid!   (I just realized an important setting detail here in the parking lot)]

Working Out;  Went in Thursday afternoon (a little delayed).  180 cal in 20 minutes on the elliptical.  50 cal in 10 on the rowing machine.  3/10 dips and 2/10 chins on the assist machine.  3/12 50 lbs on the pec fly.  3/12 80 lbs on the lat pulldown.  3/13 curlups on the Power Station.  And then I had to leave...